If we wanted to remove enough CO2 to get back to the preindustrial level of 280 ppm, it would take 2.39 x 10^20 joules of energy. For a reality check, that’s almost as much as the world’s total annual energy consumption (5.8 x 10^21 joules every year).
Isn’t that over an order of magnitude difference? What am I missing? How is that “almost as much”?
The problem is that this is a theoretical minimum, not an actual, proposed process. We’d need a way to attract CO2 to separate it from the rest of the air, and afaik that doesn’t exist. Any actual process is likely to be far less than 100% efficient, probably an order of magnitude or more less.
This is an example of a real proposal, but I have no idea how efficient it is. It would be a lot more helpful if this article provided a realistic example instead of some back-of-the-napkin math.
We’d need a way to attract CO2 to separate it from the rest of the air, and afaik that doesn’t exist.
Call me crazy but what about plants and trees?! 🤷🏼♂️
They might not be 100% efficient but it’s dirt cheap to plant them, let alone not destroy the rest we still have
