The Big Business of Burying Carbon

All of which makes negative emissions—as an idea at least—irresistible. The extent to which humanity is already counting on them is illustrated by the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was published in the run-up to Paris. To peer into the future, the IPCC relies on computer models that represent the world’s econ

... See more

Declining emissions and rising atmospheric concentrations point to a stubborn fact about carbon dioxide: once it’s in the air, it stays there. How long, exactly, is a complicated question; for all intents and purposes, though, CO2 emissions are cumulative. The comparison that’s often made is to a bathtub. So long as the tap is running, a stoppered

... See more

Banks and investors tend to be uncertain about lending to carbon-removal companies that want to build a facility to test their ideas, Ransohoff said. But with an offtake agreement from Frontier, a carbon-removal start-up can prove to a bank that it will have a customer once the facility is up and running.