Climate Savior or Boondoggle?
Efforts to Suck Out Atmospheric Carbon Raise Alarms
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just suck all that carbon dioxide that is warming our planet out of the atmosphere and stick it underground? This notion is drawing increasing attention- from massive tax breaks in the federal climate law to big announcements from well-heeled players.
But these emerging technologies are also prompting climate activists to urge caution.
Carbon management technologies aim to turn emissions negative through carbon dioxide removal (CDR). They include natural methods such as coastal ecosystem restoration, reforestation, agroforestry and soil carbon sequestration through methods including biochar.
But it’s the industrial players, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC), that are drawing the big bucks. Many believe they may prove to be an expensive and potentially dangerous boondoggle, at least in the near term.
Rather, efforts should be focused on ramping up solar, wind, energy storage, improving electric grids, driving electric cars and energy conservation. Those would all reduce emissions more at much less cost, climate activists believe.
Longtime Colorado climate expert Morey Wolfson reminds audiences that carbon capture would cost at least $800 billion to remove just 1 part per million of CO2 from the atmosphere. He multiplies 1 ppm of CO2, which weighs 8 billion tons, by $100/ton - the optimistic DOE 2032 "EarthShot'' cost reduction goal.
That $800 billion would only drop atmospheric levels from the current 424 ppm to 423 ppm- and the atmospheric CO2 levels have been growing at 3 ppm per year. That same $800 billion would pay for enough solar technology deployment to equal 66% of the total installed US electric generation capacity. If all that solar replaced fossil generation, it would cut 1 billion tons of CO2 per year, Wolfson says. By contrast, the largest DAC machine on the planet is removing 4,000 tons of CO2 per year.
The Colorado Coalition for a Livable Climate issued a statement expressing concern, concluding, ``DAC and CCS are decades away from wide scale implementation, and their ability to effectively limit carbon emissions is a point of concern…Moving forward with the implementation of DAC and CCS risks extending the lifespan of the fossil fuel industry - a move that puts us in grave risk of not meeting our climate targets.’’
Resources to learn more:
Natural Resources Defense Council - CCUS:
Institute for Energy Economics and
Financial Analysis - CCUS:
Food and Water Watch:
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