the sucking it out part sounds like a good idea. the reusing it part doesn't. i'd rather see it pumped underground, where it came from. but, then, where's the business model?

and, fast-forward two-hundred years when we're dealing with dangerously low levels of greenhouse gasses, because we're sucking them all down to drive to work.

we can make this stop. we have better technologies - but they're less profitable. that's why we need to forget about the private sector and look towards government. the private sector has never been able to create any sort of real innovation; it's always comes from massive state investment into technology, and mostly through university research. from the manhatten project to the internet and beyond, the private sector has very little to show for itself in terms of true innovation. it just profits off of state-funded research.

yet, when faced with a serious crisis, we turn to the private sector for answers instead of government? that's completely irrational.

the private sector can do things like grow apples.

but, you can't expect it to succeed in achieving anything complicated, as the profit motive will interfere.

serious problems need to be solved by government.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/carbon-capture-squamish-1.3263855

KevinMcKinney
I don't think we'll ever see this process creating dangerously low levels of CO2; certainly in today's context, the risk is all the other way.

Should your scenario ever come to pass, it would be pretty simple to fix; just recycle less...

jessica murray
this creates a business model that is no less threatening to climate sustainability. you shouldn't be using the term "recycle"; it's not a valid comparison. but, scaling down production would decrease profits.

it'd be great if we could call up exxon, explain the crisis to them and have them scale down production. but, it's almost comically absurd.

again: we have better technology. but, it's less profitable. so, we need governments to develop it.

Commenter42
You get that the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere during that drive to work, don't you? It would be a cycle, where it's captured, turned into fuel, the fuel is burned, it's released again, the captured, and so on.

jessica murray
it'll never work like that. corporations are driven purely by profit motives.

there's absolutely no reason to hold on to obsolete technologies, other than an aversion to change.

to put it another way, you're putting faith in the corporate sector to regulate the carbon in the atmosphere. but, if that faith were well rooted, then we wouldn't be in this problem in the first place. it's not an answer. the answer is to stop polluting.

if you break it down, it's a technical question about demand. if you assume that demand keeps growing, it hits a point where we're sucking down more than we've emitted. that's why we need two hundred years to get there. but, it's inevitable.

in two hundred years, we might have anti-matter or something. fair enough. but, why bother? we have a plethora of other options.

Commenter42
I agree about the profit motives of corporations, but if the technology is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to fuels whose consumption returns it to the atmosphere, how is the profit drive going to change that? That's what the technology is! I get that money can twist things along the way, but I don't get how this leads to too little CO2 in the atmosphere.

Demand for fuel means that fuel is being consumed. Consuming the fuel releases the CO2 back into the atmosphere. This is similar to trees sequestering CO2 until they die and decompose (or burn) and releasing it again. Unless someone is stockpiling such an enormous amount of fuel that it actually affects atmospheric concentrations (and the cost of this would be gigantic, with no purpose), then I don't see how your breakdown works. Even if this were to happen, there's a simple solution--burn it.

Somehow, you've managed to make me sound like a right-wing corporate shill, but that is not the case. I'm commenting only on the possibilities for such technology (I don't know whether it can even live up to these possibilities yet).

jessica murray
first, you always have to have more fuel available than is being consumed. second, pulling it in and out is not the same thing as letting it sit. i want to be clear that i understand your argument, but it's just sort of a naive understanding. if you envision the system as working as though you have a pipe from your car to the factory [a conceptual oversimplification that demonstrates the point], you can conceptualize how it breaks the greenhouse effect, even if emissions are continual.

where the serious potential problem arises is when the net pull begins to exceed the net output, since whatever year. let's say 1980. then, the net effect is actually a reversal of the greenhouse effect, and we should see global cooling.

and, if you assume rising demand and depleting carbon reserves, you can set the date on your calendar.

Commenter42
So you're saying that a simplified model of the system, a factory, a fuel pipe to a consuming device, a device that consume the fuel and releases the CO2 somehow leads to a breaking of the CO2 effect?? It's that simple model I'm using to say the opposite. Where is the break?

jessica murray
i'm sorry that you're not able to make sense of the points. i'll try a few different ways to present it.

you seem to be ignoring the fact that oil is a non-renewable resource, and that we're either very close to or past peak oil. if you set up a system like this, then the atmosphere eventually becomes the only remaining carbon reservoir, and the only way to continue to meet increasing demand is to pull an increasing net amount down. it's not and can't be carbon neutral, unless we halt all growth. and, as mentioned, that's in addition to the necessity of having fuel stores.

the "recycling" part of this [and there's energy in, so it's not really recycling, but let's ignore that] can only cycle around if we assume a stagnant economy. you can only get enough cycling to maintain existing demand. x out only allows for x in (under ideal technology). but x is consistently increasing. so, we will need to pull more and more down. and, the curve will eventually intersect, so long as demand continues to rise.

so, consider the pipe-to-factory conceptualization. that can meet existing net demand. but, as demand increases, we have to pull more and more down out of the atmospheric reservoir. the amount that we're cycling will continue to increase, as growth increases. but, we'll need to pull more and more down to meet new demand. then, we'll be looking at decreasing ppms and a threat of global cooling.

it's just putting off a transition we need to make, anyways. right now, we're hurdling towards venus; this will reverse the curve and send us hurdling towards mars. we need to find a way to maintain our middle point.