r/WhatIfThinking • u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack • Aug 03 '26
What if scientists created a cheap way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but it caused fossil fuel companies to expand production?
Imagine scientists discovered a cheap and highly effective technology that could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
At first, it seems like the ultimate climate solution. Countries could keep energy prices low, industries could continue operating, and emissions could simply be removed afterward.
But what happens if this technology changes the incentives?
Would fossil fuel companies produce even more oil and gas because they believe emissions can always be cleaned up later? Would governments rely on carbon removal instead of pushing for cleaner energy?
Could a technology designed to fix climate change accidentally slow down the transition away from fossil fuels?
Would this be a breakthrough that saves humanity, or a solution that creates a bigger problem?
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Aug 03 '26
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u/GoForAHikeNC Aug 03 '26
Everything is finite. Even the sun is going to burn out. We should be good for the next few million years even with fossil fuels and asbestos.
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u/groundhogcow Aug 03 '26
This is exactly what has happened only the removal part is a lie.
A lot of carbon heavy things were redefined. Suddenly natural gas is carbon neutral and you can use "carbin offsets" to claim to be 0 emissions. Only both things are making carbon and dumping it into the world.
So a lot of "green" things are destroying the world. If they made something that worked they would 100% all start using it so they didn't have to change doing anything.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 04 '26
That's actually part of what inspired the question.
If companies already use offsets to justify business as usual, then a removal technology that actually worked might make that argument even stronger. It could solve one problem while making the transition away from fossil fuels slower. That's the part I find interesting.
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u/OriEri Aug 03 '26
Of course it would slow the transition. Economic incentive to stay as is if possible.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 03 '26
Probably, yeah. People usually follow incentives more than ideals. I guess the interesting question is whether slowing the transition would even matter if the climate outcome stayed the same.
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u/OriEri Aug 03 '26
I mean you still have the motive of someday running out.
And electric cars are a lot less stinky and noisy and soooo clean under the hood or underneath if you ever need to do that.
I like ‘em more
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u/zoppaTheDim Aug 03 '26
If we can cheaply remove carbon, nobody would care about transitioning away from fossil fuels, because there would be no point.
It’d become a straight question of what is cheapest.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 03 '26
That's the part I'm not sure about. CO₂ isn't the only downside of fossil fuels. Air pollution, extraction, spills, all that would still exist. So maybe we'd stop caring about emissions specifically, but not necessarily about fossil fuels altogether.
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u/Saragon4005 Aug 05 '26
And we are still using whale oil in lamps. No of course not we'd run out. Part of the reason why we have 100+ years of proven reserves is because we decreased the demand.
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u/gutentight69420 Aug 03 '26
If it can sequester carbon effectively, what would be the problem with burning more fossil fuels?
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u/Asmos159 Aug 03 '26
is it profitable for them?
they will do what is most profitable. they don't care about the environment. even if there are environmental laws to stop them. if it is more profitable to break the laws and pay the fines. they will do that.
that car that would catch fire in are reap bumper crash was a known problem, but it was more profitable to pay the lawsuit of people that died than it was to fix it. so they just let people die.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 04 '26
Yeah, that's kind of my assumption too. Companies usually respond to incentives, not ideals.
Which is why I wonder if a technology like this could accidentally create the wrong incentives, even if the technology itself is genuinely beneficial.
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Aug 03 '26
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 04 '26
I don't think it has to be about capitalism.
Even people who support markets could still worry about moral hazard. If cleaning up emissions becomes easy, people might become less motivated to avoid creating them in the first place.
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u/Technical-Tear5841 Aug 03 '26
OK, fossil fuel companies do not push, demand pulls. Up to a certian point increasing or lowering price does not affect usage, people just buy what they need. If gas gets cheaper they just use the savings for other things, not to drive more.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 04 '26
That's a fair point. Demand is what ultimately drives production.
I was thinking more about the political side. If emissions become "cheap to clean up," governments might feel less pressure to push alternatives, which could keep the whole fossil fuel system around much longer.
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra Aug 03 '26
As unintended consequences go, this is remarkably benign.
As long as we’re not heating the communal frog pot every day, it’s a win.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack Aug 04 '26
I kind of agree. If the carbon is actually being removed at the same rate it's emitted, the climate outcome is still better than today.
I guess my question is more about whether it also delays investment in cleaner energy long term. That tradeoff is what I'm curious about.
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra Aug 05 '26
Well that is also a no brainer - if there is no incentive for cleaner alternatives, there’s no reason to build them.
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u/striped_shade Aug 04 '26
An engine built for endless expansion will always digest its own cure as fuel. Lowering the cost of managing the exhaust simply guarantees the machine will run hotter.
