this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Instead of offsets, companies should be pursuing direct carbon sequestration like with https://climeworks.com/
No estimates, no accounting magic. Just a direct measure of physical, measurable tons of carbon directly removed from the atmosphere.
Except carbon sequestration is not ever going to work and it's always going to be more expensive than having just burned that fuel in the first place.
Maybe you'll get an advantage if it's nearly free to do and you use exclusively solar power in areas with excesses of it.
But on average? Sequestration is not an answer. The carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is just too rare to effectively pull out, and it's never going to be capable of even reaching fractions of what we're emitting right now.
We have one answer to this problem and one answer only.
Stop. Using. Fossil. Fuels.
Tax carbon.
Start getting ready to do geoengineering, because we are going to need it.
People like to bitch and say that we shouldn't be changing the environment, but guess what, we're changing the environment if we like it or not, it's only a question of it it's in our interests or if it's an uncontrolled self-destructive form.
Carbon taxes are getting the ball rolling which is the main point. We're just seeing short term effects at the moment, its literally only been 4 years, so you can't really yet say it didn't work because it takes place on a larger time scale than just a couple years. Economically the policy makes a lot of sense.
It goes like this: Corporations have a fiduciary duty to their share holders, they legally have to make profit for the people who hold ownership shares. If something eats into their profit, they might raise prices in the short term, but in the long term, companies which innovate and can do similar processes without releasing as much carbon will be taxed less, and they will be able to offer services for lower than their competitors.
People see the lower prices and will try to go for the more cost effective service, And so the competitors selling for lower prices take market demand away from companies who refuse to innovate, leading to less profits for them, forcing the company charging higher prices, to adopt the new cost-effective method or go out of business.
High-prices are the short-term effects of the market-paradigm. Innovation really only comes if there is a need. Why would a company try expensive new 'non-polluting' methods, if the methods that pollutes will make them more money? You just can't expect companies to make investments to change if they have no financial reason too. However if the older carbon producing methods become more expensive (like through a carbon tax) then companies are more likely to invest in the newer processes, often driving the newer way to become cheaper due to economy of scales effects.
Also btw regular people at least get money back through tax credits to help offset costs. Sure things are more expensive atm, but long term if our current economic system is to do what its 'advertised' to do, then we should allow the policy time. Entire supplychain changes don't just happen in 4 years.
So yea maybe Carbon Tax isnt enough to affect quick change, maybe we need more serious policies aswell, but it's a direction and a start. We can't really claim yet it hasn't worked.
A carbon tax is designed to be placed on the sources of oil and then ramped up over time. If you haven't felt the carbon tax it's because the tax isn't high enough yet.
The only problem with the carbon tax is that it's going to be difficult to get people to support it. Otherwise it's the single most effective way to actually produce change across the whole economy.
Yes. Ideally it would result in forms of recreation and travel that emit less.
What the hell are you even talking about? I literally lived in rural BC where lots of people would go to enjoy outdoor recreation. I did just fine with a non-Tesla EV, and I was not the only one. The chargers in town got lots of use.
Yes. These decisions are exactly what a carbon tax is designed to create. The people who really want to live a recreational non-urban lifestyle that is quite expensive in terms of carbon emissions are going to have to pay more to do it because that reflects the true cost of that lifestyle.
Ideally That extra expense encourages innovation in that space so that the area can become less carbon intense. Perhaps local authorities are encouraged to build trains or electric cars or some other system that lets you live your life without emitting carbon in those areas.
There's plenty of EVs with 300+ miles of range now. Shouldn't be an issue.
The carbon tax is supposed to (partially) go towards credits for EVs
I don't know what you're talking about, it's a thing that is currently being done. Not some future hypothetical tech.
But yes it is too expensive for now. Costs are coming down hopefully that continues to be the case.
And yes, the best, cheapest, most efficient way to reduce ghg is to eliminate fossil fuels.
It's hilariously expensive and it's expensive because physics. We measure carbon in the atmosphere in parts per million. The entire surface area of the planet is already littered with Caron absorbers and they don't make a dent.
It's never happening
It's just a problem of energy. Which is an entirely solvable problem, from a physics standpoint.
Well sure, the entire global warming crisis is a matter of energy. Almost every problem we have today is a matter of energy.
The problem is, at any given point in time a more productive use of energy then carbon sequestration is going to exist, because it is incredibly difficult to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and it would require a project of herculan scales to make a difference in the global climate.
Imagine it's 10 times as hard to carbon out of the atmosphere as it is to put in.
It has taken the entire world economy decades to get to the point that global warming is moving back a couple of degrees.
To offset that with sequestration you're going to need something the size of the entire global economy, and you're going to need to create that while the only possible input is through government programs and sequestration creates next to zero benefit in terms of profit for the people doing it.
It's going to be hilariously difficult, nearly impossible, and you can't wave that away with "it's an energy problem".
It's only ever going to make sense inside of coal smokestacks.
It's not a physics problem, is all I said
The need for a large amount of energy is a physics problem. You can't undo it through any amount of innovation.
It's a money problem.
The problem with direct air capture is that it only is good if it exclusively uses renewables, and right now it would be much better to instead use that energy to replace fossil fuels. Only excess renewable energy should be used for it, maybe in places like Scotland that have too much wind power. Capture directly from the source is also better as the concentration of carbon is much higher in the output from a smokestack, and as such has more impact and is more energy efficient too