August 17, 2023 Update — CBS News anchor Errol Barnett interviewed Washington Post reporter Evan Halper about the multibillion dollar “Giant Direct Air Capture Vacuums” being built in Texas and Louisiana, and planned for other states. Halper said, “You just need to look outside to know the situation is desperate, and [ . . . ] we’re way behind where we need to be in terms of cutting emissions, in terms of transitioning away from fossil fuels, and so we’re looking at these other kind of moonshot ideas [ . . . . ] There is a case to be made that they can be part of a solution, but [ . . . ] on the flip side there is worry [ . . . ] these technologies that don’t really even work yet are going to give people a sense of complacency that [ . . . ] there is a technological solution to this, and lifestyles don’t need to be changed, and this is getting figured out when it really isn’t.” In response, I agree with Al Gore and former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao below. Tao said, “Any form of direct air capture by industrial method will not be able to work at scale, and to make a measurable impact to the climate crisis in less than several centuries of time. The basic reason is the process of demixing the air is a highly energy-intensive process. Just imagine if you had to separate a pile of well-mixed salt and pepper [ . . . . ]”
In other words, the Vacuums seem as crazy as the “BASH operation fails” scene in the film Don’t Look Up — except this time the stakes are real life. It was amusing/terrifying, in a tragicomedy-way, when Barnett asked Halper in the CBS News Vacuum story above, “This is the kind of thing that sounds like a joke, right? Is this a parody? I’m wondering are we out of ideas as far as just putting less CO2 into the atmosphere?”
Similarly, in Gore’s TED Talk above at 14:05, he shows what looks like long pillow cases behind a Direct Air Capture Vacuum. Gore says, “This is state of the art. Looks pretty impressive, doesn’t it?” Audience laughter can be heard, to which Gore replies, “I had the same thought. [ . . . . ] They’re improving this, and [in] the new model seven years from now each of these machines is going to be able to capture 27 seconds worth of annual emissions.”
President Biden should have listened to Gore’s recent angry TED Talk before Biden continued to support “$1.2 billion to help build the nation’s first two commercial-scale plants to vacuum carbon dioxide pollution” as quoted by New York Times reporter Coral Davenport August 11, 2023. She added, “The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law included $3.5 billion to fund the construction of four commercial-scale direct air capture plants. Friday’s announcement covered the first two.” Davenport summarized Gore’s above TED Talk, “Gore gave a blistering critique of direct air capture technology, calling its use a ‘moral hazard’ that would enable fossil fuel producers to continue to pollute. [par break] ‘It’s useful to give them an excuse for not ever stopping oil,’ he said. ‘That gives them a license to continue producing more and more oil and gas.’ [par break] Mr. Gore noted that the current cost of direct air capture technology was extraordinarily high and that the process required so much energy that it would make more sense to prevent carbon emissions in the first place rather than try to clean them up after the fact. Oil and gas companies say that the costs will fall and that the processes will improve in the coming years.”
Regarding that last sentence above, in my February 19, 2022 post, I quoted former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao, “Any form of direct air capture by industrial method will not be able to work at scale, and to make a measurable impact to the climate crisis in less than several centuries of time. The basic reason is the process of demixing the air is a highly energy-intensive process. Just imagine if you had to separate a pile of well-mixed salt and pepper. So to create order out of disorder takes a lot of energy, and that is guaranteed by the laws of thermodynamics. So it doesn’t really matter how much engineering you put onto it. We need an operation the size of the U. S. Military six thousand years [ . . . ] to really achieve what these companies are calling for.”
Al Gore should have ended his TED Talk with a more angry, “DIVEST NOW!” He should have mentioned the need to “Dynamite The Energy Charter Treaty” noted by Dr Julia Steinberger July 9, 2023 at Nick Breeze ClimateGenn. Steinberger noted, “[Big Oil companies] have been acting in such a way that their social license should be removed.” Céline Keller’s comic book Dawn Of The ECT, available in multiple languages, was highlighted.
President Biden must listen to former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao.
Last week I told a professor about Michael Mann’s October 2020 claim, as noted 24:35 in Gore’s TED Talk, “Once the world reaches net zero CO2 emissions global temperatures will stop increasing in as soon as three to five years.” Crossing tipping points, it seems, may make this a missed opportunity.
Regarding level of crisis, writer/editor Jeff Goodell said in a Jul 21, 2023 Ten Across video at 40:47 geoengineering is “a very dangerous idea [ . . . ] a lot of people tell me personally I should not be talking about, and [ . . . . ] we don’t know how things will go, if this will mess up the monsoons that bring water for millions of people in Asia. It could have all kinds of unexpected consequences, but I think that it’s an important thing to talk about openly because we are moving in that direction. I think it’s an important thing to have good legitimate scientists really looking at it so we understand better what the risks are, and I think it’s emblematic of the really dumb stuff we may be doing as this emergency gets deeper and deeper, and clearer and clearer. And we’re going in that direction. It’s a doable thing, and I kind of think, to be honest, it’s inevitable for better or for worse. And that’s a very scary thought.”
It was reported by DW News, August 24, 2022, China used geoengineering, as the country said it would, in a desperate effort to save it’s 2022 fall harvest.
I’m grateful The Washington Post reporter Kate Selig wrote August 14, 2023, “Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision.” She noted, it’s “the first ruling of its kind nationwide,” and “The ruling could influence how judges handle similar cases in other states.” My June 5, 2023 post noted, “Juliana v. United States filed by Our Children’s Trust is back on. According to a June 1, 2023 Associated Press article at columbian.com, the 2015 suit was heard by ‘A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [that] dismissed the case in 2020 after finding that [U.S. District Court Judge] Aiken lacked the power to order or design a climate recovery plan sought in the lawsuit. [par break] The plaintiffs then filed an amended complaint asking to change their lawsuit to seek a ruling that the nation’s fossil fuel-based energy system is unconstitutional.’”
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