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Pulling CO2 From the Air, a Giant Sucking Sound of Environmental Madness

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78 comments on Pulling CO2 From the Air, a Giant Sucking Sound of Environmental Madness

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Occidental Makes a Billion-Dollar Climate Moonshot

Please note that thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, Occidental Makes a Billion-Dollar Climate Moonshot—So It Can Keep Pumping Oil

About fifty miles southwest of Midland, Texas, deep in the oil-saturated Permian Basin, more than 100 workers are busy laying out roads and water lines, preparing to build an elaborate complex of fans, each as large as a tennis court.

When they start running in 2024, the fans will suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon will be funneled thousands of feet down deep wells into geological formations, where it should remain for centuries. 

Removing CO2 from the atmosphere at this scale has never been done before, and the enterprise comes with abundant commercial and scientific uncertainties. 

The plant’s fans will pull up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air a year—about as much as 111,000 American cars spew out in a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Houston-based company said it wants to build up to 135 such plants by 2035, depending on public incentives and demand for carbon credits.

Fans pull air into containers, where chemicals bind with the CO2 to separate it from the air, eventually creating pellets. The pellets are heated to release pure carbon dioxide, which is compressed to be transported through pipelines and funneled deep underground.

Airbus has prepurchased credits from Occidental covering 100,000 metric tons of carbon removal a year over four years, according to the companies. 

Fuzzy Economic of CO2 Extraction

  • The Occidental plan is possible thanks to subsidies that will cover 45 percent of the cost.
  • There are 278 million cars in the US and 1.4 billion in the world. When fully operational, Occidental’s fans will only reduce the energy of 111,000 cars.
  • Occidental hopes to make money by selling carbon tax credits to other companies that use unclean energy.
  • Powering the fans requires energy. Occidental is investigating the use of mini-nuclear reactors and using energy from natural-gas powered plants that capture their own CO2.
  • In 2019 Occidental took a stake in Carbon Engineering, a Canadian startup backed by Bill Gates, which developed the system to capture, purify and compress carbon dioxide. 
  • The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden last year, rewards companies that capture and store atmospheric CO2 with a $180 tax credit per metric ton contained permanently, up from $50. 
  • Analysts said collecting CO2 from smokestacks requires much less energy and is therefore cheaper. 

Dismal Record

By the way, please note Projects to Capture Carbon Emissions Get New Boost Despite Dismal Record

Petra Nova, once billed as the largest U.S. project to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant, opened to considerable publicity in Texas in late 2016.

Less than four years later, owner NRG Energy Inc. shut down the carbon-capture system, which cost $1 billion—not because the technology wasn’t working but because the expected end use for the carbon was no longer economically viable. The coal plant continues to generate electricity and emit carbon.

More than 80% of proposed commercial carbon-capture efforts around the world have failed, primarily because the technology didn’t work as expected or the projects proved too expensive to operate, according to a 2020 study by researchers at Canada’s Carleton University, the University of California, San Diego and other institutions.

Nothing like subsidies and mandated buying of carbon credits to make economically-stupid projects appear viable. 

How much of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will be wasted on obvious boondoggles like this?

By the way, the environmental madness of projects like this coupled with mandated buying of carbon tax credits is very inflationary. 

Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Flashback

On November 30, 2022, I noted The EU is Very Worried About Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

Germany is upset because the US is handing out free money clean energy subsidies despite WTO rules and it can’t.

There’s more than a bit of irony here. Without trying, Biden has had more success than Trump in actions that splinter the EU.

A New Green Deal Trade War Accelerates Between the US and EU

On February 6, I noted A New Green Deal Trade War Accelerates Between the US and EU

The EU strikes back against Biden’s Inflation Adjustment Act with its own inflationary version of corporate welfare.

Well, don’t worry, the Fed is modeling the impacts. 

For discussion, please see The Fed Models the Weather Although It Can’t Even Stress Test Treasuries

This post originated on MishTalk.Com.

