this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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It’s always seemed nonsensical to me. Now I studied the computer stuff, not physics but… it seems like you’d need a gigafuckton (SI unit right there) of energy to get the CO2 levels down in an appreciable way when the levels were talking about here are in the hundreds of parts per million.. just seems like it’d be incredibly inefficient at best
It's even simpler to see how stupid it is. It costs more energy to capture the carbon and store it than is gained by burning it in the first place. It's literally more energy efficient to just not burn it at all.
If it weren't for the fact, that we put so much in the atmosphere already that it effects the climate, sure, it absolutely is. But since we're already way past that point of no return, there is no alternative in doing carbon capture with renewables in areas where no one would use the available energy anyway.
It's expensive as fuck, but countless studies show, even if we just stop carbon emissions all together, it wouldn't change much about the upcoming costs climate change brings, which will be absolutely biblical. Starting with more extreme weather and resulting insurance claims, over migration issues, food shortages and to a general collaps of the markets.
Putting up carbon capture technology is more important than ever, not because we can just keep in going but because we have to go back and get that stuff out the air below 300 ppm.
If not burning it were an option, we'd be doing that. But we aren't, so it isn't.
So we need to do something with the stuff in the air..
Not burning it is an option though.
..it's just cheaper not to. If you ignore the externalities for it. Which we do.
Yeah but when running carbon capture produces more CO2 than it can remove it is no point, its like running an air condition without exhausting the hot air.
I'm with you. Also, it seems like it would be much more efficient to do carbon capture at the source, where the fuel is being used, like a power plant, where the concentrations are relatively high, compared to atmospheric capture where CO2 is less than 0.1%.
Yeah. Carbon capture of flue gas would be much more efficient.. but we're also not really doing that so..
We would need clean energy production to cover demand and then have the capacity to produce excess energy for it to ever be anything to consider at all, we are nowhere close to that.
We'll actually HAVE to do it at one point but yeah, it will take a good 30-50% of the world's energy budget for decades to centuries to do so.
However, until we're on 100% nuclear / renewable, you're just generating 100 carbon for every 30 you capture. That's where the stupidity lies. Even if you use renewable energy to power your capture plant, it still be more efficient to just route that energy directly into the grid where it would then avoid someone else having to generate the carbon to use the energy.
Wonder what my physics teacher will say in the next exam when I calculate with it. What's the abreviation?
Hmmm… Gfucks I suppose. Gotta capitalise the G!
Problem is not energy even, it's that they are not transforming CO2, meaning that is still there, simply temporarily stored. It is not a solution. It can be part of a solution. But currently there are better and cheaper overall solutions