https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0...
Even if more companies do decide to start offsetting their emissions, there are cheaper ways to do so, including by preserving forests and paying for renewable energy. For example, it currently costs between $500 and $1,000 to capture a metric ton of carbon dioxide with direct air capture, compared with just $10 to $30 per ton for most carbon credits today.
âoeItâ(TM)s very expensive,â said Mr. Robock. âoeAnd so itâ(TM)s not going to be a solution in the short term or the long term.â
Some say it is little more than a ploy by oil and gas companies to prolong the very industries that are responsible for creating global warming. They point to the extensive evidence that fossil fuel interests for years worked to play down public awareness of climate change, and the fact that some of the captured carbon will be used for additional oil production.
Those concerns were magnified when Vicki Hollub, Occidentalâ(TM)s chief executive, last year said direct air capture could âoepreserve our industry.â She added, âoeThis gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think itâ(TM)s going to be very much needed.â
âoeThis is a new wave of denial, deception and delay,â said Lili Fuhr, director of the fossil economy program at the Center for International Environmental Law. âoeYou have the fossil fuel industry trying to say we can engineer our way out of this without any major changes to business as usual.â
A related line of reasoning holds that the enormous amounts of clean energy needed to power direct air capture plants would be better used powering homes and businesses, thereby displacing fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal that still provide much of the worldâ(TM)s electricity.