News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from at... by hannob on Sunday November 14, 2021 @11:37AM (#29218263)
> At a first read, this is great, because it's apolitical.

This is a strange statement to make about DAC. Once you think about what that means there's a lot of thorny political issues.

Removing carbon from the air to store it permanently does not give you anything economically. Someone's going to have to have to pay for it. Is that people who made their wealth based on fossil fuels? People who emit most or who did so in the past? Or everyone?

Don't get me wrong: I'm all in favor of supporting development of this tech. But there are complicated political questions to be answered. Framing this as "apolitical" is probably not going to help.

Re:U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from at... by dymk on Sunday November 14, 2021 @11:43AM (#29218318)
Side stepping the “is it political” part (which I have no interest in discussing- it’s a tarpit)…

There is an economical advantage to reducing CO2 from the environment. It gives you an environment that humans can thrive in (by way of being an environment that the current food chain can thrive in). It’s hard to consider investing in the future when you think it might be apocalyptical. Easier if you think there is a future for humanity.

Re:U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from at... by hannob on Sunday November 14, 2021 @11:45AM (#29218346)
There is an advantage for society as a whole, but for the person running a single DAC machine the advantage is neglegible. (Which is kinda the inverse why climate mitigation is so hard to begin with - avoiding emissions doesn't give the person doing so a lot of advantage.)