The U.S. Government Will Pay to Remove Carbon From Atmosphere
The U.S. Government Will Pay to Remove Carbon From Atmosphere
The key climate technology lands a big customer.
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I'll note that this is a tiny and incredibly expensive part of what needs to happen
They should do it with ocean water instead, as water has 50x's more carbon than the atmosphere.
Also, fossil fuels companies are going to cite the work funded by the government to continue spewing pollution. Mark my words.
Would that be done through mineralizing the carbon that's dissolved in the water? I remember hearing about some mineral you could spread in the water that would react with the carbon. I wonder what it would take to produce and spread that at scale with a low re-emission rate.
There is discussion around enhanced rock weathering, but none of it is a proved technology at this point, even at pilot scale, in the way that direct air capture is.
That’s a bingo!
alternative link (also bypasses paywall): https://archive.ph/h0KNS
Interesting, but there's no mention in the article of the $/ton CO2 they will pay that I could see.
Presumably it will have to be close to the market (say $100 $/ton today?).
If they go lower there will be no uptake, if they go much higher they will burn through the $3.5B and only achieve a short blip in the market for no real long term benefit.
But I imagine $3.5B used carefully might have some interesting effects.
Edit: I'm not sure $3.5B is the relevant number (but the only one quoted in the article).