Environment & Energy

...carbon capture and utilization. It will however be marginal. Just before he died, the Nobel Laureate George Olah published a beautiful paper on the topic, closed carbon cycles. It was presented not as a solution but as an aspiration. The caveat is that this approach would involve carbon free energy, which I am known for claiming exists in only one form.

I believe that direct air (or better seawater capture) lies at the edge of feasibility.

There is, in my opinion, a set of carbon based materials that would be or could be - there's that word "could" again - environmentally sustainable. In use, carbon is sequstered. Obviously however, some carbon based materials that have resulted in an environmental disaster, traditional plastics.

Hand waving will not do. Doing these things is not easy. On the contrary, they are difficult. The problem is cultural. We do not do the hard things because we have been lulled into complacency by believing too much in what the handwavers advertise.