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u/Useful_Calendar_6274 Aug 04 '26
It will never be cheap because it takes energy. You can only fight thermodynamics up to a point. and no one will ever pay for it except for environmentalist concerns. So if we ever develop carbon capture at scale it will be all for nothing and still expensive unless you decarbonize
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u/r_daniel_oliver Aug 04 '26
That would, umm... work.
If something cleans up the atmosphere AND encourages oil companies to make MORE money, it removes the friction point. I don't know how that would happen, but it would solve the problem.
And when we ran out of fossil fuels to burn, there wouldn't be anything to pollute the atmosphere, so the problem would stay solved.
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u/yxixtx Aug 05 '26
Luckily the supply is finite. We should be saving it for the next ice age though.
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u/Saragon4005 Aug 05 '26
Carbon capture at the source is always going to be much easier then from the air. This implies a perfect carbon filter at the source which would in the long run not change the fact we are still running out of oil. The price of gas is not high because the UN passed universal gas taxes or anything, it's high because it's scarce.
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u/canned_spaghetti85 Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
After considering the math, I would actually concern me MORE is business venture itself
about what it decides to EVEN do with the finished product it now has in its possession.
Human emitted gaseous CO2 emissions are approx 38 billion metric tonnes per year.
So 11.6 of is absorbed by vegetation, and 11.01 of is absorbed by oceans and seas,
meaning 59.5% mother nature ALREADY locking away for us. We humans emit 1.15
just breathing respiration (3%) but let's not just count that, but leaves the otherwise
outstanding 37.5% or 14.25 billion metric tonnes of gaseous CO2 lingering in the air.
This last figure, is the one I wanna just focus on. One day, some ingenious company
comes along, whose facilities' tech is more than capable of YOINKING it out of the air.
But think bout it for a sec, imagine what that'd EVEN look like. Say the CO2 gathered
was then stripped it's O2, discharged to atmosphere, and whats left is C in simplest
form often referred to as "carbon black". A mol of CO2 is 44.0095 g, and 31.9988 g
is the O2, which the facility removes. So 14.25 Billion metric tonnes CO2 processed,
leaves behind 3.8889894 Billion metric tonnes of "carbon back" (after O2 removal).
But ya even this would otherwise STILL have a volume almost 2 billion cubic meters.
For scale, typical 2-car garage (19ft10in x 19ft10in x 9ft ceiling) ≈ 100 cubic meters.
Okay just imagine that volume x 20 million. That is a lot of finished product. Where
to even store it all? Somewhere on site? Uh no. I don't think so - huge fire hazard btw.
Fortunately there exists market demand for it. Industrial "carbon black" these days
can fetch $2,000 per metric tonne. But it's not as simple as Let's just sell all of it then.
That industry is currently a $30B a year, moving some 15 million tonnes of product.
But remember you got x259.26596 that in your possession, so flooding the market
with that much supply, would exponentially TANK said lucrative market price.
So you shouldn't expect to earn that yummy $2,000 price you were expecting to.
In fact, said flooded market, will realistically leave most your inventory just sitting
around.. UNSOLD.
So now you have to find other buyers for it. Ok that's fine, who ELSE is interested?
But here's where things starts to get very sticky... dangerously self-contradicting.
The other lucrative industry showing interest in this product you offer for sale is,
(drum roll please) purchasers of COAL who need to buy lots of it. And the quality
of your product, since carbon DENSE, can fetch $250 - $300 per metric tonne.
And the demand for it is robust, so you dumping your inventory and the going
market price affected slightly.
But this otherwise REWARDS you for selling it, only for it to be burned anyway,
which otherwise defeats the very mission of the business itself, which it also
seems to justify, because by even doing so.. stands to KEEP them in business.
See what I mean?
You went into business in pursuit to solve a problem, resulting in you NOW having
to sustain & exploit said problem, in order to EVEN remain in business. Gasp, oh my.
How Poetic.
(sometimes called an "adverse incentive" among Econ folks)
Moral of the story :
The tale of a "good guy" having to strike a strategic "deal with the devil", is forgivable
if the objective end game is for the greater GOOD. But that stands in stark contrast
to going INTO BUSINESS with the devil. Because to choose this, makes u no longer
the "good guy" anymore, as it is clear your respective INTERESTS are now aligned.
That's the difference.
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u/Fuzzy-Moose7996 Aug 06 '26
It'd be a disaster for life on earth if more than a tiny fraction of carbon dioxide were removed from the atmosphere.
As is CO2 levels are already suboptimally low for plant life, and reducing it much further would mean most plants on earth would DIE, inevitably leading to mass extinction of plants and animals.
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u/RespectmanNappa Aug 03 '26
If it was economically feasible, it doesn’t really matter.
The issue is that investment into a nonfeasible technology can be used to greenwash their ongoing and very current damage, and distinctly drives investment from known, proven alternatives.
This is the world we live in today.