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Mike Shedlock

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78 Comments
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random_radar
random_radar
2 years ago
We already have a safe, clean and effective way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. It’s called a tree and it stores the poisonous gas in a form called wood.
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thull6047
thull6047
2 years ago
Reply to  random_radar
Unfortunately, it’s called leaves which rot and leach methane.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
I don’t doubt in the least that they can economically recover CO2 from the air. I do, however, doubt that they can “inject it into geological formations, and store it permanently”. Why bother talking about the technology for removing it? Who cares about that, because it is a given that they can capture CO2? They already capture CO2 every day. Where do you think the CO2 comes from to add fizz to soda, for example? Instead, tell me about how you are going to take CO2 at ~800 psi (the pressure at room temperature) and trap it in a geological formation without it leaching out? I doubt we can build a vessel of any kind that we could fill with CO2 at 800psi and not have it leak out over time.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
For the same reason that natural gas (CH4) doesn’t “leach out” for hundreds of thousands of years.
And 800 psi is not much compared to well bottomhole pressures easily achieving thousands of psi.
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Call_Me
Call_Me
2 years ago
“Nothing like subsidies and mandated buying of carbon credits to make economically-stupid projects appear viable.”
That is the entire basis for the (now subdued) movement to cap/trade credits or anything else wizards of the financial world can conjure up to gain from others’ interest in mindful environmental stewardship.
Convert 100 acres from row crop agriculture back to its state before a plow turned it over (that would likely be some variety of grassland) and watch it sequester carbon on 100% solar power! This will also have the added bonus of raising the albedo of the land so you’re getting an added benefit! Sure, it won’t ‘create’ jobs or provide a speculative investors with a monetary windfall, but the end result will be much more useful for the planet.
Call_Me_Al
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prumbly
prumbly
2 years ago
Reply to  Call_Me
The planet is already cold, which is why most people live within 30 degrees of the Equator and why most LIFE of all types is within this zone. How did they manage to persuade people that a colder planet is somehow better?
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  prumbly
They persuaded people because of the tremendous amounts of Government money that became available.
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redfeather
redfeather
2 years ago
There’s dumb, dumber, and dumb as dirt. This “idea” garners the dumb as dirt moniker for complete and utter uselessness. A first grader would come up with a better idea and this is to plant trees, crops, flowers, plants. That’s assuming we need to even do this given plants are very good at reproducing pretty much everywhere. The real reason for this “Carbon Capture” nonsense is to grift fabulous amounts of money from taxpayers to deal with a “climate crisis” manufactured by the very people getting rich on it.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Carbon “capture” – stupid people just pushing carbon around.
I have a much better boondoggle.
We must spend trillions and trillions on carbon fusion research.
We could get useful stuff like neon and sodium and magnesium and helium and more oxygen.
And the carbon goes away – completely – gone forever – transmuted.
They just need to develop a machine with a little more pressure and temperature.
What a wonderful place to waste untold dollars while being virtuous.
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Cleetus
Cleetus
2 years ago
It seems the same problem comes up whenever people start discussing global warming/climate change and other scientific issues. This problem stems from the fact that most people have never performed scientific research or have written scientific research papers. As such they do not understand the jargon or how ideas are expressed while believing they do. This leads to the signature mistake in both articles about global warming/climate change and other scientific issues in the news as well as comments made on said articles. This mistake is that people do not know the right questions to ask or how to interpret the answers they get when these questions are asked.
For example the question is asked if it is true that human actions are affecting the climate. This is the wrong question because the obvious, true, and worthless, answer is “yes”. The question that should be asked instead is how much is human action affecting the environment and is it significant? If our actions contribute 0.001% of global warming/climate change, then that is trivial so who cares. If it amounts to 99%, then we have an issue. The truth of the matter is that no one that I know of has made a serious effort to answer this question honestly. Of course, this may have changed since I left research years ago (I was a research chemist) and stopped seriously reading the literature.
Another example of the wrong question to ask is what do the models predict. This is the wrong question because models can be created to predict anything you want. The correct question is how well do the models work? In this field all models are off by such a large margin that they become useless, even comical. When compared to real live satellite data, models used today range from 250% to thousands of percent wrong and they always err in the same direction predicting far more warming that that observed. If this is the case, then why do we treat these models as fact when discussing what we should be expecting? (Hint: If models are always wrong in the same direction, if corrections are always made in the same direction, etc., especially when the direction favors the argument the “expert” is making, then your B.S. alarms should be going off at deafening levels.)
Yet another question concerns how valid temperature measuring data are. Some weather stations have been measuring temperature data for decades. When these stations were first created they were placed in the middle of a field or woods, but with urban sprawl many of these stations are now located on city streets, next to airport runways and other heat islands which means they no longer report valid data. Some of these stations have even been found on rooftops next to the air conditioner exhaust. Because cities, rooftops, airports are “heat islands” or areas that are significantly warmer than the surrounding countryside, these data will be unreliable because they will be reporting unusually high temperatures rendering them invalid.
I could go on with an almost endless stream of examples, but the point should be clear. Scientific research is likely the most difficult and demanding intellectual endeavor ever attempted and it is the scientific process that makes it even possible. Unfortunately, the public has little clue about the scientific process, how science is performed, how data are collected, or what questions need to be asked. As such, data can be twisted in many ways such that the unethical writer can create any story they wish. It’s up to you, the public, to learn how to ask the right questions, to not allow lies to masquerade as facts, to demand good answers to your questions, and learn to recognize B.S. whenever it is spewed. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  Cleetus
Do not credit aberrant physical phenomena to nature when the data can easily be accounted for because of human stupidity.
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PapaDave
PapaDave
2 years ago
Reply to  Cleetus
You are definitely out of touch since you left your research.
“For example the question is asked if it is true that human actions are affecting the climate. This is the wrong question because the obvious, true, and worthless, answer is “yes”. The question that should be asked instead is how much is human action affecting the environment and is it significant? If our actions contribute 0.001% of global warming/climate change, then that is trivial so who cares. If it amounts to 99%, then we have an issue. The truth of the matter is that no one that I know of has made a serious effort to answer this question honestly. Of course, this may have changed since I left research years ago (I was a research chemist) and stopped seriously reading the literature.”
You are being dishonest here. Of course serious efforts have been made by hundreds of researchers and the results are in. Of course, you can find any result you want to find if you look hard enough. Obviously, you do not wish to know the truth.
“Another example of the wrong question to ask is what do the models predict. This is the wrong question because models can be created to predict anything you want. The correct question is how well do the models work? In this field all models are off by such a large margin that they become useless, even comical. When compared to real live satellite data, models used today range from 250% to thousands of percent wrong and they always err in the same direction predicting far more warming that that observed. If this is the case, then why do we treat these models as fact when discussing what we should be expecting? (Hint: If models are always wrong in the same direction, if corrections are always made in the same direction, etc., especially when the direction favors the argument the “expert” is making, then your B.S. alarms should be going off at deafening levels.)”
More dishonesty. The models have been very good. If anything they underestimate the impact. You must get this garbage from sites that spew denial.
“Yet another question concerns how valid temperature measuring data are. Some weather stations have been measuring temperature data for decades. When these stations were first created they were placed in the middle of a field or woods, but with urban sprawl many of these stations are now located on city streets, next to airport runways and other heat islands which means they no longer report valid data. Some of these stations have even been found on rooftops next to the air conditioner exhaust. Because cities, rooftops, airports are “heat islands” or areas that are significantly warmer than the surrounding countryside, these data will be unreliable because they will be reporting unusually high temperatures rendering them invalid.”
More red herrings and intellectual dishonesty. There are billions of measurements from tens of thousands of instruments, with more added all the time, on land, in the atmosphere, under the ocean surface, and from satellites. This just shows you as an intellectual fraud, spreading FUD.
“I could go on with an almost endless stream of examples, but the point should be clear. Scientific research is likely the most difficult and demanding intellectual endeavor ever attempted and it is the scientific process that makes it even possible. Unfortunately, the public has little clue about the scientific process, how science is performed, how data are collected, or what questions need to be asked. As such, data can be twisted in many ways such that the unethical writer can create any story they wish. It’s up to you, the public, to learn how to ask the right questions, to not allow lies to masquerade as facts, to demand good answers to your questions, and learn to recognize B.S. whenever it is spewed. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Exactly. You are the perfect example of someone who is twisting things to spread FUD.
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prumbly
prumbly
2 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
There are few real scientists left in the Climate field, and little or no real science is being done. It’s pure politics now, with a wonderful gravy train for “scientists” who can produce the “right” results. Most scientists who showed Wrong Think (deniers!) have been kicked out or silenced in some way. Judith Curry, Peter Ridd, Roger Pielke are a few names that spring to mind. There are a few genuinely independent thinkers still out there (with tenure!), usually sufficiently near the end of their careers that they dare risk their positions (Dr Roy Spencer, to name one).
It’s all very sad for science and for the future of the world. When we read about how Galileo was widely condemned for saying that the Earth goes round the Sun we laughed because we thought it could never happen today. And yet here we are again.
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PapaDave
PapaDave
2 years ago
Reply to  prumbly
Lol. Nice try. But you are wasting your time with that pathetic attempt, because I’m not the one you need to convince.
You need to convince the 195 countries that signed onto the climate accords, the many thousands of board members and corporate leaders who make and implement company climate policies, and the tens of thousands of scientists who actually work in the field.
And until you do, I will continue to base my investments on what these decision makers are saying and doing. Not on your kooky opinions.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
I don’t doubt human activity is effecting the climate. The issue is whether or not we need to worry about it. I believe that without humans producing greenhouse gasses, we would be in the early stages of an ice age. There’s a lot of facts to back this up. An ice age would be far worse than slowly rising temperatures. So, I firmly believe some CO2 production is a good thing. I don’t think we need to panic or do anything drastic, but we need to keep an eye on things and if things do get out of hand, it’s nice to have alternatives to reverse course. I’m not against this because it may be useful in the future. Right now, it seems like a way to spend IRA money that’s likely no worse than other things the money will spent on.
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Yooper
Yooper
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Totally agree. We’re currently in a warming stage of an ice age.

