Oh Look! Bipartisan Legislation Seeks To Sequester A Whole 10,000 Tons Of Carbon!
It even has a cute acronym! And it's bipartisan!!
Away from the klieg lights and hot-takes of the political commentariat, more than a dozen senators from both parties support the Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies (USEIT) Act: legislation that seeks to remove barriers to deployment of technology that captures carbon emissions from industrial sources or directly from the air. That technology could spawn a whole new group of industries that use the carbon in their products.
If successful, the technology also could help save the planet’s climate from heating more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the maximum that scientists believe is allowable without catastrophic climate changes occurring worldwide — and open a new market for removed-carbon-based products.
The legislation in the Republican-led Senate has 14 sponsors, including eight Democrats. Such bi-partisan sponsorship in the face of vitriol over climate politics is more than just refreshing; it’s pragmatic. Only bipartisan legislation can gain the 60 votes needed to pass through the U.S. Senate, and the more sponsors, the greater the chance of passage.
In February, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee heard testimony on the USEIT Act from individuals across the political spectrum. The bill starts small by awarding a total of $85 million from the Environmental Protection Agency to developers of new technologies. The legislation includes a prize component for the first company to capture 10,000 tons of carbon from the air at under $200 a ton, orders the creation of two task forces to make it easier to site infrastructure and orders pipeline permitting.
EDIT
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/carbon-capture-legislation-small-step-long-corporate-climate-march
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Wed Apr 24, 2019, 09:36 AM - Edit history (1)
And did I mention there's a PRIZE??
On edit - got curious and decided to run the numbers.
37 billion tons of carbon emitted through human activities in all of 2018, so divide that by 365 for 101,369,863 million tons/day. Divide that by 24 for 4,223,744 tons per hour, and then by 60 for 70,396 tons/minute. Once more by 60 and you get 1,173 tons per second.
So, this project will sequester about 8.5 seconds' worth of global anthropogenic carbon emissions - in four or five years, maybe, because it has to come in under $200/ton.
Did I mention that there's a PRIZE??
