I sit in a hot office and think about this. I am not sure where to ask. I am genuinely curious. I have seen a breakdown of building solar panels to power the earth 2x over in order to recapture carbon equal to the rate it is being produced, but then areas of the earth that were reflective are now absorbtive of heat…
One time, and I wasn’t even high, I was thinking we could build solar panels that power machines that pull CO2 from the atmosphere and build solid bricks of graphite that could be used to build buildings or whatever. Then I realized I had basically reinvented the tree.
This is doable but the barrier to entry is high: a large-scale industrial carbon capture machine costs $750 million.
Edit: graphite is used in batteries manufacturing
Very little is used and it’s cheap and easy to get. Most of the carbon ideas ignore how insanely cheap carbon sources of a particular form are. Even most types of wood that are used are worth so little money hauling it around unfinished isn’t profitable.
To me, at least, we need to just treat this like a tax. A certain amount of money we all pay each year to pull carbon out of the air. If at some point someone figures out a use for all this stuff, pretty cool, in the meantime just pile it up.