Catastrophic Carbon Removal. How the 'Big Solution' is failing badly. 

Since we keep putting our hopes on technology that does not yet exist and kicking the ball down the line, I predict we will soon have to rely on time travel.

"We will go down in history as the first society to not save itself because it isn't cost effective."-Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I think seaweed farming may be the best bet to drawdown carbon. Some of the fastest growing plants on the planet, they can be used as food and animal food as well as processed into more stable forms that lock carbon up. There are risks to seaweed farms but bushfires isn't one of them. Would like it if you considered doing a video on the potential for seaweed farming. Thanks.

By working as a panning officer pushing better insulation in a couple of city boroughs I think I can probably say I've personally made more of an impact on global carbon levels than to the whole carbon capture industry 😅

I guess most human beings recognize the ability of big companies / research institutions to essentially "game the system " and simply have big flashy buildings with people in white coats and lots of graphics showing the impending doom - our first step in reducing carbon is to seriously reduce " soft " corruption but i suspect sadly humans as a group are incapable of doing that - but i thank you Dave for tirelessly trying to point out those anomalies

I've been watching Dave's excellent videos for years now and I always come away better informed. But every so often after watching one of these videos I find I have to sit with what has been presented and have a little cry. This was one of such videos. Doomerism is unfashionable, but the line between doomerism and being realistic is very blurred indeed.

Hi Dave, thank you once again. As a soil scientist and 30yr veteran of Australia's carbon wars I would like to make 2 points. Firstly we are at war, the fossil fuel industry profits from war and the fertilizer industry was born from war. Since the earliest days the carbon industry has been targeted as an enemy, the list of dirty tricks is long. My second point is that we have the capacity to store carbon at the scale needed. The state of agricultural and forest soils is heartbreaking. We are also facing what some scientists call phosphorgeddon, where we are simultaneously running out of rock phosphate whilst destroying waterways with too much phosphorus. This is an inflection point, the solutions to climate change are also the solutions to food insecurity. The solutions to climate change are also the solutions to biodiversity loss. The solutions are beautiful and that has to be the message.

I've been thinking about how to stay a decent person in all of this mess and realized that actually growing thousand of valuable trees per year and giving it away is not unattainable or particularly time consuming for an ordinary bread eater with a piece of land. I'm still learning grafting but definitely will go for it

When citing research, especially climate-related research, it’s always helpful to not only say who did the study, but also who funded it.

Our real problem is not a technological one; it is a social or behavioral issue. We have the technology to solve any number of humanities problems including climate change and its cause ecological overshoot. However, as a species we do not have the social capacity to respond in an effective way. You could consider the whole human species to be suffering from an addiction problem where there are no non-addictive support systems to help us stop and no way to clear our system to get sober. That's not even talking about carbon, that's all about the game of wealth and the way it coopts every bit of society's energies. You cannot do anything unless someone makes money off it, and that generally requires subverting the game so the goal is lost. We don't talk about the progress of projects to solve our problem, we talk about how much money we spend or make on them. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: As long as we measure our survival in monetary terms, we cannot afford to survive.

2023 update - We're still bingeing like pigs and found out that diet pills don't work -

There's a growing movement of people going back to abandoned areas and living off the land nurturing. I love this thinking.

So well explained and with such manner and appropriate tone of voice. Always a pleasure to watch your channel, keep up the good work! Thank you!

Thank you for making such complex issues comprehensible to non-scientists like me. Please keep doing it.

The emphasis tends to be on co2, but methane is 2 orders of magnitude more potent as a greenhouse gas. Tap the dumps!

Thank you Dave, another lovely insight from yours. We are doomed, but it's a consolation to be in such good company.

So sad, that so many people, so much of the time, don't think about the climate crisis....

Yet again, you have done an excellent job of succinctly wringing out the details on our climate dilemma. Thank you. I lament that humans have demonstrated so clearly that acquiring personal wealth today is more important than quickly moving to establish sustainable and sensible energy systems for our great grandchildren tomorrow. That those great grandchildren will look back on all of us with distain for the hell-on-earth we have left them, is sadly understandable; and shamefully tragic. Pray for a miracle.

