[_Nat_]

The IPCC's reports might be a good starting-point.

["Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change"](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-g... ) appears to be the most recent specifically on mitigating climate-change.

From [this PDF's page-117](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... ):

> Net zero CO2 industrial-sector emissions are possible but challenging (high confidence). Energy efficiency will continue to be important. Reduced materials demand, material efficiency, and circular economy solutions can reduce the need for primary production. Primary production options include switching to new processes that use low-to-zero GHG energy carriers and feedstocks (e.g., electricity, hydrogen, biofuels, and carbon dioxide capture and utilisation (CCU) to provide carbon feedstocks). Carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be required to mitigate remaining CO2 emissions {11.3}. These options require substantial scaling up of electricity, hydrogen, recycling, CO2, and other infrastructure, as well as phase-out or conversion of existing industrial plants. While improvements in the GHG intensities of major basic materials have nearly stagnated over the last 30 years, analysis of historical technology shifts and newly available technologies indicate these intensities can be significantly reduced by mid-century. {11.2, 11.3, 11.4}

[uoaei]

Cool thanks!

From the relevant section, 11.3.5:

> Biofuel use may also be critical for producing negative emissions when combined with carbon capture and storage (i.e., bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – BECCS). Most production routes for biofuels, biochemicals and biogas generate large side streams of concentrated CO2 which is easily captured, and which could become a source of negative emissions (Sanchez et al. 2018) (Section 11.3.6).

When I hear "carbon capture" I think "direct air capture (DAC)" since that's kind of a novel concept, while point-source carbon capture seems to be more of an extension of circular-economy-style reasoning. I am skeptical of the former (i.e. massive fans with catalysts and filters) being useful to any significant degree because of the energy requirements. I think DAC advocates hide under the catch-all phrase "carbon capture" to avoid scrutiny.

DAC seems worthless compared to just growing more and more effective plants to do a similar job. But point-source capture of concentrated CO2 seems like an obvious step in the right direction. Even better if it can help to replace traditional fossil fuels in legacy ICE vehicles.

So in the context of TFA it seems that the pipeline was at least not a bad idea, though we haven't seen an audit on when all that construction and operation would be carbon-neutral after everything's said and done. That timeline could be longer than the service life of the pipeline which would make it worse than pointless.