I think Direct Air Capture (DAC) is nowhere near ready to deploy. It’s too expensive, faces huge engineering challenges, and diverts money and attention from better climate solutions. Let’s stop giving fossil fuels a fig leaf on the taxpayer’s dime. news.mongabay.com/2024/12/dire... - ThreadSky

globalecoguy.bsky.social • 72 days ago

I think Direct Air Capture (DAC) is nowhere near ready to deploy. It’s too expensive, faces huge engineering challenges, and diverts money and attention from better climate solutions.

Let’s stop giving fossil fuels a fig leaf on the taxpayer’s dime.

https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/direct-air-capture-climate-solution-faces-harsh-criticism-steep-challenges/

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kevinleecaster.bsky.social•71 days ago

In contrast, I support carbon drawdown from people drawing CO2 out of our atmosphere:

"Every operational hour provides valuable data, helping us optimize efficiency and reliability as we work toward megaton-scale carbon removal by 2030 and gigaton-scale by 2050."
https://climeworks.com/news/2024-year-in-review

bethzonis.bsky.social•69 days ago

A variety of DAC solutions are in the works! Jonathan, I believe that we need to continue to support DAC projects as part of the mix of answers to combat climate change. A few very early-stage examples from our DAC Academy: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bethzonis_climatetech-carbonremoval-directaircapture-activity-7272672293518991360-EoyL?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

globalecoguy.bsky.social•68 days ago

I would love to see a robust R&D program on this. Maybe someday a solution will make sense.

But I am against given tens of billions in tax breaks to basically fund carbon removal / oil companies to do DAC for enhanced oil recovery.

andre-sobolewski.bsky.social•71 days ago

I'm OK with some of the criticism about DAC. I also think that the technology is immature. I also don't mind your to fund R&D in this area, though I find that startups are far more aggressive in developing these technologies than academia.

That said, we also don't have many workable options.

andre-sobolewski.bsky.social•71 days ago

I know that there are many proposals to decrease emissions, yours included. They've been made for the last 1-2 decades, but they really haven't gained much traction during that time.

Under these circumstances, how do we proceed? Keep insisting on our approach? Try new ones? All of the above?

ruutn4uf.bsky.social•71 days ago

Why not just plant a huge amount of trees to restore Boreal and Amazon forests. It’s a lot cheaper.

caseyadams.bsky.social•72 days ago

What do you think about (allegedly) carbon negative cement?

undbtlydoubtful.bsky.social•71 days ago

Why are we reinventing the tree?

globalecoguy.bsky.social•72 days ago

Notice I said “deploy” here.

I would instead encourage a much less expensive *research* program on advanced materials and carbon removal technologies.

Instead of spending tens of billions on something dubious, let’s spend a few million on R&D and hopefully find something that can work…

ikaikahussey.com•72 days ago

… including simply shutting down fossil fuel use

andre-sobolewski.bsky.social•71 days ago

the "simply" in your sentence is doing a helluva lot of work.

ikaikahussey.com•71 days ago

Yep. If only it were so.

victorbcn.bsky.social•71 days ago

I think it is interesting that research into DAC continues. It makes little sense now as it is much more cost effective to reduce existing emissions. But eventually we will have to achieve negative emissions to remove some of the CO2 emitted. Perhaps in a few decades it will make perfect sense.

allenskognes321.bsky.social•72 days ago

Isn't that being done already?

After all O&G has known about global warming for decades now.....

Why are we so slow on the uptake...

Fossil fuels are using the same game plan as Big Tobacco did.

Didn't try and wean anyone off an addictive and toxic behavior, just give em a better filter....

jehankanga.bsky.social•71 days ago

Some key e-fuels like e-methanol are semi-dependent on DAC coming down in cost. Certifiable biogenic waste will take us some way through sourcing carbon but won't enable full decarb of shipping.

Agreed with your point through that funding should be targeted at advanced materials and pilots TRL 2-7.

extrasuperkk.bsky.social•72 days ago

You know what does DAC already and is ready to be implemented? Trees. With the benefit of cleaning and cooling the air, providing habitat, stabilizing and enriching the soil, etc.

jm493.bsky.social•71 days ago

Trees are a great, temporary solution.
But the issue is that we are releasing geologic Carbon that was locked away for 100 million years.
We need Carbon sequestration that will lock down that Carbon for future millions of years.

Fast vs Slow Carbon cycle
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle

jm493.bsky.social•71 days ago

Long-term Carbon sequestration is *hard*.
Much more cost-effective to put effort into not releasing that Carbon in the first place.

*Stop Burning Stuff*

extrasuperkk.bsky.social•71 days ago

Totally and completely agree. 😘

extrasuperkk.bsky.social•72 days ago

(I know you know, but I get SO EXASPERATED.)

drparslow.bsky.social•72 days ago

💯

lawslashclimate.bsky.social•71 days ago

The coldest of cold takes. Anyone who's thought about DAC for five seconds agrees it is nowhere near ready to deploy, too expensive, and faces huge engineering challenges. Like any nascent technology.

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