Dave - please cover Precision Fermentation and the implications. This is how I see it. “Precision Fermentation” can be thought of as a clever way to get more efficient than photosynthesis. It uses solar panels to split water for hydrogen, which is what photosynthesis does to combine that hydrogen with carbon from the air and nutrients from the soil to make our food. But plants only get 6% of the sunlight. The crop must grow and maintain itself, and we only eat part of that crop. Sometimes we eat less than 1% of that incoming sunlight, and it’s often mostly carbohydrates when what we really want is more protein. But now scientists use solar panels to get 20% of the sunlight, and split water at about 80% efficiency for hydrogen so now we’re at 16% of that sunlight. Then they feed that hydrogen directly to hydrogen-eating bacteria, and with a little water and a few mineral fertilisers, it can produce all the proteins and fats we want. It’s such an efficient and direct means of brewing up food that the implications are completely revolutionary! “Brave Robot” are already selling Precision Fermentation ice cream, and there are PF cream cheeses and Palm Oils! It’s food from tiny factories - not farms. It’s reliable, mostly immune from the droughts and floods and plagues and pandemics of nature. Soon we’ll have white protein for chicken nuggets, darker proteins for burgers, and even strips of stuff like bacon. It will destroy the modern cattle and livestock industries and even some crops like palm oil and vegetable oils. This will return so much land to nature that we can let 3 TRILLION TREES regrow, solving climate change! Watch George Monbiot’s 6 minute summary. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6eaTIe_TBZA.html Read his article - and google it. It’s amazing! www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/green-technology-precision-fermentation-farming More on 3 TRILLION TREES. We have lost a third of our forests to both crops and grazing - 2 billion hectares. It took 9,000 years to lose the first billion hectares - an area the size of the United States. Then in the last 100 years we cut down the next billion hectares! 2 Billion hectares of forest are gone - a third of the world's forests - largely to grow crops and graze cattle. If we eat Precision Fermentation 'meats' instead of animals or fish, we can let those forests regrow and the oceans recover. We only eat just over half the crops we grow - we feed a third to animals and more to industry for jokes like ethanol. When we stop eating meat, we can stop growing a third of our crops - and let that return to forest or grasslands. When we stop the farce that is ethanol crops and use EV's instead - we can return the industrial croplands to forest or grassland. Regrowing the third of our forests lost to agriculture will solve climate change. The maths is simple. At an average of 1,600 trees per hectare multiplied by the 2 billion hectares of forest to be regrown that's 3.2 TRILLION trees. We know just 1 TRILLION trees would sequester a third of our historical carbon emissions. Therefore 3.2 TRILLION trees would sequester it all! Precision Fermentation could solve climate change! (We haven't even calculated how much carbon will be trapped as the ocean ecosystems recover as we stop overfishing, nor have we calculated what happens if we let grasslands recover to natural levels of soil carbon.) And it's in a factory, protected from the whims of nature like droughts and floods and locust plagues and diseases and even pandemics from wet-markets in China. It prevents animal cruelty. It regrows various forest ecosystems, providing a home for precious bugs and birds and animals and critters, solving the biodiversity crisis. It ensures we have ample timber for building the CLT wooden ecocities of the future. Surely PF is the most hopeful technology since the energy transition? **STATISTICS:** **FOREST LOSS:** "Two billion hectares of forest - an area twice the size of the United States - has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and use for fuelwood." ourworldindata.org/deforestation#the-world-has-lost-one-third-of-its-forests-but-an-end-of-deforestation-is-possible **AVERAGE TREES** of 1,600 trees per hectare nhsforest.org/how-many-trees-can-be-planted-hectare/ **1 TRILLION trees** = 1/3 historical emissions www.plant-for-the-planet.org/trillion-trees/ **CROP USE:** "Just 55 percent of the world's crop calories are actually eaten directly by people. Another 36 percent is used for animal feed. And the remaining 9 percent goes toward biofuels and other industrial uses." www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed American maths show the USA could be carbon-neutral. www.rethinkx.com/food-and-agriculture-executive-summary