Earth is currently in an ice age called the Quaternary Ice Age which began around 2.5 million years ago and is still going on. We are currently in an interglacial stage of this ice age.

Even sea level rise isn’t unique or unusual.

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PapaDave
PapaDave
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
There is “some” truth in your post. And I certainly don’t have the time to go into it in detail. So here is the short version:
The earth does go through long cycles of expanding and retreating glaciation. So yes, a period of expanding glaciation is near, or most likely began modestly around 6k-10k years ago. This period can take as long as 100k years to complete before a mile of ice is over New York again. But the changes are so slow, that it would be hard for humans to notice any significant change in their own lifetimes. Which is why we won’t be able to precisely identify when the cycle began and there will always be some debate in this area.
However, because of human activity we have interfered with the natural cooling cycle, and we are currently pumping out enough GHGs to warm the planet and mess with the climate, in spite of what the many morons here want to believe. Unfortunately, we have now reached a point where we have gone too far, and more importantly, too fast, in adding GHGs. And in spite of warnings, and “some actions”, that we have taken, we have let the problem get away from us. So the problem is going to keep getting worse for many decades or centuries to come.
There are some optimists who believe that scientific advancements in carbon capture will eventually allow us to be able to “control” the amount of GHGs in the atmosphere and keep them in a suitable range (perhaps 280 -350 ppm) for life to flourish. So they would think that these early attempts at carbon capture are a good thing. But it is important to realize that we are a long long way away from being able to accomplish this at scale. And yes, more trees, and hundreds of other ideas would help as well.
But we are a long way from solving this problem and it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
As always, I cannot do anything about it personally. But I can try to make money from it. Which is what I continue to do.
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Global
Global
2 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
If you can’t do anything about it personally then I guess no one can do anything about it personally. So lets all just keep on trying to make money from it.
I am constantly amazed at how many extreme wonks there are on both sides of this arguement (countdown to the wonk claiming its fact and not an arguement). So many people know exactly what is happeneingn to the environment and will never admit to the slightest amount of ignorance on possibly the most complex system there is.
Just a couple of quick points
1) It used to be called Greenhouse effect/Global warming but then it was changed to Climate Change because these pesky polar vortexes kept showing up and they didn’t fit the narrative. Apparently greenhouses don’t have sudden unexplained extreme colds.
2) by about 2010 I think it was there were meant to be 50M climate refugees and all the Pacific Islands were underwater by then, but that didn’t happen. So many predictions haven’t happened. For anyone that has created models, if you can’t predict then you have likely found correlation rather than causation.
So, can’t we all just agree that the climate has changed recently, we think we know some of the factors influencing it, but we are far from sure on a complete understanding of it.
And I appreciate PapaDave that you are actually the one person that knows for a fact what is going to happen “for many decades or centuries to come”, but in that case I am baffled about why you are still trying to make money? With that kind of predictive power you should already have made a fortune many times over and can be comfortbly retired by now.
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PapaDave
PapaDave
2 years ago
Reply to  Global
Sorry, you are wasting your time with that pathetic attempt, because I’m not the one you need to convince.
You need to convince the 195 countries that signed onto the climate accords, the many thousands of board members and corporate leaders who make and implement company climate policies, and the tens of thousands of scientists who actually work in the field.
And until you do, I will continue to base my investments on what these decision makers are saying and doing. Not on your kooky opinions.
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SEAN
SEAN
2 years ago
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
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prumbly
prumbly
2 years ago
CO2 is a trace gas in the atmosphere at just 0.04%, so you would have to process a hideously vast amount of air to extract a meaningful amount. The energy requirements for this would be enormous. Would it not reduce more CO2 emissions to use all that energy for something useful like powering people’s homes?
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Siliconguy
Siliconguy
2 years ago
A variation on this,
In the 1990s I worked at a gold mine that used one of these units, but in reverse. The mill used pure oxygen to burn the sulfur off the pyrite that held the gold. The resulting acid reacted with the carbonates in the ore to release CO2 that diluted out the oxygen, so they had to vent both gases. With the Catacarb unit they could separate the CO2 from the oxygen, as in this article, the difference being the mine vented the CO2 and recompressed the oxygen to put it back into the process.
That mill is gone now, but the mine remains.
First Mississippi Corporation owned it while I was there, but they are gone too. They got turned into Chemfirst, and now they are gone, I think DuPont bought them out, then spun off the pieces randomly.
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Bhakta
Bhakta
2 years ago
The insanity of trying to get rid of CO2 just never ceases. I am wondering if one so-called “expert” or leader anywhere has a working brain cell left in their head? Everyone knows that plants breathe CO2 and release Oxygen. Everyone knows that humans and others animals, even fish need OXYGEN to life. Why are these “experts” and “leaders” against CO2? Why now plant more vegetation? Would that not make common sense? No, they continue to build cement jungles without any vegetation! Why?
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PapaDave
PapaDave
2 years ago

