Also more fundamentally it's always going to be more efficient to not produce CO2 than to unproduce it.
Ok maybe in a small number of circumstances there's no other option (e.g. planes), but mostly you're far better off spending your energy making solar, wind, batteries, heat pumps, insulation etc.
In today's world there is a roadmap for a < 20 year transition for the entire world if planned and executed collectively.
However Chinese domination, global geopolitics being changed and fossil fuel industries and countries still being extremely large and powerful make even choosing the obviously cheapest (and incidentally clean) option difficult in many parts of the world.
Nonetheless, it seems much more optimistic today in 2025 than say 2015 speaking purely based on where technology stands
> However Chinese domination .. make even choosing the obviously cheapest (and incidentally clean) option difficult in many parts of the world.
In what way? China has basically dwarfed solar installations of any other country combined for the last two years, and produces so many panels and so cheap that EU and US competitors are being driven out of business.
China might be the reason we CAN make the transition actually.
Probably thinking that if it appears China is getting global dominance in energy production/energy storage/car manufacturing, the West would block imports out of political and economic expediency. Like the current US administration is doing.
The chemical sector is the only reason why emissions haven't meaningfully declined yet, and I suspect it is in part due to conversion of supply chain for electrification.
The point is that they're paying a one-off cost (thus producing a peak) and they're already reaping rewards. Once they fully transition power generation to renewables and electrify transportation, what's left can be better regulated and CO2 recapture more easily scaled thanks to also R&D advances on CO2 recapture (e.g. capturing CO2 emissions from a chemical plant's exhaust). Then, even if you need more energy for CO2 recapture, you can keep scaling renewables further.
If everyone sets goals and starts work to reduce emissions in 2015 you dont get credit for failing to meet all your goals while secretly doing the opposite and trying to create as much growth as possible by scaling coal production. Like how would it be if my country was like ok we will reduce emissions in 2045 and then doubled our emissions in the next 5 years. Thats what China is doing.
It's hard to put my finger on why, but that's a really weird way to frame the situation.
For one thing, most of us don't control any CO₂ production we can turn off.
Also, even if/when we finally produced our last CO₂ molecule, the excess CO₂ will last for many centuries, and we really should get it back to lower levels.
With good capture tech, you can keep keep doing some important CO₂ producing activities.
Sure, it seems very unfeasible with current technology, but that is bound to improve as you work on it.
> Sure, it seems very unfeasible with current technology, but that is bound to improve as you work on it.
That not a good logical argument as there's no guarantee that every technology can be improved enough to be better than the alternatives. e.g. Steam engine tech is bound to improve as you work on it, but it's not going to be as efficient/useful as an internal combustion engine.
History is littered with examples of tech that has been surpassed by better ideas, so the lesson to learn is to optimise the best current solution. In this instance, the best (most efficient, practical) solution is to stop emitting so much CO2 rather than a long bet that capture tech will ever be feasible - with atmospheric concentrations being so low, the scale required makes it a non-starter.
>With good capture tech, you can keep keep doing some important
CO₂ producing activities.
We're not asking people to stop breathing while there's no good DAC on the horizon, but I wonder what were the other important CO₂ producing activities you intend to do less of.
The following isn't breaking the law of thermodynamics; just wilfully ignoring it..
Gemini:
>To offset a single typical gasoline car's emissions (around 4.6 metric tons CO2/year), you'd need a substantial fraction of a large DAC plant, as current large plants aim for 1 million tons/year, meaning many tiny DACs or a small portion of one large one; as of late 2025, the largest operating DAC (Mammoth) captures 36k tons, requiring about 80 such facilities to match one average ICE car's annual output, highlighting the massive scale-up needed, with projects like Texas's Stratos targeting 500k tons/year (equivalent to ~108 cars).
There are 3 or 4 laws of thermodynamics, and I can't figure out which one you might possibly be referring to.
I agree that current carbon capture tech is very inadequate, because very little effort has been put into it. How many orders of magnitude better it can get, we don't know until we try, but I don't see any fundamental reason it can't get good enough.
Once you have a solar powered capture machine park pumping CO₂ underground, it can keep working indefinitely at little cost.
> I wonder what were the other important CO₂ producing activities you intend to do less of.
All of them. This is well under way. I don't know how many decades it will take. But that's a separate problem.
The crucial thing to understand is that even if/when all CO₂ production has ended, the produced CO₂ won't disappear by itself for thousands of years!!
So you really need to actively remove it to get back to natural levels. Which is why I think carbon capture tech must be developed.
If you think about it, 2nd law* is the most relevant one because, after all, CO2, being so stable, is one of homo sapiens "favourite" waste materials (partition function yada-yada)
How did plants evolve to use it as nutrients. Solar power. since humans don't need to make fuel from air these days, maybe all of that solar power should go into compute?
.. I'm not saying any laws are broken, just that there are much better (=more efficient, more promising) ways to reduce global warming, like
> Should every car owner personally optimize the CO₂ emissions of their car?
Yes!! Obviously! Buy an electric/hybrid car or at least one with good fuel efficiency. Drive it in an efficient style. Try to avoid unnecessary journeys.
Ok maybe in a small number of circumstances there's no other option (e.g. planes), but mostly you're far better off spending your energy making solar, wind, batteries, heat pumps, insulation etc.