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How Much Energy Would It Take to Pull Carbon Dioxide out of the Air? (www.wired.com)

submitted 3 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The problem is that this is a theoretical minimum, not an actual, proposed process. We'd need a way to attract CO2 to separate it from the rest of the air, and afaik that doesn't exist. Any actual process is likely to be far less than 100% efficient, probably an order of magnitude or more less.

This is an example of a real proposal, but I have no idea how efficient it is. It would be a lot more helpful if this article provided a realistic example instead of some back-of-the-napkin math.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, I agree it's super inefficient currently. But if the theoretical 100% efficient process is 5% of our current yearly energy expenditure, that sounds promising and suggests we shouldn't just write off the idea.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

Exactly. I want to see some investment into CO2 removal. If that's cheaper than retooling everything, we should do it. If it's not, we should do a little bit of it to help remove the negatives of climate change as we transition to a more responsible society.

I say we tax carbon emissions at around the theoretical removal cost, and then use some of that to invest in removal tech.

[–] shrugs@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We'd need a way to attract CO2 to separate it from the rest of the air, and afaik that doesn't exist.

Call me crazy but what about plants and trees?! 🤷🏼‍♂️

They might not be 100% efficient but it's dirt cheap to plant them, let alone not destroy the rest we still have

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

That's important too, but it doesn't scale very quickly, and requires a lot of space (read: lifestyle changes).