while not a perfect measure, doing what is profitable correlates with energy efficiency. In the New Yorker story, the scheme described results in a large relative increase in CO2 production versus simply not doing anything. That's one of the things i find ironic about Klaus Lackner's schemes. He claims to be a big picture guy but in the big picture, his schemes always produce an increase in CO2 versus doing nothing. As for Julio, he has ambitions on eventually being secretary of energy and god help us if that ever happens.
I have no problem with supporting research, especially cuz that's what i do, but the goal of the research shouldnt border on fraud. In the absence of replacing combustion of carbon fuels, making CO2 'ground bound' is the only way to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels and that's not what Lackner's scheme does. He does put CO2 into an intermediate solid form but then promptly decomposes it to form food grade CO2 for resale (it wouldnt make any sense to cannisterize it otherwise). There's a bunch of steps on the way to getting the CO2 into solid form which generally result in a net gain in CO2 but then to use a lot of energy to decompose the solid to produce food grade CO2 (and probably CaO for resale) produces a very large increase in CO2 production. That process requires a lot of energy. He might have a hell of a solar array or wind farm to power his furnaces rather than burning natural gas to avoid the added CO2 production in the last step but even if true, the world would be better off if that power went straight to the grid or battery storage cuz there are much more efficient ways of making food grade CO2 and if he is selling the last part as merely a temporary measure to offset costs, then he's dreaming and scamming his investors/granting agencies.
While i'm picking on Lackner, he's just one example of many. The schemes almost always involving producing a commercial product associated with the CO2 removal process and almost always use current product resale pricing for their economic evaluations. However, the schemes invariably leave out the part about how if they produced by-products or CO2-bearing product quantities necessary to make a difference in atmospheric CO2 levels, then the markets for those products would collapse and the cost offsets would evaporate.
As a parting commentary: I think many more people would be less resistant to legislative 'encouragements' to recover and dispose of CO2 from waste streams if the politicians that usually push such ideas wouldnt invariably tie the taxes, penalties or permit fees to welfare programs that have no connection to atmospheric CO2 reduction.
AI
