this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Direct air capture (cited for high energy requirements) is only one of dozens of CDR approaches. For example CDR approaches include a variety of biomass conversion paths. While it may be true that those processes require high energy, the plants obtain it all from the sun. In natural systems of the carbon cycle, the change of carbon from one form to another is incidental to the natural energy transformations that would naturally occur - so if we can find ways to shift the balances of some natural systems, maybe we can cause a lot more carbon to move from air to the crust in various ways. It is at least an interesting puzzle.
I hope we do not use the machinations of the fossil fuel industry to navigate the course. We would not abandon lung cancer research because tobacco companies might use the progress to sell more cigarettes.
Yes BECCS is a thing on paper. There's even one contract that Microsoft has signed for a small amount of it. It's going to be limited in scale though: the quantity of biofuels that can be sustainably produced is limited.
You need to get fossil fuel use to near zero for these to do what we need.
DAC and BECCS are just two of many options. A lot of CDR choices will be based on location - what resources are available for moving CO2 from air to concentrated forms, and what means are available for keeping it in that form a long time. Silicate rock, crushed to dust, can "weather" to carbonate minerals relatively fast. There are a whole range of biomass conversion options - depending on what ecosystems are in a place, or can be established with local benefit. And for sequestering, there are also various ways to go.
And absolutely all of the CDR in the world will be wasted if we keep burning fossil fuels. But there are some fossil fuel uses that will be very difficult to eliminate, and there is all that legacy CO2 already in circulation - we have to do both; we have to achieve negative CO2.