I’m listening to a podcast and the lady says we eventually will need to become a net 0 society and then go negative to reverse the effects of climate change.
This entails sucking carbon from the atmosphere. Why can’t we just invest in this now and keep our oil and coal energy? What can this carbon be used for once we have taken it from the atmosphere? She says we just pump it into the ground?
In: Engineering
Important to note that laws of physics tell you that, simplified, if you earn $1,000 for burning coal and releasing coal into atmosphere, it costs you at least $2,000 to catch it, probably way more.
So if you are going to take climate action, burning coal is at best a huge waste of money as you then need to expend way more into recapturing equivalent amount of coal that you released, giving you a totally pointless net loss.
But in less simplistic terms, you can think of that as taking a loan from the bank, and extra cost as interest laws of physics demand from you. In this view, humanity is currently taking a huuuuuge loan with absolutely no plans in place about paying it back. But still, you can have reasonable loans.
Latest Answers