Thanks for the comments everyone. I haven’t laughed that hard
in a long time. The best part is that you all think you actually know
something. Priceless! Here are a few of the gems:

Cocoa: Even better, let’s place them by agriculture or
open space so we can kill the plants that use CO2. So dumb. And inject it back
into the earth, as if Co2 can’t get through a tunnel

Soupbone: Long time reader, first time to comment. Carbon
dioxide permanent capture involves also the permanent capture of two oxygen
atoms. Best make sure we don’t ever want that oxygen back beforehand. Else make
the system reversible so as to be able to get the CO2 back out. Here is a case
of politicians driving change that is quite serious and they are hardly
qualified to do so.

Gruesome Harvest: Why don’t they pull water from the air? It
would be less expensive and water vapor contributes more to global warming.
Plus, you get the benefit of making clean water available.

PerplexedPete: Princeton University professor William Happer
argues that we are presently in a CO2 DROUGHT! He bases his opinion on historic
CO2 levels captured in ancient glaciers. The youtube censors haven’t removed
videos of him yet, so you can still find interviews with Dr. Happer on the “Conversations
That Matter” youtube channel. He completely disagrees with the mainstream
CO2 global warming hysteria.

Hamsaplo: Not only are we wasting money on this kind of
garbage (there is no climate “catastrophe”) but this is also a
demonstration of how poor the quality of our scientists and engineers is. No
thinking for themselves. No courage enough to push back at what they are
required to do to keep their jobs.

Hilarious!

Now, back to reality. Humans are consuming more energy every
year; from both renewables AND from fossil fuels. Humans are going to continue
to add more GHG’s to the atmosphere and further warm the planet for some time
to come. Those in charge of making decisions will continue to make futile
attempts (like direct air capture of CO2, expanding renewables, spending on hydrogen,
etc.), which will not accomplish much for the next decade, but make it look
like they are at least trying to address the problem. In addition, they will
continue to slam the oil and gas industry for being a big part of the problem,
while also demanding more oil and gas when inventories run low and prices run
up.

The oil and gas industry, will respond (as they have for the
last 10 years now) by continuing to spend less on oil and gas capex, and more
on various green efforts. The net effect will be less oil and gas supply and
higher prices going forward, which ultimately, provide higher cash flows and
profits for the oil companies. The side benefit, is that higher prices will
help reduce consumption slightly as we move forward.

As I frequently say; I cannot change what is happening but I
can profit from it. Which is why I am still heavily invested in oil and gas
firms and am also dabbling in various renewable and hydrogen companies which
might end up winning from the policy initiatives being implemented.

