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The green dreamers will probably throw a billion dollars at this powdered unicorn shit without doing simple heat and mass balance and economic viability calculations for the same reason that they push 0.5 mj/kg lithium ion batteries over 75,000,000 mj/kg U235 powered nuke. It is religion not science. Batteries are good because an angry autistic teenager from Sweden says so, and nuke is bad because Jane Fonda saw The China Syndrome in 1979 and learned everything she needs to know about nuclear power.

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Enjoyed the article very much; thanks. Out of curiosity, was the LA Times author related in any way to Jules Verne? I was waiting for Captain Nemo to show up on a magical island where this COF stuff is just lying around, protected by some lifeform that is plant based, like a giant (house-sized) Venus fly trap.

Seriously, did Mr. Yaghi do any sort of energy or mass balance in scaling up his bench test? How much energy is needed to produce/manufacture, distribute, collect, and deposit? Once deposited, how much "heat" (energy) is needed to release the CO2? What are the material inputs needed to produce the stuff? What is the carbon footprint of those materials? Does the "sudden" removal of a large volume of carbon from the atmosphere at a very localized spot create any abnormal energy disturbances in the atmosphere that could lead to extreme weather at the location of removal?

A worthwhile project might be one where local carbon dioxide scrubbers are used in parallel with greenhouses for large scale production of grains and vegetables. Incremental increases in CO2 promote faster growth in plants, and also reduce the water requirements. Relative to the carbon removal for climate, it is even less than flyshit in the pepper, but it might be a better use of the money from Kamala's Free-shit tree. Instead of $ per kwh, how about $ per pound of food, FOB? The prospect of bringing fresh vegetables to some areas might be economical.

An equally worthwhile project, though more of a spreadsheet-type exercise, is an energy balance of CCS systems needed to reduce emissions by 10 percent, and the concomitant reduction in global temperature.

There have been a number of posts lately about the permitting reforms needed for renewable energy projects (speaking of flyshit) to steamroll the environment. Perhaps one of those reforms should be any project whose express purpose is to "combat climate change" be accompanied by valid analysis predicting the ultimate impact of said project, in terms of averted increases in global temperature.

It comes down to this -- if you are going to claim fossil fuels are causing “existential climate change” without being required to provide numeric data regarding what part of climate change is existential, and if you are going to soak the government (i.e., the taxpayer) for a handout to “fight” climate change, you damn well should be required to show exactly what value the taxpayer is getting for his largesse.

My two cents, adjusted for inflation.

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Love it when the IPP gets mentioned. California is so quick to say we have no operational coal plants. The IPP power is disguised as imports in the reports. I can’t imagine what a few hundred million pounds if fluffy yellow powder looks like. How many train cars full is that?

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Another great example of exposing the green agenda scam. Thank you! If your article could just get in the LA times!

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It not lost on me the build out of solar and wind wind will result in stripping the planet of millions of square miles of foliage. I am not sure how you reconcile the destruction of natures CO2 sequestration device in order to avoid making CO2. We have some good friends who just want to be good earth citizens. They added rooftop solar to their home, but to get enough sun they removed some beautiful old oak trees. Doesn't add up for me.

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Very good!

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