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Nearly 800 companies around the world are exploring a wide variety of methods for drawing planet-warming greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and storing it away or putting it to use.  A gigantic leap from the five startups that James Temple could have named in 2019.

However, the industry is in trouble because carbon dioxide removal is “a very expensive product that no one needs” and no one seems eager to pay the “true cost” for the “waste management of invisible garbage.”

In 2021, MIT Technology Review published an article ‘Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction’.  “Corporations and nations are touting plans to suck greenhouse gases out of the air … The noise, news and hype are feeding a perception that carbon removal will be cheap, simple, scalable, and reliable – none of which we can count on,” the article said.

What was carbon removal distracting from?  Not real-world problems, unfortunately, but from “cost-effective actions needed to cut [carbon dioxide] emissions.”

In other words, one side of the climate change industry was attacking another side of the climate change industry.  What MIT failed to acknowledge is that the whole anthropogenic climate change ideology is built on “noise, news and hype.”

Commenting on MIT’s 2021 article and calling their bluff, CFact asked the question: “Who has the most to lose if the combination of US agriculture, Nuclear power and an efficient point of generation carbon capture is put together?” He listed the losers as:

1. An entire political agenda that advocates for the ending of the foundational values that made the USA great.
2. Large technological and corporate interests that have invested in the kind of money that is involved in solving the “climate change” problem but not in an inexpensive way.
3. Research-based organisations that have invested time, money and reputation in this issue so that having it cheaply eliminated would not be in the best interest of them.

“You have to understand [that] when you are weaponising weather and climate, you cannot have any solution but your own.  It’s a rigged game,” CFact wrote and quoted a warning from Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to Americans:

.. [In] the technological revolution during recent decades … research has become central … complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government … the solitary inventor … has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields …

… the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. … we must … be alert to the … danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961)

Yesterday, MIT Technology Review pushed another article titled ‘Why concerns over the sustainability of carbon removal are growing’.  It was written by MIT’s senior editor James Temple whose focus is on renewable energy and the use of technology to combat climate change.   

Below we have paraphrased his article avoiding its obvious biases towards promoting the anthropogenic global warming cult.  His article provides, hopefully, a sign of the imminent downfall of the carbon removal profiteers. We couldn’t resist adding notes in [square brackets] to excerpts from Temple’s article.  Hopefully, our comments haven’t taken away from the core message that the fanciful carbon removal cash cow is possibly on a downward trend.

There’s a looming problem in the carbon removal space, Temple wrote. The trouble is, carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”) is a very expensive product that, strictly speaking, no one needs right now. It’s not a widget; it’s waste management for invisible garbage that nobody is eager to pay for.

“CDR is a pure cost, and we’re trying to force it to be something that’s profitable – and the only way you can do that is with public money or through voluntary markets,” says Emily Grubert, an associate professor at Notre Dame, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary in the US Energy Department’s Office of Carbon Management.

[Note: Finding public money to pay for carbon removal equates to either increasing taxes or populations forgoing public services when the public purse robs from Peter to pay Paul.]

So far, the main markets for carbon removal come from government procurement, which is limited; government subsidies, which don’t cover the cost; and voluntary purchases by corporations and people, which are restricted to those willing to pay the true cost of removal.

[Note: Government procurement and government subsidies are paid using taxes collected from populations.]

Given these market challenges, some investors are scratching their heads as they witness the huge sums flowing into the space.

In a report last summer, the venture capital firm DCVC said that all of the approaches it evaluated faced “multiple feasibility constraints.” It noted that carbon-sucking direct-air-capture factories are particularly expensive, charging customers hundreds of dollars per tonne.

“That will still likely be the case in five, seven, even 10 years – which is why we at DCVC are somewhat surprised to see hundreds of millions of dollars in capital flowing into early-stage direct air capture companies,” the authors wrote.

In background conversations, several industry insiders Temple has spoken with acknowledge that the number of carbon removal companies is simply unsustainable and that a sizable share will flame out at some point.

The sector has taken off, in part, because a growing body of studies has found that a huge amount of carbon removal will be needed to keep rising temperatures in check. By some estimates, nations may have to remove 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year by mid-century to keep the planet from blowing past 2°C of warming, or to pull it back into safer terrain.