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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
PapaDave. You are ignoring me! Don’t I make you laugh?
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Rbm
Rbm
2 years ago
Nothing stays underground forever.
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worleyeoe
worleyeoe
2 years ago
And, he wants 50% of new car sales to be EVs by 2030, up from 5.8% last year.
Thank goodness they’re not concerned about where all the electricity is going to come from to charge all of these cares.
It’s a lot like putting the cart before the horse, but that seems like something JB is good at.
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Bhakta
Bhakta
2 years ago
Reply to  worleyeoe
No one has a brain that works anymore. Is that not obvious?
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  worleyeoe
EVs are going to take over. In China in a few months, they’re effectively going to force almost all new sales to be EVs. China is the largest car market in the world. No car company is planning on investing in ICE development. All their efforts are going into EVs. The US is lagging the rest of the world in EV sales. I think every major US, European and Japanese auto maker outside of Tesla will either go bankrupt or have to be bailed out before 2030. China is going to dominate the car industry.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
We we all buy electric cars then keep them in the garage until it is our turn to charge up a little bit.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Many will have cheap solar systems to help keep them charged.
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Hansa Junchun
Hansa Junchun
2 years ago
Great April Fools’ Joke, Mish.
No wait, you say we are the fools, Brandon is the mark, and Armand Hammer’s happy little outfit is the con man?
Okay. Everything makes sense now, including pretty much the most complicated and energy intensive green scheme I’ve ever heard of.
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brainy
brainy
2 years ago
Reply to  Hansa Junchun
yeah – quite a dumb idea …
co2-recapture from the air is as dumb as peeing into a swimming pool – and then evaporating all the water, to recapture the pee.
… it costs for sure more energy to recapture the co2, than what energy was released during the burning …
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EvForMe
EvForMe
2 years ago
I do think it is likely that human activity has made some effect on the climate. CO2 included. But here are a bunch of other facts
1) Look at the “climate change” event in the geological record from ~10,000 years ago — Younger Dryas Period. In an approximately 25 year time span the global temperature went up by 6C to 9C. It melted a bunch of glaciers — it took 300 years for those glaciers to melt.
2) It has been proposed that the 300 years of sea level rise is the basis of “Noah’s Ark” stories. It WON”T be an existential crises. We already survived that one. We’ll survive again. Some anthropologists have proposed that the founders of the first Sumerian civilizations were refugees from the floods.
3) We’ll have centuries to figure it out. It won’t be the same as 10,000 years ago. Might take 10 centuries or 1 century. The hyperbole that turns into an outright lie is that it will happen in 5 years.
4) There are 2 major photosynthesis pathways (plus a third that is much less common). Trees use “C3”. Grasses use “C4”. The “C3” cycles that trees use requires a higher CO2 concentration. The pre-industrial CO2 levels were approaching the lower limits where trees can grow. Forests worldwide are MUCH happier with the current higher CO2 levels. I guess if you have a huge preference for grasslands “C4” — you might like lower levels.
5) I really do believe industrialized humanity has made a difference in climate — but I also like forests and so am VERY comfortable with 430 ppm. Carboniferous era probably at times had up to 5000 ppm.
6) Climate has ALWAYS changed. It is not static. The climate is going to have some changes with or without us. I don’t think the changes we are making are straying much beyond the bounds of natural processes. Look at some of the great volcanic events (BIG volcanoes). They changed CO2 levels in 50 years more than humans are likely to do in 400 years. If the Yellowstone super volcano erupts, the climate will REALLY change then.
6) We should stop adding new CO2 at some point. I think that point will be reached based on the economical utility of how expensive it will be to extract oil before there is a realistic problem. Part of the reason oil is getting more expensive is we used the easy stuff first. It only gets harder and more expensive from here on out.
7) Let’s stop worrying about CO2 — which is NOT a pollutant — and start worrying about real pollution! Maybe like dioxins, heavy metals, and tons of plastics with their hormone disruptors!
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  EvForMe
There’s evidence the Younger Dryas melting was due to asteroid or comet impacts. Which would also explain a rapid rise in temperatures.
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Karlmarx
Karlmarx
2 years ago
there is currently a shortage of food grade CO2. This might be a good process to produce it
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ColoradoAccountant
ColoradoAccountant
2 years ago
Xcel Energy bill up again for March. January, 3 degrees below last year. February, 3 degrees below last year. March, 3 degrees below last year. Viking raiders were froze in again for the 400th year in a row.
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Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
2 years ago
What happened to planting trees and using natural processes?
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Investing idea.
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astroboy
astroboy
2 years ago
This has been around for a while. The basic idea is that diatoms absorb alot of CO2 and sink to the bottom of the ocean. The bottleneck is that they need iron and in most of the sea that’s in short supply. The guy who discovered that said half a ship load of iron could put the world into a new ice age. It’s not clear how much that was a joke, but a ship load of iron is pretty small change. Of course, fooling with the climate is playing with fire. I just thought this might be an interesting read.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  astroboy
With all the iron sent to the bottom of the sea in WW II we should be already in an ice age.
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Siliconguy
Siliconguy
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
From the end of the 1930s until the late 1970s there was a noticeable cooling trend. That is where the stories about the return of the ice age came from. The climate change panic crowd keep denying that articles existed, but I was there and remember them.
