![]() ![]() ![]() Even if we could make it work reasonably, we’d have to install zero-carbon energy to run it, which is like using zero-carbon energy to supply our energy needs anyway, except it’s more complicated and expensive to add the carbon-sequestration step. That sorting and conversion costs energy - a lot of it. You have to sort through a million molecules to find the 400 that are carbon, then convince those 400 to become something they don’t naturally want to be: a liquid or, better yet, a solid. This is energetically difficult, and by that I mean as difficult as juggling babies, bowling balls, electric chainsaws, and flaming tiki torches. The worst version of carbon sequestration is the most seductive one: capturing CO₂ from thin air. If you had a giant set of scales and put all the things humans make or move on one side, and all of the CO₂ we produce on the other, the CO₂ would weigh more. When considering carbon sequestration, we should first remind you just how staggering that 40 GT of CO₂ is. This article is excerpted from Saul Griffith’s book “ Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future.” Imagining that we can build machines that work 20 times better than all of biology is a fantasy created by the fossil-fuel industry so they can keep on burning. To put that in context, our fossil burning is emitting 40 GT a year. All of the planet’s trees and grasses and other biological machines pull a grand total of about 2 gigatons (GT) of carbon a year. Plants create a large surface area in their leaves and branches, which allows them to do a great job of absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere. They do so using cascades of elegant chemical reactions and enzymes. Trees, plants, and microbes evolved to turn atmospheric CO₂ into a useful product - biomass or wood. This idea derives from the natural processes that have kept our planet in balance for millions of years. It is attractive because it gives us the illusion we can just keep on burning fossil fuels if we can figure out how to suck the emissions back out of the air. What about Carbon Sequestration?Ĭarbon sequestration would be a great technology to support, if only it were a good idea. If I dispose of a favorite baby of yours too quickly here, or you think I have it all ass-backward, then we should grab a beer sometime.” Each topic is worthy of a book in itself. “Here, I will try to offer you dinner party-ready talking points for the main questions that people will inevitably have for the main argument of the book. “I want readers to be able to understand the main arguments of this book without getting stuck in too many details,” he writes in one of the book’s appendices, excerpted below. ![]() Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Griffith’s plan can be summed up simply: Electrify everything. In his book “ Electrify,” Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. We have to do something now - but what? Saul Griffith, an inventor and renewable electricity advocate (and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant), has a plan. BeeLine Reader uses subtle color gradients to help you read more efficiently.Ĭlimate change is a planetary emergency. ![]()
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