He made them advance the Pathways carbon capture project. To those just casually following global warming, we need there to be carbon capture. Ideally we'd have moved away from fossil fuels a decade ago, but that didn't happen. So right now we're at a point where we need to make carbon capture work or we're fucked.

It sucks that we're now dependent on this tech working, but that's the reality of the global warming situation now. It's too late to just reduce carbon emissions and wait it out, we need to start actively pulling carbon out of the air ASAP.

Supply side economics don't work. Hopefully before the pipeline is finished, the demand for fossil fuels will be so low it won't really be used much. But if the demand for is still high and even if there was no pipeline, oil from somewhere else will be used. Demand drives the economy, not supply.

In any case, developing the capability of extracting carbon from the air is imperative. Demand for fossil fuels goes away, we need carbon capture. Demand for fossil fuels stays high, we need carbon capture. People burn oil from Alberta, we need carbon capture. People burn oil from somewhere other than Alberta, we need carbon capture.

Making the oil companies start doing carbon capture is a big win in the fight against global warming. Not the ideal solution, but it's too late for ideal solutions now.

[–] healthetank@lemmy.ca 5 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

The problems I've seen, as an adimittadly casual air-source carbon capture follower, are that no system in use currently can actually prove viable. All the calcs and test samples don't line up with field results. For sure we need to figure out why and make it work, but it being sold as an answer is still extremely suspect

[–] Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca 5 points 21 hours ago

Keeping in mind that this is the Beaverton, the most trusted news in Canada, CCS is just part of the green washing PR so liberals can get that warm fuzzy feeling inside like something is being done when practically things get much worse.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

If it can't be made to work, we're fucked. It sucks that we're dependent on making an unproven technology work, but that's what we've come to.

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 5 points 21 hours ago

The issue is that it continues to be sold as if it does work. It's been used as leverage when proposing more oil projects, and as a greenwashing panacea for politicians, for 20+ years now, despite that it's complete vapourware.

They needed to made to work before it was used as an excuse to drill-baby-drill. Not 30 years later.