I’m rooting for the return of the Pliocene.
Pliocene climatic optimum
The period from about 3.2 to 2.5 million years ago during which polar temperature was 5°–10°C warmer than today, the Antarctic and Arctic ice caps nearly melted, and sea level was 35 m higher.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  Siliconguy
No worries, I’m about 220 m above sea level.
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astroboy
astroboy
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
The iron has to be in a different ionization state than ‘rust’. I should have pointed that out.
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Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
2 years ago
Reply to  astroboy
Highly hypothetical.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  astroboy
That would need iron in dust form. Otherwise it would sink to the bottom before the diadems could take it up. Finding or making half a tanker full of the stuff would not be an easy task so for the moment we are safe from the ecology-crazy billionaires with delusions of saving the planet…or at least I hope so.
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Naphtali
Naphtali
2 years ago
Airheaded.
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TexasTim65
TexasTim65
2 years ago
At least some companies are trying to use carbon capture to make synthetic fuels which is something we could really use a lot more of if we want to at least attempt to get to carbon neutral.
Injecting it into the ground is just a stupid waste of time and energy.
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Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
2 years ago
Reply to  TexasTim65
Producing hydrogen by water electrolysis, powered by solar.
LOL. Current costs: CAD $15/L, but what you loose on sale, you make up on volume.
Porsche grasping at straws.
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MiTurn
MiTurn
2 years ago
If you do a study on the long-term Viking encampment at L’Anse aux Meadow in Newfoundland c.1000 AD (yes, not realizing it the Vikings discovered North America 500 years before Columbus), archeologists noted that the sea level then was 0.5-1 meters higher than it is today. And this was during the Medieval Warming period, which saw the glaciers melting and the sea level rising. This warming period was followed by the Little Ice Age, which caused the glaciers to increase and the sea level dropped. We are still currently coming out of that ice age. In other words, we’ve assumed that the current sea level is normal, whereas in fact it is still unusually low. The current rise in the ocean level is a reach toward normalcy, not global warming. We’ve been warmer before, even in fairly recent history!
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astroboy
astroboy
2 years ago
Reply to  MiTurn
True, but the Anasazi civilization in the Western US vanished, almost certainly from drought, at that time. How the drought affected the mid-US seems not to be clear but the 1930s Dust Bowl is a good example of how things can go bad. Just because the climate was warmer in the past that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for US agriculture, which is what feeds us. Best to maintain the status quo, I’d say…. Which is not to say the CO2 capture scheme here isn’t a dumb idea….
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Perplexed Pete
Perplexed Pete
2 years ago
Reply to  astroboy
Most of the Mayan civilization was wiped out by a drought that lasted 100 to 200 years. Recent estimates place the death toll of this environmental disaster at 20 million people. It happened sometime(s) between 750 and 1000 AD. Afterward, the rains returned and the jungles reclaimed the huge Mayan cities, cornfields, roads, and suburbs. That is why archaeologists are finding more and more Mayan ruins in the remote jungles of Guatemala every year.
Some Mayan city-states and settlements in the far northern Yucatan peninsula of Mexico survived, probably because the draught missed them.
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phil
phil
2 years ago
Reply to  Perplexed Pete
Great posts and I will return to read them more carefully. I just want to add the Indus Valley civilizations, i.e. Mohenjo-daro, and its sister-city 400 miles away. It’s a very hot valley there now. Not 2,500 BCE. They may have done that themselves, by cutting down all the trees. Food for thought. Or, no food after doing that.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  phil
The Indus Valley Civilization is remarkable in that their cities show little or no evidence of difference in housing due to wealth or the lack of wealth. There is a uniformity that is absent in other civilizations leading to the idea that the Indus Valley Civilization practiced extreme socialism. The small Libertarian bone in me wonders whether that is the cause of its demise since that civilization disappeared completely but all the others adapted and survived.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  astroboy
All those things happened before industrialization. All you’re doing is showing that trying to control the climate is futile.
The biggest issue facing US farming is depletion of aquifers. Has nothing to do with CO2 levels.
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astroboy
astroboy
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
That is an extremely important thing, you’re 110% right about that.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  MiTurn
Did they take into account the isostatic rebound of the land? When the weight of the glaciers was removed the land underneath rebounds upward so giving the impression that the sea was higher at the time of the Vikings when in reality the land was lower.
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MiTurn
MiTurn
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
Doug78,
This is L’Anse aux Meadows is in Newfoundland, not Greenland. The Vikings went there to trade with the locals and get timber, as Greenland didn’t have any large trees. Greenland obviously is covered with glaciers and the phenomenon you mention may have applied there. But at that time — for 300 years — the Vikings thrived in Greenland, with their animals and crops. But then the warming trend ended and they got froze out.
Newfoundland does not have glaciers, ergo the isostatic rebound would probably not be applicable.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  MiTurn
Newfoundland was under the ice during the Ice Age. The Laurentide Ice Sheet covered it completely. This study covers it in isostatic rebound effects in Newfoundland. The fluctuations at L’Anse aux Meadows were especially large.
Abstract