Love your videos, they are like Candy to a techy. The solution might not be so much based on new technologies but on changing our paradigm. It takes about 15 years for new technologies to be implemented. Example: when power came from steam engines and water wheels, machinery was put in a line to tap power off of a common shaft. When electric motors came along, it took years before machines were arranged in more functional configurations. In the same way, we are trying to use electric cars like ICE cars, but it would make a lot more sense to use them as smaller, NEV (neighborhood electric vehicles) and use mass transit options between urban centers. In every area there are existing simple solutions that are not adopted due to inertia. As a species, we tend to stay in our comfort zone until there is a crisis.

If you tell the people how calamitously they're screwing everything up, they will either scorn you or crucify you. I've been trying to educate people about the horrorof human overshoot, they replied with everything up to crucifixion. I've given up on everything but acceptance.

As ever a thoroughly researched piece of information. Very much appreciated. We have to unleash consumer power. Stop buying, stop flying

Many thanks for your continuous effort to keep us informed 👋🏽👋🏽👋🏽

I'm in the "Garden Hose to The Sky" camp. I was so taken with it when I read SUPERFREAKINOMICS. So simple, so elegant. And as of this year we are super closer to a space elevator. We can run the siphon hose up the elevator housing. ... Anyway...

Possibly one of the most useful and informative videos on RU-vid. And possible one of the most depressing. It isn't just school children that fear for the future.

Mechanical Carbon Removal on a LARGE GLOBAL scale is just impossible. It would require more energy to run than what we produce. Plus the ridiculously massive amount of raw material needed to built such infrastructures. Not enough sand not enough copper etc etc. Just impossible.

As always excellent content !

Excellent video. Thanks Dave! Calling it like it is. So a transition to plant based diets (70% of agricultural land is used to feed animals that people eat) would vastly increase land that could be reverted to wilderness and thus capture carbon. Capitalism seems to be having a very difficult time delivering the kind of change we need. What about enacting political measures that prioritize nature’s and humanity’s survival rather than making some people rich?

You hit the nail on the head exactly! I have been researching this topic from the biomass to syngas through gasification for about 20 years. It dawned on me at the time that instead of putting a wood gasifier in a truck bed, have a stationary gasifier and make methanol to put in the tank. The woodgas people I guess couldn't grasp the concept that if you can produce methane, you can produce methanol. It is a holy grail I have been passionately pursuing. I have studied about Mobil Oils MTG (methanol to gas) using the zsm-5 catalyst they accidently discovered. I have read about the oil companies pumping hydrogen into the underground CO2 storage caverns. Over time it produces methane (natural gas) and water, to be later pumped out and turned into gasoline and other hydrocarbons. SO, in conclusion. It smells like a big con job. Tax credits and great PR for investing in carbon capture, maybe some federal taxpayer money to boot. Meantime they squeeze every last penny out of petroleum until they are regulated out of that business. Wow, neverending big corporate (centralized) money machine. THAT'S why I search for the holy grail (catalyst) to decentralize the stranglehold.

I’ve often wondered whether, by the very fact that most plastics take many years to degrade and contain a lot of carbon, that waste plastics sealed as bales and buried, could be an effective method of carbon capture?

Thank you for this.

I’m so glad you changed your screen composition a couple of months ago. The triptych symmetry made you look like a talking Greek Orthodox Icon, which I found difficult not to worship. 😊

Brilliant summary and well presented as normal. One of the things I wish my (Australian) gov't would do would be to sponsor some carbon capture and reduction plants for our Pacific island neighbours, e.g. wind-turbine powered enclosed duckweed plants (wind power to run LED night lights, rollers and dehydration etc.) so the duckweed can be used as organic matter for soil productivity, bio-gas, biofuel and perhaps pyrolysis to carbon stock for export; and some 24x7 enclosed giant bamboo farms to act as wood substitute for local construction and export. Both of which can also be feed the exhaust of their electric generators etc. as a carbon source to help accelerate the duckweed and bamboo growth.

