cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/3853502
To be clear: carbon capture like this is a tiny and expensive part of what needs doing over the next few years
It's getting a lot of support and publicity in large part because it's backed by the oil industry, which is trying to create social permission for continued extraction and burning on a much larger scale than the removal.
How much carbon is generated by the equipment pulling carbon from the air?
They're kind of quiet about that, though it's probably about 30% to 50% of what they're removing.
Did you mean to say 30-50x of what they're removing?
No. It's nowhere near that bad; just a lot cheaper and easier to not burn fossil fuels in the first place in almost all cases.
If renewable energy is used to power the kiln that regenerates the calcium carbonate back into calcium oxide powder (e.g. solar), then most of the carbon dioxide emitted by the process will be from the initial manufacture of the equipment. This may be small, especially given the simplicity of the design.