The island of Newfoundland, Canada, is situated close to the former margins of the Laurentide ice sheet. The post-glacial sea-level history is complex, dominated by the effects of an ice-marginal crustal forebulge produced by isostatic deformation of the lithosphere. Marine fossils found above present sea-level can be 14C dated, and examination of the temporal and geographical distribution of these 14C dates in combination with geomorphological indicators of past sea-levels indicates regional trends of relative sea-level change. For most of the island (apart from the Northern Peninsula) no samples have been recovered that date younger than 8000 BP. suggesting that sea-level lay below the present one in these areas for the last 8000 years. The same areas commonly show geomorphological evidence for stands of sea-level both above and below present sea-level. This evidence is interpreted as showing that over most of Newfoundland, following deglaciation, sea-level fell to below present levels, and subsequently rose to the modern level. Exceptions to this pattern are the north of the Northern Peninsula, which shows a history of continuous emergence, or a more complex pattern of sea-levels falling below present, subsequently rising above present, and currently falling; and the northeast Avalon Peninsula, which may have had sea-levels below present throughout post glacial times. This pattern of relative sea-level change is interpreted as being mostly due to isostatic recovery, with the main factor being northerly migration of the forebulge. Mapping the time at which sea-level fell below the present level allows estimation of the rate of northerly migration and collapse of the forebulge at between 4.5 and 11 km/100 years; this is considerably faster than previous estimates.

