Carbon is A Terrible Thing to Waste |
Posted: May 12, 2021 |
As far as Daniel Roberts can see, any invention and new sustainable business initiative listed in the study, which was released last month, is beneficial to society as a whole, unlike, for example, corn-based ethanol. However, not all environmental programs are made equal in terms of future effects.
There are multiple needs but just a few musts for winning the battle against climate change: you must install solar over every parking lot and on every roof to support it. It would help if you drastically reduced tail-pipe pollution. We could provide an electrification/connectivity solution to the fossil-fuel-powered centralized grid infrastructure for the developing world. There are multiple 'wants' but just a few musts for fighting climate change.' Will carbon recovery make a dent in the 36 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere per year from the combustion of fossil fuels? We must find a way to remove the vast majority of the 36 billion tons of CO2 emitted per year from the atmosphere, which means removing it from our economic system. We either avoid burning fossil fuels, which is impossible, or find a more cost-effective way to burn fossil fuels while releasing fewer emissions. Transforming carbon emissions from fossil fuel generation into an economic commodity is more than just a healthy, green business opportunity; it is a spiritual imperative that should weigh heavily on everyone who uses or uses fossil fuels — which, of course, is all of us. Coal Without Carbon?We cannot fix the climate crisis entirely by removing the carbon from coal, but if we do not remove the carbon from coal, we have no hope of fighting the battle against climate change. The 36 billion tons is listed in an article about the growing pattern in carbon recycling. Although we have been interested in carbon capture for many years, we had never used the word "carbon recovery" before reading the State of Green Business. Over the last few years, we've seen the terms shift from CCS to CC-EOR to CCUS, which we think is the American government's new preference phrase for carbon capturing, utilization, and sequestration. We've seen the concept of converting waste carbon into a monetary asset referred to as carbon materialization or carbon beneficiation, but GreenBiz has dubbed it carbon recycling.
Daniel Roberts Newcastle, this semantic evolution results from the harsh recognition that there will not be a carbon price that provides a market-driven opportunity for the oil sector to hide the carbon emissions deep underground. We like the idea of carbon recycling, but we're not sure we like the word. It reminds me of the recycling of aluminum cans, which has been a part of our daily lives since the 1970s but is seen by most people as a social duty — a good deed of little economic benefit — rather than a means for profit incentive. There are recycling firms that have made a decent profit over the years, but none have expanded into Fortune 50 companies that I am aware of. For God's sake, it's 2016, and we're already causing much of society's solid waste to decompose into methane in landfills. When it comes to biomass, we need more than the incremental economics of recycling. We need carbon to become a big industry with a significant bottom-line effect. The oil firms that generate fossil fuels and the power companies that burn them change their business models — and manufacturing technologies — to allow for carbon harvesting. This means that, in addition to working on how to trap and separate waste carbon most efficiently and cost-effectively possible, we must work out how to adhere the CO2 compound molecule to other non-carbon molecules in a way that produces a substance that our capitalist system can pay for. Furthermore, with the vast amount of CO2 emissions we produce, this current carbon product cannot be a niche product. It must be a construction material or other substance that is widely used in culture. A Breakthrough Around The CornerTo use the DOE language, CCUS must be a priority field of R&D for both the public and private sectors. Julio Friedman, who led the DOE's activities in this field until recently and undoubtedly knew more about the prospects for near-term advancement in CCUS than any other person on the planet, is cautiously hopeful that a breakthrough is on the horizon. However, he laments the lack of interest in CCUS, not only among energy firms who might prosper from a new asset source but also among a broad section of the environmental group — citizens who would undoubtedly like to see coal-fired generation reduced to the dustbin of history rather than save it by successfully tackling the carbon crisis. With the business having gone AWOL on this issue, we must look to "carbon entrepreneurs" to save the day. Sir Richard Branson launched the $25 million Virgin Earth Challenge many years back, a multi-year carbon-capture competition that has advanced to a second round.
And if the interests of our brightest and most accomplished engineers stay almost solely concentrated on finding a way to burn fossil fuels, perhaps the army of brilliant, idealistic new engineers will form a competing interest group to bargain for the profits to be made from selling it. So, wherever you are on the sustainability value chain, consider this: 36 billion tons of CO2 a year is a lot of carbon commodity to waste on the environment.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|