There’s an interesting post on carbon capture and sequestration at FiveThirtyEight. Here’s the kernel:
Today, there are 19 large-scale commercial carbon capture and sequestration facilities1 operating around the world, 10 of which are in the United States, according to the Global CCS Institute. All of them are pulling carbon dioxide out of the emissions from an associated factory or power plant. Systems that pull CO2 out of the ambient air, like the ones Andrew referenced in his question, do exist. They’re just harder and more expensive to operate because the concentration of CO2 in the air is so much lower, Nemet said. “At a power plant, 10 to 20 percent of what goes up the smokestack is CO2, compared to .04 percent in the air,†he said.
So generally speaking, the technology of carbon capture is ready to go. The problem with CCS is that it doesn’t really have a destination, said Dan Lashof, U.S. director of the nonprofit World Resources Institute.
Other climate-adjacent industries, such as electric vehicles and solar photovoltaics, have grown rapidly in the past decade. But Lashof pointed out the other industries offer benefits outside of their climate impact. “Solar is generating electricity you can sell. Electric cars are really fun and fast and you don’t have to go to the gas station. There’s a market for that independent of climate benefits,†he said.
In a world where trapped carbon emissions are essentially worthless, there’s not much reason for companies to invest in a technology that does nothing but reduce carbon emissions, experts told me. Wind, solar and electric cars were all able to start small and build on niche demand. But CCS hasn’t really been able to do either of those things, said Howard Herzog, senior research engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative.
Short version: the real problem with CCS isn’t technological but economic, i.e. monetizing it. The problem I have with carbon taxes is that I think they’re unworkable. Since they’re regressive in order to make them work you’ve got to make the rates very high and and make them very complicated. It also provides an argument for a carbon trading system. The problem with carbon trading systems is that they provide too much opportunity for gaming the system.
Implementing CCS on power generation or cement production facilities seems to me a lot less objectionable than either.
A huge problem is that societies around the world grant numerous favors to breeders, in taxes, health benefits, education, family leave, child care and housing. Breeders need to be taxed instead for their increased load on the planet. I figure I’ve already done my bit for “climate change” by not breeding, though I admit that a man never knows for sure.