Some of my notes on why carbon sequestration is a no-go for civilization to achieve lithospheric homeostasis.....:
5 Billion Cubic Meters of Oil are produced Annually by humanity.
30Bn Tons of CO2 generated.
60% is un-sequesterable because it is small and/or mobile.
40% is sequestrable and large scale/stationary.
12 Billion Cubic Meters of CO2 are thus sequestrable.
You must liquefy CO2 before putting it into the ground.
50% -70% efficiency in converting it to a liquid that we can shove into the ground.
6 to 8.4 Billion Cubic Meters of Liquefied CO2 are thus Sequestrable.
Shoving 6 to 8.4 billion cubic meters of liquefied CO2 into ground is no small matter.
Think about it this way, humanity built an entire industry focused on an annual extraction of 5Bn Cubic Meters of Oil over a time span of 100+ years with refineries and complex processes spanning multiple countries, geographies, regulations, wars, and land rights.
Also, who’s going to buy sequestered carbon?
The reality is that something like this will require spinning up an entire Trillion dollar market.
I don't think anyone in their right minds believes that fighting CC is going to be a profitable venture at all. The point is it will take co-operation and investment by governments worldwide.
It's also important to note that the geological formations necessary for sequestering CO2 are a lot more common than those required to _potentially_ be stores of crude.
In addition to all this, countries around the world will have to be willing to take an economic hit, something I'm worried the biggest polluters won't do (China/India in particular). This makes me wonder if it is futile for developed nations to be stifling their own economies with carbon taxes because China, India, and Africa don't keep up. In any case, we probably will be far off the IPCC recommendations and will have to resort to geoengineering.
Because most CO2 emissions are from industry, not humans, per capita statistics mean very little (especially since these industries ship their products globally). Per capita statistics are championed by industry because they shift blame to citizens and paint the false picture that citizens are entirely responsible for the nation's output.
This means it is more effective to use a metric like CO2 emitted per $1000 GDP because it reflects how polluting industry is in each country. See link attached and sort. It is also important to remember China and India (especially) are far from industrializing, and Western nations' emissions are dropping (they peaked 10-15 yrs ago).
In reality, some combination of CO2/capita and CO2/$1000GDP is the most effective for determining how polluting a country is.
Environmental policy is dictated at a national level. And this is why I put pressure on the Chinese state (again, NOT the people). A bigger portion of their emissions are caused by industry than in most countries). The Chinese state and only the Chinese state has the ability to reduce industrial emissions in their country.
I recommend reading Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by the late Hans Rosling and his kids. In particular, Chapter Five, "The Size Instinct" can help you reframe the way you look at this fear. When looking at CO2 emissions for China and India, you have to look at their emissions on a per-capita basis.
People in cities in China routinely wear face masks because of the pollution there -- they're very acutely aware of the problem.
It would sadden me if "oh but China won't stop polluting" strawman arguments stop us from putting an effort into trying to find a solution.
> The reality is that something like this will require spinning up an entire Trillion dollar market.
You’re right. This is unlikely, but if you think there’s even a remote chance, the scale will be so huge that betting on startups working on this tech could still pay off.
5 Billion Cubic Meters of Oil are produced Annually by humanity.
30Bn Tons of CO2 generated.
60% is un-sequesterable because it is small and/or mobile.
40% is sequestrable and large scale/stationary.
12 Billion Cubic Meters of CO2 are thus sequestrable.
You must liquefy CO2 before putting it into the ground.
50% -70% efficiency in converting it to a liquid that we can shove into the ground.
6 to 8.4 Billion Cubic Meters of Liquefied CO2 are thus Sequestrable.
Shoving 6 to 8.4 billion cubic meters of liquefied CO2 into ground is no small matter.
Think about it this way, humanity built an entire industry focused on an annual extraction of 5Bn Cubic Meters of Oil over a time span of 100+ years with refineries and complex processes spanning multiple countries, geographies, regulations, wars, and land rights.
Also, who’s going to buy sequestered carbon?
The reality is that something like this will require spinning up an entire Trillion dollar market.