Africa’s first carbon-removal plant
Africa’s first carbon-removal plant
A joint venture between Swiss company Climeworks and Kenya-based Great Carbon Valley has been billed as a springboard for creating a new, green economy in Africa.
The article puts it up as a question about whether this practice is worthwhile since the only logical solution to climate change is to de-carbonize. Personally I think that question isn't very nuanced, certainly de-carbonizing 100'a of tons from the atmosphere from just this one plant is a small net positive. Can't let it be an excuse to keep rolling coal in your F750'a but I'm still in favor of sucking as much carbon out of the air as we can.
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Yes, it is not feasible; it costs more to extract it from the air than the benefit obtained from burning it, and then it still needs to be stored for at least a few hundred years in solid or gas form. Otherwise, it goes right back into the atmosphere and the effect will be null. We looked at a similar concept at my university, and the professor said, I quote, "Whoever comes up with these bullshit solutions does not really understand how climate change or physics works; it is not a solution to our problem." We also had a project like this in my city where they captured it just to sell it to a greenhouse, which releases it back into the atmosphere, so the concentration stays the same and, de facto, they have removed zero carbon from the air because it basically goes right back into the atmosphere. Actual solutions exist, but they are expensive and extensive; people will start implementing them in, let's say, 70-120 years from now, right around when we start feeling the full effects of rapid human-induced climate change.
Then why try?
I hate excuses like this it doesn't work right now so then why bother. The right brothers bothered to try even though their first plane only could go a short distance and now they can do laps around the world. Look at electric cars just over decade ago they had short range and long charging times. Now you can get 100 miles in 15min or so with rapid chargers. The road to the future is paved with failure we had make terrible cars, awful lightbulbs, shitty refrigerators, crappy computers and endless failed dead end inventions to get where we are now. And we know we have to do some thing about the climate. So we better start throwing all sorts of shit on the wall to see what sticks. Becuse we are gonna find a lot of ways not to do it before we find the right way.
Then why try?
The problem here is that 'trying' means funneling money to for-profit companies that aren't actually going to solve the issue.
It's very important that people like you believe their bullshit without a second thought because it makes them more money with less effort.