Global warming – A capitalist solution?

[alanjjohnstone]

The British propose CCS 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/uk-must-move-now-on-carbon-capture-to-save-consumers-billions-says-report

Is carbon capture and storage (CCS) the panacea capitalism is looking for so that it can be business as usual? 

A US government explanation

https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ccs/

Quote:

 The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that anywhere from 1,800 to 20,000 billion metric tons of CO2 could be stored underground in the United States. That is equivalent to 600 to 6,700 years of current level emissions from large stationary sources in the United States.

The EU view

http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/carbon-capture-and-storage-could

[Dave B]

There was a seminal 500 page work done in 2005 by the IPCC The technical or chemistry issues of economically stripping it out of the gas flumes from power stations using re-generational technology were thought to be the original problem. Storage or what to do with it was not considered to be the serious technological problem or the easy bit. Ie absorbing it onto something then de-sorbing it and thus regenerating the absorbent back to its original condition etc. That kind of technology in general has made huge advances in the last 25 years. As has molecular filter or membrane technology which is less to do with chemistry than material sciences or whatever. And that is being proposed as an alternative methodology. I am reasonably familiar with the general subject as it has become also become part of the standard tool kit for fruit juice adulterators. Thus for instance, depending on prices of course, it is almost old hat technology now stripping out tell-tale (or marker compound) like tartaric acid from grape juice so you can safely use it to cut something more expensive like blackcurrant. Or, using ‘horsemeat’ DNA technology is complete waste of time because as far as us liquid food people are concerned, as they started sieving that out with molecular filters years ago. The real problem is that oil is in fact very cheap at about at 1$ a gallon. I can’t be arsed doing the mass balance equation but stripping out from exhaust fumes and burying a ‘gallon’ of carbon dioxide for some-kind of  fraction of 1$ would seem a capitalist economic challenge?

[Dave B]

I think 1Kg of oil is going to produce about 3kg of carbon dioxide I think ; so i guess if you could strip out one KG and store it underground for 30 cents it would only double the price

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