Science is coming to the conclusion that just reducing carbon emissions will not be enough to avoid climate change. We will also need to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (“carbon sucking”). Research is already underway for this and one promising technology absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxin in a fluid which is then pumped into the ground to sequester it from the air. Massive bedrock voids left from petroleum extraction may be the ideal place. And since they are already set up there, oil companies may be the right ones to do the job, especially since their carbon emitting business model may some day need reinvention. What better irony than converting to a carbon sucking business model?
A recent article in The Economist (July 4, 2020; What If, Big Suck) elaborates on this idea. Continued research is needed to reduce unit costs from the current $600/ton, but the key to carbon sucking’s success as a business will be the establishment of a carbon tax. If carbon emitters had to pay a tax, which could be averted by buying credits from carbon suckers, the latter would have a revenue stream needed to run such a business. If the economics/technology could be worked out that it was a little cheaper for the emitters to pay the carbon suckers than to pay the tax, the government will have done something that doesn’t make them money but saves the world. Admittedly the emitters cost, and thus their product prices would increase, but did you think we were going to fix climate change for free?
Given that some burning of oil may never go away (for example it’s hard to imagine air travel without it), a righteous scenario would be that oil producers also become the world’s carbon suckers. They pump it up and suck it down, making money on both ends. Good for them and good for the world.
All of this, however, underscores the need for a carbon tax. Without it, the only imaginable “business model” for carbon sucking is for the government to do it/pay for it. That would mean more general tax, and most likely, less economic efficiency than from a carbon tax making a private market for carbon sucking. Then again, we could do nothing and watch the world die.