this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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The article goes on to say that this plant isn't really intended to have any serious climate impact itself, it's more a small scale testbed to see how the technology works out in real world conditions and to try to improve and develop it further. So while it might be the world's largest plant of the type currently, that's only because nobody has actually built one on a useful scale yet.
Yep. For CDR to make a meaningful difference we need to both scale it up, and get down to near zero fossil fuel use
indeed. this tech is best thought of as being in the R&D stage. we're gonna need enough clean energy to power ourselves and it too before it really makes a difference. we can throw excess renewables at it now, though.
Better 3 seconds than 0. We need everything we can to fight climate change if we are even going to have a chance of mitigating the damage.
Net negative likely. How much CO2 was emitted to create this plant?
Per the article, building the plant generated about 15% of the CO2 it will remove. Operating it and downtime consume another 20% or so. It's still a net benefit...but a tiny one.
The messaging that needs to happen is this: we need to reduce emissions drastically on a scale never before seen AND we need to fund research on extracting as much CO2 from the air as possible or we are looking at this being the worst mass extinction in Earth's 4.5 billion year history and that includes the great dying. It is not enough to focus on Carbon capture OR CO2 emissions reduction. We need both and we need them now.