Continuing the discussion of Malm's new book, "Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency", here's a thread about the eco-modernist assumptions of carbon capture storage. Malm praises Climework's direct air carbon capture (DACC) tech. A study from earlier in the year found that: 1/6

1) Producing the materials required for DACC units to absorb 30 gigatons of CO2 per year (we currently emit roughly 36gt) would use 12-20% of 2017’s total global energy supply.

2) It would also produce huge — and potentially dangerous — levels of chlorine gas. 2/6

3) There are two forms of DACC. The “low energy” version would use 18-34% of the total global energy supply in the carbon capture process while the higher energy version would use 35-51%. 3/6

4) All in all, if the high energy, high resource, version of DACC were used to capture 30gt of CO2 it could require as much as 110-191% of the total global energy supply. 4/6

The paper concludes that while DACC might “offer some commercial opportunities” it is a “significant distraction with negligible contributions to mitigating climate changes.” The study can be read here. Other studies come to similar conclusions. 5/6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17203-7

This doesn't mean DACC is useless but it makes no sense to focus on it — in the hope of efficiency gains — when we need to *reduce* our energy consumption. We should instead expand and protect natural carbon sinks: regen ag, peatlands, forests, diversified ecosystems, etc. 6/6