I think it is possible to have a ramp up to five orders of magnitude, but I don't think that would be possible without a huge governmental role. Like the New Deal in the USA or massive infrastructure projects in the USSR. If the government sets a goal and then directs resources toward reaching that goal, I do think it is possible. The issue is, as with most of this, whether there is the political will to do it.

Thank you for publishing this.

Thank You for the information.

Great video, even though it paints an unpleasant picture, but one that we need more people to face up to. The problem is always that people won't change until their life is severely impacted (when it will be too late). Thank you for your excellent research and for keeping me better educated on so many topics :) I agree completely that CDR is essential, but I can't see it happening...

Love the just have a think series, would be good to have one on one with the good climate sceptics on RU-vid that make great arguments that nobody is disputing……

It’s always going to take more energy to put a puzzle together than to take it apart.

Great video. You bummed me out in the nicest possible way. Thanks!?

Well, this is a sad and unexpected bit of news. No easy technological fixes here. It's scary to think we are dependent on the fossil industry to ramp up Carbon Removal technology.

There is no functioning carbon capture facility today, every single one is actually burning more carbon than they store. Not saying it will never possible to store carbon big scale but it makes no economic sense

Excellent presentation on the subject of carbon capture. Straightened out a lot of my questions

Always wondered why ocean fertilisation didn’t catch on. By all accounts the test off Canadas west coast was a success. A nice side effect was an increase in fish population.

25 or so years ago, if we bet on nuclear and gas instead of wind and solar, we would be in a much more comfortable situation now. And we can still do it, we do have the time, and then we can wait for breakthrough techs.

Iron fertilization of the oceans is the only realistic way to go and has a lot of upsides (reversible, more fish etc..) but eco-cultists judged it as bad because of "reasons"

You’re such a legend cheers great episode

Well done!

There was a paper recently on the effect of the ash from the Australian black summer on the carbon capture capacity of the ocean where it fell. Apparently it was a great demonstration of ocean fertilisation for carbon capture. Can you look into it please?

Brilliantly presented, as usual Dave!! Well done, please keep going !!!!

I Really Enjoyed Today's Video And I Definitely Learned Something About This Video

Five years..well done Dave.

DAC is like frantically entering cheat codes on the game over screen.

I love these regular ramblings! Keep up the good work! 😊

carbon sequester in wood is only a temporary storage... like the bogs in the arctic, they will eventually release whether in through rot, burning and such.

We all need to start adopting UNEP's current stategy to focus on the triple planetary crisis of climate, biodiversity, and pollution/waste. And climate is not an umbrella but sibling, overlapping crisis. Some of these carbon dioxide removal approaches like BECCS, afforestation, soil carbon capture will damage already strained biodiversity and ecosystems and byproducts in a non-circular economy will exacerbate pollution. Simply, we need more nature-based solutions (NbS), consumption pattern and production process change, and not geoengineered or tech solutions. NbS may not be sexy or fast but in long run rebalances the Earth System. We need to restore degraded ecosystems in the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration not more land use changes that have fragmented and destroyed natural habitats. Biodiversity also has its tipping points, positive feedbacks, and accelerating extinction rate trajectory. Let's not be razor focused on climate but on totality of our nature crises! Let's bring back Just Have Another Think and get Dave to wear and think more green!

I have just gotten involved with a carbon capture technology company that turn CO2 + H2 to feed a certain bacteria to produce proteins for human food and animal feed. I will share the progress with you as l learn more. I think it's one of most interesting way to turn CO2 into a useful product. Instead of a purely expenditure to capture and store it, it can pay for itself and turn into proteins (useful products) in doing so.

