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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an opportunity cost because the money, resources, and policy focus dedicated to CCS could instead be used for other climate solutions, such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, reforestation, or transportation electrification.
The extent of this cost depends on the technology’s effectiveness, time horizon, and scalability.
If CCS delivers meaningful emissions reductions at a lower cost than the alternatives, then the opportunity cost is low. If it’s expensive and underperforms, investing elsewhere would yield greater benefits.
CCS is a nascent technology, whereas renewables are already cost-effective. If CCS investment delays broader decarbonization, the opportunity cost is high.
If CCS is limited in scale or efficiency, funds would be better spent on systemic changes like grid modernization or industrial decarbonization.
It is argued that CCS is necessary for hard-to-abate sectors like cement, steel, and fossil fuels, so the opportunity cost is justified. However, it ultimately depends on whether CCS delivers better emissions reductions per dollar spent compared to the alternatives.
The AP article, Ocean dumping – or a climate solution? A growing industry bets on the ocean to capture carbon seems to suggest it would be a solution.
Climate modelers are now saying cutting emissions won’t be enough to curb global warming, so we need to actively remove heat-trapping gases, as well from the atmosphere and the ocean would be a logical place to put them. The oceans already regulate Earth’s climate by absorbing heat and carbon, and by comparison to the land it seems limitless, the article suggests.
“Is that huge surface area an option to help us deal with and mitigate the worst effects of climate change?” asked Adam Subhas, lead of a carbon removal project with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Will Burt, chief ocean scientist with Planetary Technologies, which is releasing a mixture of water and magnesium oxide into Halifax Harbour in an effort to absorb planet-warming gases from the atmosphere and put them into the sea, acknowledges his company is entering uncharted territory. ” But the bigger danger for the planet and the oceans is not moving quickly enough,” he says.
The massive bags of magnesium oxide Planetary are using are mined in Spain and shipped across the Atlantic to Canada, which gives you some indication of the kind of costs involved in this kind of effort. But Planetary believes its cost per ton of CO2 will be under $100 per ton.
James Hansen has consistently advocated for a safe level of atmospheric CO2 of about 350 parts per million. One ppm per million in the atmosphere equals 2.1 gigatons of carbon, which equals 7.8 gigatons of CO2, but about 55% of emissions are absorbed by the land and ocean, so 1 part per million of emissions reduction would be 17.3 gigatons of CO2. Assuming $100 per ton and the current CO2 level 425.3, the cost of CCS to attain 350 ppm would be 130.2 trillion dollars (425.3 ppm -350 ppm * $100/ton *17.3 gt) or about $5.2 trillion a year to attain Hansen’s safe level by mid-century.
“It’s like the Wild West. Everybody is on the bandwagon; everybody wants to do something,” said Adina Paytan, who teaches Earth and ocean science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the AP article.
By dumping heat into the ocean with a heat pipe, the carbon follows.
Dumping ocean heat through a heat engine, energy follows.
Dumping ocean heat through a heat engine, climate respite follows.
Dumping ocean heat into the deep occurs in no one’s backyard.
Will everyone’s bandwagons are scurrying of in every direction but the right one, the bandwagon holding the solution is stuck at the station.
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