One of the dumbest yet at the same time accurate political statements ever came from former presidential candidate H.Ross Perot, who was commenting during a debate about the trade imbalance that NAFTA would cause for the United States.

That phrase is what immediately went through my head when I saw this “CO2 sucker” show up on my Facebook Feed this morning:

Here is the link if you want to read about it.

Some simple datapoints suggest this would never even appear as a blip in the atmospheric CO2 content. For example, the volume of the atmosphere is roughly 4,200,000,000 cubic kilometers. Considering that they have a prototype plant of 15 machines that promises to remove 4000 tons of CO2 per year, and given that in 2020, there was 34.81 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted, with 2021 being on track to release 36.4 billion metric tons, it will be a very long time before they have any impact on CO2 levels.

Some simple math. 36,400,000,000 tons/4000 tons per 15 unit CO2 plant = 9,100,000 15 unit CO2 plants.

And that’s just for 2021 numbers. Over nine million of these 15 unit CO2 capture facilities would be needed, just to start making a dent in yearly CO2 emissions globally. It will never happen.

It reminds me of the “solar roads” scam, and clearly illustrates the phrase closely associated with P. T. Barnum.

There’s a sucker born every minute, literally. Pun intended.

Related