NYT Dumber By The Day: "Will There Be Enough Power To Remove Carbon From The Skies?"
Last edited Sat Feb 15, 2025, 08:30 AM - Edit history (1)
Thanks in large part to booming data center construction and the surge in artificial intelligence, electricity demand in the U.S. is rising for the first time in decades. But the timing of this rise in demand, as far as the race to fight global warming goes, is awkward.
To help fight climate change, the nascent direct air capture industry is racing to develop technology to remove carbon dioxide directly from the sky. But in some areas of the country, the DAC industry is facing a shortage of available renewable energy to run its operations, particularly wind and solar power.
As David Gelles reported last year, there’s been a gold rush of investment over the last several years into companies that aim to pull carbon from the atmosphere, many of which then bury that carbon underground. One chief executive told Gelles that carbon dioxide removal was “the single greatest opportunity I’ve seen in 20 years of doing venture capital.”
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DAC can use a lot of energy, and much of that energy needs to be zero or low emissions to make sure that DAC plants capture more carbon than they release. Many of the industry’s techniques need between five and 10 gigajoules of energy to capture one ton of carbon dioxide, according to a 2024 report from the Bezos Earth Fund, which considers energy consumption one of the technology’s main obstacles.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/climate/direct-air-capture-power-energy-needs.html
But hey, as long as we're on the subject . . .
Nation Figured Everything Would Run On Some Kind Of Cubes Of Blue Energy By Now
NEW YORK—Expressing their disappointment and frustration at the current state of technology, citizens across the nation reported Thursday that they figured everything would run on some sort of cubes of blue energy by now.
Americans of all ages and demographic groups explained to reporters that they thought the cubes would be “basically everywhere you looked at this point,” saying they could not understand why translucent, pulsating blue cubes of energy did not yet exist, and why they were not currently being used to power appliances, lighting, various modes of transportation, and all manner of personal electronics.
Many theorized that the blue cubes of energy would last between 50 years and forever, and that those in need of more cubes would simply be able to pick them up at a local “cube station.”
“All you’d have to do is pick up the cube and put it on a thing you want to have power, and that would give it power—why can’t I do that yet?” said Lawrence Faber of Tampa, FL, one of millions of Americans who was confused that he was currently unable to fully charge his iPhone battery “in, like, 10 seconds” simply by holding the device in the vicinity of a blue cube of energy. “They’d be these cubes and they’d just be there and make everything work, like computers and TVs and stuff.”
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https://theonion.com/nation-figured-everything-would-run-on-some-kind-of-cub-1819578420/
= new reply since forum marked as read
