To incentivize carbon removal, the US Treasury commits to spending 10 megabucks per year to buy carbon bricks synthesized via CCS.

Brick price is 10 megabucks / number produced.

Starting spot price (ceiling) is for bricks is somehow determined. Plus whatever sane market rules are deemed appropriate.

The provenance of these bricks is easily confirmed. By some combo of isotopes, inspections, and affidavits. So that sellers can't easily use non-atmospheric carbon.

Some kind of practical form factor is determined for the carbon bricks.

Carbon bricks become yet another currency.

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Said another way:

US Treasury mints gold coins from gold bullion.

Compute farms mint bitcoin from electricity.

Carbon scrubbers will mint carbon bricks from atmospheric carbon.

Whereas bitcoin is inflationary, bricks are deflationary. Like US dollars.

Harness the Cobra Effect. Since all bricks produced will be bought, more production is incentivized.

This notion leans on Wright's Law.

I don't (yet) understand the chemistry behind extracting solid carbon from the air for cheap, but I have reason to believe it's possible: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08824-8

Another aspect of this is that it could maybe exploit modern monetary policy. Price of bricks getting too high? Maybe 'ease' a few more into circulation by buying them with new dollars.

Poked around a bit more.

1 ton of carbon bricks ~= 100 gallons, about the size of a nice fish tank.

5.5 billion tons of carbon ~= Mt Everest. That's a lot of bricks.

We add ~25 gigatons of carbon into air yearly. ~28 Mt Everests.

Scale is staggering.

We'll probably have to drop the bricks into the ocean.

Or maybe use all those bricks to build sea walls to protect our coasts.

FWIW, I've always assumed we'd pump carbon back into the ground. I'm liking the idea of making bricks.