Africa’s first carbon-removal plant
Africa’s first carbon-removal plant
A joint venture between Swiss company Climeworks and Kenya-based Great Carbon Valley has been billed as a springboard for creating a new, green economy in Africa.
The article puts it up as a question about whether this practice is worthwhile since the only logical solution to climate change is to de-carbonize. Personally I think that question isn't very nuanced, certainly de-carbonizing 100'a of tons from the atmosphere from just this one plant is a small net positive. Can't let it be an excuse to keep rolling coal in your F750'a but I'm still in favor of sucking as much carbon out of the air as we can.
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Carbon capture has had trillions and decades and still can't reach reasonable efficiency rates. Certainly real world performance is nowhere near what it would need to be to make a contribution to the environment.
The companies investing in CCS are the companies mining fossil fuels and natural gas. They are using CCS to divert funding away from renewables and to greenwash their current mining operations. In most cases the material captured is used in further mining operations. Like a 2xdmg to the environment bonus.
This is different than the carbon sequestration that fossil fuel companies pushed so that they could get billions of government dollars. This is the same company that built the direct air capture plant in Iceland. Carbon removable from the air will be necessary to bring us back to pre industrial levels and needs to be researched. As long as it is using green energy and requires little maintenance like it is in Iceland, it is carbon negative.
To prevent exceeding the 1.5 celsius increase, we need to triple the current uptake of renewables. I can extinguish a candle and say its carbon negative, however it's not really going to help. We can look at other carbon reducing technology after the immediate requirement for renewable installations. I'm all for that, but right now, it's just taking money time and resources away from renewables when we can't afford any delay.
It's not taking anything away from renewables. The renewable investment market is blowing the fuck up.
There's investment money all over the place any sort of renewable/sustainable/green projects. There is far more investment interest than there are companies ready to deliver on any sort of product, and we absolutely will need 2nd+ gen carbon capture.
There is no way to paint this as a bad thing.
I'd agree with you if we were already producing enough renewables. Since we need to triple the current renewable market just to hit 1.5, I don't agree with resources going elsewhere until we are on track there.
There is vastly more funding going to renewables
Yep. We do need more though.
Take it from the fossil fuel subsidies.