I do not have a strong objection to Direct Air Capture, by which I am referring to direct air capture at centralized facilities using industrial processes. I am not commenting on distributed methods of direct air capture using biological means or chemical weathering.
I have an objection to presenting industrialized direct air capture as something that has good potential for substantially reducing climate risk this century. Were I running a federal research program, I would support research into industrialized direct air capture. I was responding to Greg Rau's question about business model. Insofar as these companies are real businesses, they must be in the business of selling CO2, not reducing climate risk. There is a danger in presenting industrialized Direct Air Capture as something that can substantially and affordably reduce climate risk this century. It can give people the impression that it is OK to emit CO2 now because if things do get really bad, we will be able to suck it back out of the atmosphere later. It should not be represented as a serious candidate for near-term climate risk reduction. Doing so could increase climate risk this century. On the other hand, industrialized Direct Air Capture might play a role in climate risk reduction in the end game. For example, maybe climate change is a real disaster, we have already deployed SRM and nearly all anthropogenic sources of CO2 have been eliminated. In this case, industrialized air capture of CO2 might be a way to get out of continued SRM deployment. ----- Incidentally, I notice that the term "Direct Air Capture" generates a lot of confusion, since plants and distributed chemical weathering processes also capture CO2 directly from the air, yet people often use 'DAC' to refer only to centralized industrial direct air capture of CO2. We need a clear term that refers to these centralized industrial direct air capture approaches and distinguishes them from distributed biological or geochemical approaches. On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 8:44 AM, John Gorman <[email protected]> wrote: > ** > " *the strong rejection of DAC by Dr. Caldeira", Is this available > somewhere? did I miss it?* > ** > *thanks* > ** > *john gorman* > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* [email protected] > *To:* Robert H. Socolow <[email protected]> ; > Geoengineering<[email protected]> > *Cc:* [email protected] ; Ken Caldeira <[email protected]>; > Oliver > Morton <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Sunday, March 25, 2012 8:02 PM > *Subject:* Re: [geo] Calgary meeting on Direct Air Capture - thoughts? > > Prof. Socolow, list, etal > > 1. Thanks for your DAC response (in full below). I have now spent a > good bit of time on the excellent Ppt you prepared for the Calgary > meeting, and I have also re-read the full APS report. > > If anyone has a way of getting more of such Calgary-presented PPt > material made available, that would be very helpful. Anyone know of any > plans to make more of the Calgary dialog available? > > > 2. We have now had plenty of time for some defense from DAC > supporters. It is unfortunate that there has been none. It would seem > you have won the battle - but I still hope to hear more from the four DAC > corporations or anyone else at the Calgary meeting. * I support the > strong rejection of DAC by Dr. Caldeira, * > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
