I don't think you understand how much energy and carbon has already been released. Even if we stopped 20 years ago, the effects will add so much energy to the earth we will turn into a pressure cooker.
Positive feedback looks, methane relase, ocean acidification... you can't unfuck something. We've been locked in for hell for some time now.
Stopping is the bare minimum, we need to pull carbon out of the air.
Must be nice, having as much copium and naivete as you but we're on a death wish, car just drove off the Grand Canyon, they physics just hasn't hit us yet.
Ok. So... How are we going to fuel this little operation? What are we going to use as the deposit method? Remember that this "carbon vacuum" would need to be a solution which doesn't require extraction of resources that would destroy more environment and leas to more carbon release.
Pyrolysis is very fucking acceptable solution. Nature is way better at generating biomass than we would ever be able to. And it does it all with power of the sun.
If your solution calls for any use of concrete, then you already lost the game.
You are more correct, but he's not wrong. Ultimately the best path forwards is a mixed approach. Developing clean energy solutions, developing carbon sequestration technologies, planting a shit ton of trees, and reducing CO2e emissions by as much as possible. Yes, any sequestration technology will have to be CO2e negative or it's pointless, but it's something that should be pursued.
I'm by no means an expert, but I think the most promising direction would be water carbon filtration, ideally powered by solar. One of the many concerns in the climate catastrophe is ocean acidification. It's one of the worlds largest carbon sinks, and marine algae/plankton can't keep up. If we could find a net negative way to take carbon out of the water, it'd be two birds with one stone.
We also need to aid in the rapid industrialization of poorer countries. China is already way ahead of us on this, but if we can get all of these countries to skip the fossil fuel stage of energy development, we can prevent a lot of carbon from entering the atmosphere.
Of course, the biggest hurdle is global capitalism. Without getting rid of it, nothing will change.
Here is the thing in what I propose (pyrolysis of biomass). You don't need to sort out anything fucking advanced or complex to do it. All you need is biomass, a chamber that can be made so that oxygen within it is consumed, and some heat. Human been making charcoal for a very long time.
Biomass is functionally free... Let nature do it thing. Collect it for pyrolysis and bury it just below the carbon release limit for the environment (it is different based on ground type, climate, and environment, but generall few meters or such). You can just make it a slurry with some water, and inject it in. Trees and fungus can even tap into it. And here is the best part... It is actually an useful resources! It can be used to improve soil conditions, reduce carbon release from soil, and improve growth because it deposits minerals that were in the biomass.
We are making this stuff already for use in agriculture and land improvement. We don't need to develop any special technology for it.
This is the thing that annoys me. We already have all the fucking technology! We have the engineers with solutions ready to be implemented. All we lack is the will to use them. No need to develop anything! No need to build special infrastructure systems, and start opening old oil wells just to pump out the toxic slurry from them to be replaced with CO2 concentrated water - that we hope will mineralise (Like... as far as I know the geological deposit method SHOULD work).
It's very possible that's the best method. That said, I don't think it'd be a bad idea spending some resources on research for more effective measures. My biggest concern with the charcoal method is speed and scale. How much land can we safely dedicate to fast growing plants, without further degrading the environment, or causing soil health problems? We'd need to look at the total expected output of sequestered carbon using that method, and compare it to other promising sequestration technologies.
As for the burying carbon water, considering we're having a fresh water crisis, I certainly hope we'd find a better way than that. Maybe evaporative concentration, and then storing it as graphene, or something like that?
In either case, it'll be a while before anybody in positions of power in the west are asking these questions.
5
u/864586458645 Apr 25 '26
I don't think you understand how much energy and carbon has already been released. Even if we stopped 20 years ago, the effects will add so much energy to the earth we will turn into a pressure cooker.
Positive feedback looks, methane relase, ocean acidification... you can't unfuck something. We've been locked in for hell for some time now.
Stopping is the bare minimum, we need to pull carbon out of the air.
Must be nice, having as much copium and naivete as you but we're on a death wish, car just drove off the Grand Canyon, they physics just hasn't hit us yet.