Just have a Thank! Dave, you are a gem. 🙂

This year is the turning point, i believe that 90% of us all will be on the same page after 2023, even those who are able to forcefully explain it to the remaining 10%, with what ever power that will take. Only problem, i have been saying for years now that it's to late to prevent the change, it's still our best chance to try and minimise the damage, but we will have all of the sea level rise, and there will be a lot of starvation, and a lot of lost property, especially in big coastal cities, but also entire countries, even in Europe. I live in Denmark, wich is mostly gravel, and located in the estuary of the Baltic sea, higher sea level, and extreme storms will make it swift and painless, first we will not be able to insure our homes, then they will be unsellable, and then they will be gone.

It's my experience that thinkers like us are vastly outnumbered by people who struggle to think about anything vaguely abstract. It's critical for government to force change on the population by passing laws and creating incentives. Carbon taxes and incentives for EVs and heat pumps, especially in new construction, and much higher taxes on gasoline and natural gas, people would get on board right quick. Until then, apathy will rule.

Yeah, it's a little worrying that the only reason DAC is developing is for assisting fossil fuels extraction. But I should remind everyone that fossil fuel companies were helpful in getting solar PV off the ground in the second half of the 20th century with installing panels on offshore drilling rigs, onshore storage tanks, and other equipment and wellheads for remote, microgrid support of critical functions. We'll probably see a lot of maturation here with DAC in the next decade due to those companies. At face value I think this is a bad thing, but the global energy transition will take time. So, while fossil fuel companies will have to search harder and harder for oil and natural gas, trying to prolong the realization that they're sitting on soon-to-be stranded assets, we as a society will get a CDR platform/technology that could be incorporated in many other applications over time.

Thank you, Dave! I would be thinking 'Big Nature' will be doing her best to 'carbon capture' with growth of plantlife like the new seaweed that is just about to hit the Florida coast (it is getting a lot of press). Also 'sea snot' around the Turkish holiday resorts are an indication of where things are heading right across the globe. The downside being the current animal order will have to change, and there are greenhouse gases involved. Alaska is getting marshier with beavers taking up residence. Iceland will green up. I think we don't have to control the uptake of carbon, it will happen as a natural order, but the problems will come with weather or not humans and current life will be able to stay healthy and functioning as societies. There is almost no indication in my small farming district that anyone other than me is interested in putting in the proven sustainable and regenerative land management techniques that could help direct the carbon uptake in a win win direction...even though our government zoning laws etc support and promote that positive direction. I see general population as one of the biggest hurdles, not just useless government. My (mostly really lovely people, I really like) rural neighbourhood are actively damaging the air, land, soil and water right now, even though it is designated to be conservation. The governing bodies have sweet people working for them, but are non functional in the face of current society.

What drives me up the wall right now is massive tree plantings that aren't taking into account the environmental changes that the trees will have to deal with to survive. It's all fine and dandy to a diverse population of native trees (which they often don't even do) but it's pointless if none of them can actually survive the environment that the local area is heading towards.

Thank you

Coal power plants are still running.

Thanks for another great episode Dave, the solutions by big corporations on this topic has been called out as BS for a long time. We all need to get our heads out of our armpits and vote for politicians who are actually committed to saving our planet.

Finally, soil storage is mentioned. If all agricultural land was managed organically, the CO2 would go back into the ground in the form of organic matter...residue of foliage and roots. Let's fund organic farmers instead of toxic agro business!!!

Grow vast amounts of algae in floating rigs in an equatorial region in the Pacific ocean. Turn the algae into biochar, pelletize it and drop it into the deep ocean. Process will be self powered by gas produced by pyrolysis. Excess gas can be used to generate electricity and delivered to countries via undersea HVDC lines. Some biochar shipped to be used as soil amendment or as building material. All the expertise for this, and the infrastructure to build it, is already in existence within the fossil fuel industry.

