🏭 The Case For Carbon Capture 🏭
My Climate Journey Update 1
Welcome to My Essays
Hi! I’m Ahmed. I’m an analyst with a deep curiosity about the world.
I explore ideas. I break them down. I share what I learn in essays like this.
I hope you find them interesting.
What I’m Sharing Today
This essay will describe why I believe that carbon capture is the single best thing we can work on for climate.
How Should We Think About Solving Climate Change?
Climate change happens because of greenhouse gas emissions.
To solve it, we need to know where these emissions come from.
Most problems have one big cause that affects everything else.
Fixing that cause can make a big difference.
I learned emissions are divided into 27 categories.
You can see the breakdown here and below.
Energy might seem like the main problem, but it’s not.
Energy is made up of many smaller, unrelated problems.
For example, removing emissions from industrial energy is different from removing emissions from ships.
Each problem needs a different solution.
Scaling a company to fix one problem could take 10 to 20 years.
I realized one company would not be enough to make progress. There had to be a better way.
As I researched, I learned about capturing emissions.
This means pulling greenhouse gases out of the air.
With this idea, it doesn’t matter if the emissions come from transportation, chemicals, or steel.
You can have one solution to remove emissions if they all emit the same greenhouse gases.
To decide where to start, I looked at which gas causes the most emissions.
CO2 makes up 75% of emissions. Methane makes up 19.5%. Nitrous oxide makes up 5.5%.
CO2 seems like a good place to start.
If we captured all yearly emissions, would that be enough to stop climate change?
The answer is no.
Even if emissions stop, the emissions already in the air will still cause wildfires, droughts, and natural disasters.
I wanted to know what CO2 levels were like before humans started polluting.
I found data showing CO2 levels over the past 800,000 years.
Scientists measure CO2 in the air using a unit called parts per million, or ppm.
This shows how many CO2 molecules are in one million air molecules.
Before the industrial revolution, the natural CO2 levels were between 175ppm and 300ppm.
Our goal is to bring CO2 levels back below 300ppm.
As of December 8, 2024, CO2 levels are at 425.26ppm.
This means there are 125.26ppm of extra CO2 in the air.
Each ppm of CO2 equals about 7.82 billion tonnes.
If we multiply 125.26ppm by 7.82 billion tonnes, we get about 979.53 billion tonnes of extra CO2 in the air.
For comparison, the world releases about 37.79 billion tonnes of CO2 every year.
This means 96% of the CO2 problem is already in the air.
Only 4% of the problem comes from what we add each year.
Even if we reach net zero, it won’t fix climate change.
This is why CO2 capture is not a solution. It is the solution.
Future Essays
In future essays, I will study carbon capture as an industry.
I will share what companies are doing wrong.
I will also explore better ideas for capturing CO2.
A Few Final Words
I hope you found this essay interesting! If you know someone who might enjoy it, feel free to share.
Got feedback? Email me at theahmedhassan1@gmail.com.
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Until next time,
Ahmed
