4.28 Is Carbon Capture a Good Idea?

Viv Forbes wrote a very good article called The Carbon Capture Con for the American Thinker. This web page is based on his article. The assumption behind carbon capture is that carbon dioxide is bad, there is too much of it, it will overheat the planet and we have to remove it. Viv wrote:

The idea is to capture exhaust gases from power stations or cement plants, separate the CO2 from the other gases, compress it, pump it to the chosen burial site, and force it underground into permeable rock formations. Then hope it never escapes.

What if all the compressed carbon dioxide that carbon capture companies force underground does escape. It would from a blanket of carbon dioxide and people would suffocate.

Pushing carbon dioxide underground requires a lot of energy, if you use coal or gas to provide that energy you are producing more carbon dioxide. It's also very expensive and costs lead to inflation which makes everyone poorer.

One volcanic eruption can release way more carbon dioxide than these companies will capture. Viv included this picture to make that point.

Viv wrote:

If man releases CO2 into the atmosphere, the oceans will quickly absorb much of it...

Increased CO2 in the atmosphere encourages all plants to grow better and use more CO2. Unfortunately, natural processes are continually sequestering huge tonnages of CO2 into extensive deposits of shale, coal, limestone, dolomite, and magnesite. This process has driven atmospheric CO2 to dangerously low concentrations. Burning hydrocarbons and making cement returns a tiny bit of this plant food from the lithosphere to the biosphere.

Regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide is best left to the oceans and plants — they have been doing it successfully for millennia.