> I agree with this to some extent, but at the same time it seems like so long as there exists carbon in the volatile format of fossil fuels, someone or something will eventually find it expedient to burn it.
wouldn't it be cheaper to buy fossil fuels on the open market, somehow convert it to a non-harmful form (eg. pure carbon) and then dump it in the ocean?
IDK. Maybe someone more in tune with the physics and chemistry can chime in, but I'd imagine you have to release the energy stored in the chemical bonds in some way before you can convert the carbon to a more stable form.
The simple answer might be that you'd still have to burn it, but immediately convert the exhaust to a stable solid. I'm unaware if this conversion can be done with less energy than can be extracted from burning it.
Yeah, carbon capture can be done with less energy, see BECCS for an example (where people grow trees/grasses to capture carbon from the air, then burn it for energy, and capture the CO2 for immediate sequestration).
If there's still demand then the market will spur more development and exploration. It turns there's a lot of oil in the world, the fracking revolution in the US proved that. It would take $Ts to make a dent. And it wouldn't even work, as most oil reserves are held by national governments, who would thank you for raising the price of oil.
But let's suppose you did spend $Ts to shut in specific wells. You've spend all that money and gotten no economic benefit, except for other fossil fuel producers. If you had instead spent those $Ts on encouraging the deployment of fossil fuel free transportation and industrial processes you would destroy demand for that oil and (hopefully) leave it in the ground because its not economic to take it out.
Yeah, makes sense. In fact I don't care much if oil is taken out or not.
I just came up with a funny scheme. Each person submits a bid saying "I'd like to receive X dollars per 1MT increase in net daily emissions, and I'm willing to pay the same sum per 1MT decrease". The tricky part is paying for second derivative: not CO2 concentration, not emissions, but change in emissions. Then as the emissions actually happen, they get tallied up by the government, an average "price per 1MT increase" gets determined, and emitters are forced to pay that price, so everyone gets paid (or pays) exactly as they asked. If carbon capture also happens, then carbon capture companies also get paid, either by emitters if there's a net increase, or from people's stated bids if there's a net decrease.
This seems weird at first, what if everyone submits million-dollar bids? Well, then emitters reduce emissions for a short time and take everyone's money. On the other hand, what if everyone submits zero? Then emitters keep increasing emissions, and everyone misses out on being paid. So there's some optimal bid in between. Anyone who wants emissions to go down just submits a larger bid.
wouldn't it be cheaper to buy fossil fuels on the open market, somehow convert it to a non-harmful form (eg. pure carbon) and then dump it in the ocean?