
Carbon removal credits
Sounds like another version of Carbon credits.
Direct air capture (DAC) is promising, but then so is the promise of fusion, they need to start delivering something rather just breaking promises.
Google intends to purchase carbon removal credits from a direct air capture provider to help offset its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, although the initiative isn't expected to kick off until the next decade. The Mountain View megacorp says it is following this approach with its chosen provider, Holocene, due to cost. While …
There are billions-per-year in bungs available, so of course they are going to at least pretend they are doing something, to collect said bungs..
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/12/fossil-fuel-companies-environment-greenwashing
But no, DAC is not "promising", it's a waste of time, money, and energy.
Great if you're a greenwashing startup who can collect free money based on nothing more than marketing bilge and a few screenshots from "Train Simulator" though! (https://www.co2rail.com/)
Putting it in a smokestack to catch the CO2 being emitted by a natural gas plant, sure. Grabbing it out of the low concentrations (.04%) from the air, stupid. Surely planting types of plants/trees that grow quickly then burying them somewhere they won't decay when mature would far more efficient than direct air capture ever could be.
Also what's the betting on the energy requirements of the CO₂ extraction causes more CO₂ emissions than they soak up. And don't give me crap about using renewables, it would be more efficient just to put power this would use straight on the grid and not bother with the stupid greenwashing.
Burying organic matter is not a very good move, it will decay and emit worse gases, better to use wood where suitable for construction, instead of more polluting materials, where it can stay locked up for decades.
Hmmm, depends under what assumptions and what timescale.
Right now? Not the way to go - we don't have the energy to power it without displacing other, more efficient, emissions-lessening usage.
But consider that CO2 sticks around for millennia. If we reach zero emissions at some point in the future, we are still stuck with whatever's already in the air, driving on things like icemelts or permafrost thawing. At the rate we're going, what's going to be the ppm by then?
At that point, it will be most useful to be able to clean the stuff up.
The key thing is to keep as many options open as possible, while avoiding overcommitting at scale before the tech is shown to work: we can't afford to chase too many other corn-ethanol boondoggle$. Or indeed pumping too much methane into the air from our new gas-fired generators while patting ourselves on the back about how much cleaner they are than coal.
Now, as to the worthiness of Google's motivations...
Because that's the only greenhouse gas found at ground level in any quantity (if you consider .04% "quantity")
Stuff like methane may be worse (though shorter lived) but its concentrations are far far lower and it quickly rises and won't remain at ground level for long. To capture it you have to capture it when it is being emitted, like oil/gas wells. Even flaring it is better than letting it escape. But emissions like melting permafrost or undersea eruptions of frozen methane are a bigger source and can't be captured because the sources are so diverse and unpredictable.
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