But if CCS operations leak, they can pose significant risks to water resources. That’s because pressurized CO2 stored underground can escape or propel brine trapped in the saline reservoirs typically used for permanent storage. The leaks can lead to heavy metal contamination and potentially lower pH levels, all of which can make drinking water undrinkable. This is what bothers critics of carbon capture who worry that it’s solving one problem by creating another.
So here’s a dumb question. Why don’t we just plant the fastest growing carbon eatingest trees…everywhere. Now? Seems simpler to use a plant instead of a Plant.
Trees don’t permently sequester carbon. A forest is a bunch of bound up stuff, but since fungi can now digest trees when they die they don’t become coal anymore.
So unless you want to make the surface of the earth rainforest somehow you would need to bury trees in a sealed sterile mine or something. Or you could just do that directly.
Carbon capture is kinda dumb though, coal and oil are what ideally captured carbon looks like. We should focus on not digging that up and burning it.
Because 1) There’s not enough land on the planet, and 2) A big fossil fuel company has a hard time pointing to a specific tree and saying “that one, that’s the plant that’s halfheartedly absorbing my carbon so I can keep polluting”
CCS is putting lipstick on the fossil fuel hogs - they’ll keep it in the news as part of their quest to dodge regulation.