RE: DNA FIRMS CAN NOW TRACK ANYONE, ANYWHERE - Daily Spigot 10/16/18
$94 per ton... Well, that certainly seems cheap, but is it? Let's see how much it would cost to remove our annual CO2 emission from the air if we could keep doing it for $94 per ton (The required components would rocket up in prices, so that's not at all realistic, but let's just say IF)...
In 2015, we emitted just a bit more than 36 billion tonnes of CO2. If we wish to use this technology to turn that amount into 0, we would have to suck 36 billion tonnes of CO2 out of the air yearly. (This is data from 3 years ago, it's probably a bit more by now).
36 billion tonnes of CO2 at $94 per ton gives a total cost of more than $3 trillion. $3 trillion is a HUGE amount of money. And this isn't just a one-time expense... If we suck the CO2 out now, but simply keep producing it, the CO2 levels will stay exactly the same for 1 year and then start rising again. So we have to pay $3 trillion PER YEAR.
There are some more problems with this idea, such as the large amount of surface area it would have to cover and disturbance of local ecosystems due to a lack of CO2.
So we can decide to pay $3 trillion per year to suck CO2 out of the air, or we can invest in Renewable Energy. For me, the choice is clear: That CO2 sucking really got some problems to fix before it becomes viable!
Sure, the things you point out certainly reveal this tech is no cure-all, but since you bring up the cost aspect, I'll address that first. It's pretty well known that "money" in today's world is more a concept than anything of real value, so what would stop those who print money now, to just print more, when it IS, after all, to save the planet and the life upon it?
Seriously, the machinery to suck the CO2 out of the air is in its infancy. The design and efficiency of it can certainly be improved upon if the greatest minds we have spend some time making it so. The people who built this, themselves made incredible progress so far, reducing the original cost to a fraction of what it was originally. What they have it at now, has already made it more economically acceptable. I also don't think it has to pull 100% of existing CO2 out; if it pulls out enough to keep us even, it's worth it. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't continue pursuing ways to reduce carbon emissions either. I'm presenting this as one part of a complex solution, and my belief is this can help immensely. With massive production of and deployment of Magnesite, working in tandem with the CO2 extractor, there's no doubt they could aid together with other efforts. Simply complaining about global warming and engaging in political bickering (which is how it's being handled currently) doesn't help to solve anything at all.
Since you didn't comment on the potential of producing man-made Magnesite and putting it everywhere, I wonder what your thoughts on its use to help with the situation are.
In "pinning" those poems to all my Daily Spigot posts, I'm simply asking whoever reads them, to consider why no one is looking into improving these potential solutions for use in leveraging the man-made factors that cause the excess CO2, ALONG with say, wanting emissions reduced. IMO, pursuing all avenues to tackle the issues seems to me, the right thing to do. Right now we have problems and the only solutions offered are complaining loudly, and doing little to nothing on helping to attack the existing problem itself. As it stands, these potential aids get a media mention once in a while, but no one seems to be interested in perfecting them for use, especially the extractor.
I'm looking for real solutions to the actual problem, and the fact that there seems to be little to no interest in the media, or by activist groups on either side, to what are exciting possibilities that could make maybe some impact, is a problem itself. After months of those poems being here, yours is the first response, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but your reply seems an effort to downplay and ridicule what is an actual possible and potential aid in defeating global warming. I don't believe "cost" prohibits us working to save ourselves and our world.
Who exactly is driving the current, ineffective narrative anyway, and for what purpose? What does telling the world over and over that there's a problem, exacerbated by disagreements which won't allow people with cooler heads to prevail in execution of solutions, and the whole time, doing nothing to actually show that maybe we can do something that can possibly help, instead of just being reminded of how scared we should be?