Your video on Carbotura was amazing and seems very scalable. I would like to build Agrivoltaics Microgrids paired with those hemp biomass biochar bioremediation systems and possibly replace existing fossil fuel feedstocks with syngas from the gasifiers. Love all your videos and appreciate your dedication. We can do this! The Airminers Boot up free online course and Frontier Climate are excellent resources. The Agrivoltaics solar farm summit 2023 in Chicago was amazing. Really, we can do this. I also believe the space industry will be hugely instrumental in catalyzing the decarbonization of the economy/ CDR. The methane rocket fuel must be made carbon neutral and we must start sending all carbon negative materials into space for offworld habitats and mining operations. Space based carbon removal will likely never exceed a tiny fraction of the total CDR needed but they can advance the industry immensely with the technology needed to fully draw down CO2 on earth. It is a terra forming conundrum we are in.

In Australia, the popular press keeps the lid on the information. Everyone pays lip service to the climate crisis but follows with the sentence, "But the reason I have to have a petrol/diesel vehicle is ...". Everyone must take responsibility and not rely on everyone else or governments controlled by the fossil fuel industry.

I watched Randall Carlson's 94th episode this morning. Eye-opening to say the least.

Okay, you’ve got me convinced. The earth is going to hell in a handbasket, and we need to change our ways. I’m doing all I personally can: bought an electric car, installed solar panels, dumped my gas furnace for a heat pump, bought more efficient appliances, sealed up my home, etc., etc., etc. However, even before all of that, my personal carbon footprint was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Even if I were to go completely carbon free, it wouldn’t make any difference at all. How can I do more? I think that it comes down to the fact that, as an “average” person, I have very little influence and affluence. However, there are thousands of billionaires on the planet, each with orders of magnitude more influence and affluence than I have, and presumably a much bigger carbon footprint too. Convincing even one of them to go carbon neutral would be a big deal, the equivalent of convincing thousands of “average” people to do so. What if, for instance, Jezz Bezos went carbon neutral? Covering the roof of every Amazon warehouse with solar panels would help too. Doing so would even make him money in the long run. Maybe to make up for past behavior he could also buy a few square miles of damaged Amazon rain forest, protecting it and allowing it to recover and become a carbon sink again. It would make a very small dent in his personal fortune, probably less than he loses on a bad day on the stock market. However, you don’t need to be a billionaire to make a difference. Going carbon neutral isn’t that expensive anymore. How about getting the influential “one percent” involved? What if, for instance, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift, Drake, Graham Norton, Jimmy Fallon, Tom Brady, the Kardashians, etc., etc., etc. went carbon neutral, and told all of their millions of Twitter followers about it? How many millions of them are there, each with lots of money, lots of influence and an out-sized carbon footprint? Even getting a small fraction of them on board would be a tremendous boost to the carbon-free industry. So, how do I do it? How does the average person like me convince billionaires, multi-millionaires, politicians, etc., etc., that something needs to be done NOW, and THEY need to start doing their part?

I think you are finally getting it. We do not want to change at the risk of our current lifestyles.

It would be good for you to review some of the other scientists who have look at CO2 in a very different way. They see it as a benefit to our planet, not a pollutant we have to get rid of and that’s causing climate change. Thanks for your videos.

I like the way you present these issues. Calm, thoughtful, no hype. That said, I am more convinced than ever, that we continue to fail to really see the larger picture regarding this earth's climate and live-ability. Until we do so, we are really going down the wrong track.....obsessing over too much heat, and too much CO2....both essential for our survival, is silly. We are likely heading into a major ice age in less than a 1000 years and are now slowly sliding there now. Let's have a real think...we will really need more heat and more CO2.

As you said, pretty much everything we do emits GHG, so if you ask me, we need to rationalise our economy to cut back unnecessary consumption and scale down related industries, redesign products so that they last longer and can be effectively recycled, invest in public transport, redesign our cities and homes and shorten supply chains as much as possible.

