Re:Scaling Carbon Capture
by joak on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @05:50AM
(#29328745)
The main point of this blog post is:
1. Energy costs are going down
This is undeniable: photovoltaic costs are going down at fast pace and soon (in one or two decades?) fusion power is going to kick in
2. As soon as energy is cheap enough, making methane (and kerosene and plastic and ...) from air+water will become cheaper than extracting it from the ground (extraction + transformation + transport)
When this happens it will be the end of fossil fuels
Then carbon capture will be a very profitable business, with investments at the scale of fossil fuel industry.
This is how carbon capture will scale, by investing trillions of dollars year after year.
The controversy should be on the timeline, on the threshold the energy costs need to cross for that to happen.
I'm not sure it will happen, as claimed, in the next 10 years, but I'll be surprised if it does not happen in the next 30 years
1. Energy costs are going down
This is undeniable: photovoltaic costs are going down at fast pace and soon (in one or two decades?) fusion power is going to kick in
2. As soon as energy is cheap enough, making methane (and kerosene and plastic and ...) from air+water will become cheaper than extracting it from the ground (extraction + transformation + transport)
When this happens it will be the end of fossil fuels
Then carbon capture will be a very profitable business, with investments at the scale of fossil fuel industry.
This is how carbon capture will scale, by investing trillions of dollars year after year.
The controversy should be on the timeline, on the threshold the energy costs need to cross for that to happen.
I'm not sure it will happen, as claimed, in the next 10 years, but I'll be surprised if it does not happen in the next 30 years
Sorry, the usual "not if but when"...