On paper, carbon capture is a simple proposition: Take carbon that we’ve pulled out of the Earth in the form of coal and oil and put into the atmosphere, and pull it out of the atmosphere and put it back in the Earth. It’s like hitting undo on the Industrial Revolution. And scientists can indeed yank CO2 out of thin air, except that the process is expensive, not very efficient, and morally complicated.
Direct air capture, as it’s known, is one of several negative emissions technologies, or NETs, that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine explored in a massive report released last week. On the bright side of things, the authors found that strategies to get the Earth itself to reabsorb that CO2, for instance by building out forests, are effective and relatively simple. And that if we pour money into researching them, higher-tech options, like filtering CO2 out of the air and storing it underground, could go a long way in cutting back emissions.
Problem, though: Who would pay for a company to sequester carbon underground? It’s like buying a new car and sealing it up in a cave. How to you incentivize the development of a technology if you can’t get rich off it?
Read more at Wired