The collective epiphany you speak of is the only chance we have. Even with that, we'll probably mess up. It would take the entire world agreeing to do everything physically possible, no matter the cost.

In desert states/cities should line the sides of there roads with native plants and cactus to reduce flooding heat wind and air noise and ground pollution co2 as well. Ps cactus can grow straight up not just out but lining a road bolth sides for 1 mile can reduce 60 to 120 tons of co2 every year. Oh ya give them 8 feet of soil plant in middle and don't fill in the sides let it be dirt along the whole block giving the cactus 4 feet of soil between them and the road and people walking past on the sidewalk. Ps mulch around the cactus to help with health and reduce flooding yes flooding and increase groundwater levels too.

The amount of energy required for co2 removal needs to be highlighted. In some systems there is not enough energy in the world to remove the co2 that needs to be removed. Hope that makes sense! :(

If the powers that be are serious about carbon removal, then they need to forget trees and start planting bamboo and sea grass which are far more effective at taking in carbon dioxide. As Fraser said in Dad's Army, "we're doomed . . . we're all doomed".

Sadly interesting. Thank you for your informative and nicely presented work. 🙏

What a happy picture you've painted Dave. Mankind really is ahead of the game. For example, not only do we know we are doomed, but we pretty much know when that will occur. Time to pray to some deity given we have failed in every endeavour so far.

Great video

By the way, congratulations on being a sufficient irritation to the liars to get the coveted 'Context' badge!

I applaud yr efforts, it makes me want to go out and plant some trees considering Ive reduced my footprint drastically over the last few years. What else can I do but wait for the movers and shakers to get on board.

Well made video, if upsetting. Thank you. D

What a great and clear presentation of our current global situation with CO2 management. Many thanks for your much appreciated work.

I may have missed it: did you cover the recent development of getting CO2 directly out of sea water? Which contains a 100 times more than the air? That seems pretty promising

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The creation of artificial reefs via electrolysis driven mineral accretion has the potential to store thousands of tons of carbon in each site. Furthermore, it creates new habitats for thriving marine biomes, which in turn will create more seafood that a growing human population will need to survive.

Trees can also release more carbon than they store if they are heat stressed.

a very honest video that does not shy away from the awkward truth.

Hi everyone, thanks for the great content Dave. Just in case.. we need an international law to help us fight the fossil fuel industry, which clearly will not stop of it's own accord. #stopecocide stop ecocide foundation. Please lend your support.

Too little too late is what humanity does best.

Have you seen the book “Drawdown” it’s full of CDR suggestions? Well done on this episode.

These videos are always informative and interesting but they also leave me with a sense of absolute despair. It is already far too late.

Is it just my cynical nature or are simply going to end life as we know it in the next 100 years or so. I'm so glad I'll only live another 20 years or so and won't have any grandkids.

Just makes be want to have a open source system or DAC to solid CO2. Can at least get more people building then.

Here's a simple way to see if CDR will work: give oil & gas companies the freedom to continue to operate as long as they remove a ton of CO2 for every ton of CO2(e) which their production processes and products end up releasing into the atmosphere. Easy-peasy. (I know I'm in fantasy land where companies actually clean up after themselves but sometimes you need to visit if only for a little while. Thanks Dave for another great video.)

You mention how carbon removal by natural means (reforestation mostly) uses a lot of land. I have heard that restoration of wetlands was much more effective than reforestation, allowing for the same amount of carbon removal with a fraction of the land use. Peat-forming wetlands seem to be surprisingly effective at carbon removal because dead plant material does not decay in the same way as a dead tree in a forest would. Instead, the dead plants sink, get cut off from oxygen, and create layers of peat. We have drained a lot of wetlands, but the process is easily reversed. Also, there is the added benefit of the wetlands as buffers for flood water and refuge for a variety of rare species.

This was a very nice way of saying we are toast. Now IF we can harness fusion or we get help from aliens or another larger pandemic comes around - we have a chance. So live each day to the fullest and be kind ☮