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hamsaplo
hamsaplo
2 years ago
Not only are we wasting money on this kind of garbage (there is no climate “catastrophe”) but this is also a demonstration of how poor the quality of our scientists and engineers is. No thinking for themselves. No courage enough to push back at what they are required to do to keep their jobs.
In the 1990’s I remember managing a group that developed stabilizers for plastics. We were told by top level management that it was imperative that we develop stabilizers for recycled plastics and convince the world that it needed these special stabilizers. Failure to conform would be a disaster for the planet. No argument. No critical or independent thought. What’s happening now is many times worse on a global scale. Science has become a religion.
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Karlmarx
Karlmarx
2 years ago
Reply to  hamsaplo
Just like the so called scientists during the middle ages that supported a political church’s doctrine then. Its amazing how little humanity learns from history and how gullible people seem to naturally be.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice ….. i won’t get fooled again
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  hamsaplo
So you are responsible for urethane foams degrading into sticky goop after 20+ years?
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Jcbl
Jcbl
2 years ago
More absolute madness at the altar of the church of the environment.
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oee
oee
2 years ago
This is the only correct posting you have done ever. We are headed for a climate catastrophe if we are not in it already. According to several reports that came out in the Summer of 2022. The world is not doing enough to counteract the climate crisis. Humanity will be gone by 2100, which may be is a good thing.
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Perplexed Pete
Perplexed Pete
2 years ago
Reply to  oee
It is worse than that. Al Gore correctly predicted that the ice caps will be melted, and Florida will be mostly underwater no later than 2013. To show his courage and solidarity with all the other humans who would surely drown, Al Gore never sold his multimillion-dollar California ocean-view home.
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Business Man
Business Man
2 years ago
Reply to  oee
“Humanity will be gone by 2100, which may be is a good thing.”
Boy, you must be a lot of fun on date night.
We are not in a “climate catastrophe.” One simple way to know is that if you can’t figure out if we are in one, then we are not in one.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  oee
Learn the actual science before posting.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
2 years ago
Reply to  oee
Gee, oee.
Nothing you or anyone else can do to affect the trajectory.
Get over it.
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Perplexed Pete
Perplexed Pete
2 years ago
Princeton University professor William Happer argues that we are presently in a CO2 DROUGHT! He bases his opinion on historic CO2 levels captured in ancient glaciers. The youtube censors haven’t removed videos of him yet, so you can still find interviews with Dr. Happer on the “Conversations That Matter” youtube channel. He completely disagrees with the mainstream CO2 global warming hysteria.
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Dave
Dave
2 years ago
It’s a tree. Trees remove CO2. Why don’t we plant more trees to fight the climate boogeyman? Historians will look back at our climate hysteria and try to figure out why it happened.
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Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
2 years ago
Reply to  Dave
Simple answer? Democrats can’t control the market.
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GruesomeHarvest
GruesomeHarvest
2 years ago
Why don’t they pull water from the air? It would be less expensive and water vapor contributes more to global warming. Plus, you get the benefit of making clean water available.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Why not grow trees, cut them down, bury them and then plant more?
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Dr Funkenstein
Dr Funkenstein
2 years ago
Rube Goldberg lives in the envirowhacko movement
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soupbone
soupbone
2 years ago
Long time reader, first time to comment. Carbon dioxide permanent capture involves also the permanent capture of two oxygen atoms. Best make sure we don’t ever want that oxygen back beforehand. Else make the system reversible so as to be able to get the CO2 back out. Here is a case of politicians driving change that is quite serious and they are hardly qualified to do so.
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Crispin
Crispin
2 years ago
Seeing as CO2 is plant food, why not convert it to food by pumping it into greenhouses? At the moment people are burning gas to fertilize their greenhouses. Pump CO2 instead – after all it will be turned into food (useful) and not stored in the ground where it is useless (bad). It will save a huge amount of money (waste) at increase crop production by the more efficient use of land (brilliant).
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HippyDippy
HippyDippy
2 years ago
Reply to  Crispin
Please, you are not allowed to exhibit rational thought in any discussion about climate change!
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Cocoa
Cocoa
2 years ago
Even better, let’s place them by agriculture or open space so we can kill the plants that use CO2. So dumb. And inject it back into the earth, as if Co2 can’t get through a tunnel
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