[Note: The noise, news and hype are feeding a perception that carbon removal is necessary.]

On top of that, companies are looking for ways to meet their net-zero commitments. For now, some businesses are willing to pay the really high current costs for carbon removal, in part to help the sector scale up. These include Microsoft and companies participating in the $1 billion Frontier programme.

[Note: The noise, news and hype are feeding a perception that “net-zero,” whatever that term actually means at any particular time, is necessary. Research-based organisations that have invested time, money and reputation in this issue will be driving the agenda.]

At the moment, Temple has been told, corporate demand is outstripping the availability of reliable forms of carbon removal. There are only a handful of direct-air-capture plants, which take years to construct, and companies are still testing out or scaling up other approaches, like burying biochar and pumping bio-oil deep underground.

Costs are sure to come down, but it’s always going to be relatively expensive to do this well, and there are only so many corporate customers that will be willing to pay the true cost, observers say. So as carbon removal capacity catches up with that corporate demand, the fate of the industry will increasingly depend on how much more help governments are willing to provide – and on how thoughtfully they craft any accompanying rules.

[Note: How much more help governments are willing to provide depends on how much more they can increase taxes on populations. How thoughtfully they craft any accompanying rules is translated as what laws and restrictions governments will impose on populations to enforce the carbon removal agenda].

Countries may support the emerging industry through carbon trading markets, direct purchases, mandates on polluters, fuel standards or other measures.

[Note: “Mandates on polluters.”  How many times have we seen governments demonise people and behaviours to impose their agenda? If “the science” is not evidence-based, then psychological operations are needed so mandates appear reasonable to an unsuspecting or gullible population.]

It seems safe to assume that nations will continue to dangle more carrots or wield bigger sticks to help the sector along. Notably, the European Commission is developing a framework for certifying carbon dioxide removal, which could allow countries to eventually use various approaches to work toward the EU goal of climate neutrality by 2050. But it’s far from clear that such government support will grow as much and as quickly as investors hope or as entrepreneurs need.

[Note: We encourage readers to read the European Council’s press release on 24 February 2024 relating to its carbon removals certification framework.  The insanity that has taken hold will boggle your mind.]

Indeed, some observers argue it’s a “fantasy” that nations will ever fund carbon removal – on the scale of billions of tonnes a year – just because climate scientists said they should.  To put it in perspective, the DCVC report notes that removing 100 billion tonnes at $100 a tonne would add up to $10 trillion – “more than a tenth of global GDP.”

[Note: Nations should never fund carbon removal based on dodgy science and even dodgier ideology where only large corporations and super-rich oligarchs stand to benefit at the expense of productive, hard-working  populations.]

Growing financial pressures in the sector could play out in a variety of worrisome ways.

“One possibility is there’s a bubble and it pops and a lot of investors lose their shirts,” says Danny Cullenward, a climate economist and research fellow with the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University. 

If so, that could shut down the development of otherwise promising carbon removal methods before we’ve learned how well and affordably they work (or not).

[Note: After suggesting higher taxes, new laws, “mandates on polluters” and after eye-watering amounts of money poured into a failed industry in the hopes of making it succeed, proponents of the anthropogenic climate change ideology don’t even know if carbon removal will work even by their dodgy standards. It is one very big expensive experiment through which each of us will lose rights and freedoms, and become poorer.]

The other danger is that it can turn public or political sentiment against the sector and kill the appetite for further investment. This, after all, is precisely what played out after the cleantech 1.0 bubble burst. Conservatives assailed government lending to green startups, and VCs, feeling burned, backed away for the better part of a decade.

[Note: Public sentiment is already against the sector.  The sooner the appetite for further investment is killed, the better – especially in the case of public investment which comes from taxes on our incomes.]

But Cullenward fears another possibility even more. As funding runs dry, startups eager to bring in revenue and expand the market may resort to selling cheaper, but less reliable, forms of carbon removal – and lobbying for looser standards to allow them.

He sees a scenario where the sector replicates the sort of widespread credibility problems that have occurred with voluntary carbon offsets, building up big marketplaces that move a lot of money around but don’t achieve all that much for the atmosphere.

[Note: There are already widespread credibility problems.  Not just in the carbon removal agenda but for the entire anthropogenic climate change ideology.]

You can read the full MIT Technology Review article written by James Temple HERE.