this video is sponsored by charity stars when it comes to the battle against climate change
some of our biggest weapons like wind and solar technology have dealt with cutting off
future carbon emissions but is there anything we can do to shovel the co2 that already exists
out of our atmosphere turns out there might be it's called carbon capture and it's held by some
to be a saving grace in the battle against climate change its fans include many environmentalists as
well as the us government who recently included roughly 3.5 billion dollars of the new 1 trillion
infrastructure bill to go towards carbon capture technology however carbon capture technology fans
also include major car manufacturers and oil companies which for some raise a huge red flag
ever since scientists at the scripps institute of oceanography began regularly measuring the
amount of carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere they noticed a startling trend the amount of
co2 in our atmosphere has increased by nearly 50 percent since the dawn of the industrial era
causing global temperatures to rise roughly one degree celsius for that same time period if the
earth is a boat and co2 is water well then we've been taking on water at a pretty alarming rate
for the most part the biggest proposed solution has always involved investing in infrastructure
that reduces or eliminates the production of new carbon particles in the air trying to plug the
holes in the boat if you will but you might be asking is there a way we can grab some buckets
and start dumping what's already on board out of this leaking ship that's essentially the goal
with carbon capture and storage technology also called ccs traditional ccs technology can refer
to a whole host of different technologies that are all designed to trap co2 from high emitting
producers like fossil fuel burning power plants or industrial facilities the carbon is then
compressed and transferred via pipeline strip or railway where it can either be stored permanently
or converted into valuable products like fuels or chemicals this method can capture up to 85 of the
co2 inside the exhaust enabling nitrogen and oxygen to be released back into the atmosphere
there's also pre-combustion capture this method involves treating and separating the carbon
dioxide from the fuel before it's burnt for example coal is converted into a mixture of co2
and hydrogen via gasification capturing the co2 and burning only the hydrogen finally there's
oxygen fuel combustion by burning fuel with pure oxygen instead of plain old air which also has
nitrogen and other things in it co2 ends up comprising a larger portion of the waste gas
making it easier to separate out and store or reuse both of these methods share some
passing similarities to the solid state hydrogen technology we've covered in past videos the carbon
can also be concentrated and sold to various other industries ever wonder where your local burger
joint gets the co2 for their soda fountain drinks these technologies have a pretty long and proven
track record today ccs prevents nearly 40 million tons of co2 from entering our atmosphere annually
and at a cost anywhere between 400 and 500 million dollars per unit commercial ccs technology can
capture carbon at around 58 per metric ton of co2 according to the us department of energy there's
one other method of carbon capture that started the new kid on the block this is what's called
direct air capture this is exactly what it sounds like instead of extracting co2 from fuel or
fuel exhaust this method uses a system of fans filters and heaters to remove co2 straight out
of the very atmosphere climbworks an icelandic company has built the world's largest direct
air capture system called the orca this behemoth has the capacity to pull 4 000 metric tons of co2
out of the atmosphere annually in fact according to experts since going online in september of 2021
orca has single-handedly increased earth's annual carbon capture ability by 40 percent
orca's creators have an ambitious goal of pulling between 500 000 and a million metric tons of co2
out of the atmosphere by 2030. to do this they'll need major expansion speaking of epic machines is
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on every corner start engineering researcher peter cyrus in a recent interview one drawback of direct
air capture however is that is by far the most expensive method coming in at roughly 600 to 800
per metric ton of co2 a price point that may be less of a factor at least in the us thanks to a
major bump from the us government to the tune of 3.5 billion dollars while these funds will
certainly give carbon capture technology a major boost not everyone is thrilled and just like about
everything else these days both traditional carbon capture methods and direct air capture
are not without their share of controversy critics of director capture typically point
to the fact that outside of orca it has no real proven track record to speak of on top of that
the process itself can be quite energy intensive orca is powered by a nearby geothermal power plant
one concern for environmentalists is that the reliance on fossil fuel burning power plants
may negate the benefit the technology may provide the concern here is that the infrastructure is
expensive to build which means companies would likely need strong incentives to invest in it
this leads to one of the biggest red flags surrounding carbon capture technology
some of its biggest backers are coal producers and oil companies yikes exxon mobil for instance has
invested heavily in ccs technology selling the extracted co2 to other companies who use it to
revive depleted oil fields the company has long promoted investment in carbon capture but rarely
disclose how it uses the carbon now the company seems to have integrated the systems into its own
revenue stream this is what has some environmental groups concerned if companies like exxon can
create a competitive market for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere that could be a major win for us
all but it could also essentially mean creating market incentive to continue producing carbon
emissions in order to continually provide supply and generate demand there's also the question of
how that extracted carbon will be used and whether or not it would end up back in the atmosphere
anyway the company has regularly lobbied against regulations that would require companies to submit
monitoring plans to the epa legislation intended to oversee the extraction and distribution of co2
that gas has a funny smell if you ask me still there are experts who think the government funding
should go toward other technology that doesn't produce greenhouse gases at all and while the bill
will include funding for upgrading grids producing electric and low emission buses and a national
ev charging network some say the money directed towards ccs could have boosted other technology
instead we say often on this channel that the best path forward will likely involve a combination of
various technologies wind solar nuclear and carbon capture could certainly fit into that equation
but only if it can be done in a way that doesn't encourage oil companies to profit off pollution
just like anything else carbon capture is a tool and a tool isn't good or bad inherently
it's about how you use it so carbon capture could lower the amount of atmospheric carbon today and
that's a good thing but if we build a system that allows companies to say hey you see we can keep
burning our gasoline because now with this we can keep cleaning it back out of the air that might
actually be a step in the wrong direction but let us know what you think is carbon capture something
that we should invest in do you think director capture is the way to go or should we invest in
more tried and true methods but one thing is for sure as investment goes up this technology will
come down in price and be better in performance and only time can truly ultimately tell but before
we go we have just no time for the comment of the week all right caught at the time all right
the first comment comes from matthew lych he says this looks more like a machine from the original
thunderbird series and that's in reference to our video on the big wind tank honestly if you're not
into tanks or whatnot check out that video it's really awesome we think you'll like it thank
you for that comment the second comment comes from petros atomopoulos on our rubber video he says cow
chuck is still what is called in most of the world yeah that's a video on the accidental discovery
of rubber super interesting stuff so check out those videos here we'll see you guys next week