I need a change of pace, so I’m taking some time off to write about stupid stuff. Literally.

One of the dumbest ideas ever invented was carbon removal. Let’s show how stupid carbon removal is.

It takes energy to remove carbon through technological means. Since all expenditures of energy involve the inefficient use of energy resources, you have to output additional carbon in order to remove carbon. You can’t, for example, use fossil or bio fuels to provide the energy to remove carbon because you’ll emit more carbon than you are removing. You’d emit less carbon by doing nothing (hint, hint).

So you have to use so-called green energy, like wind or solar. The problem, of course, is that these technologies are not carbon neutral. You have to emit carbon in order to make those technologies to power the technologies to remove carbon. But, unlike the above, this can actually remove more carbon than it adds.

The problem, of course, is that this energy is better put to other uses. It’s better to power homes and businesses with “green” energy because that fully prevents direct carbon emission. Thus, it is a net negative transaction to use carbon emitting power to power homes and businesses while you use green energy to remove carbon.

So, while it may seem like “green” technologies can remove more carbon than they add, this is only possible if “green” technologies supply so much power that there is no need for carbon-based power generation at all. This is clearly never going to happen. And even if it were, it would be better to invest resources in that first than in carbon removal technologies.

So what are we left with? The only green technology left: nuclear power. Nuclear power is realistically the only technology that has the potential to eliminate carbon emissions with enough power left over to remove carbon.

Environmentalists hate nuclear. Nuclear would solve all their carbon emission goals, so of course they hate it and oppose it. Moreover, the United States regulatory agency has obstructed and discouraged expansion of nuclear power. The only thing that could possibly be used to efficiently remove carbon is the one thing that they will never do.

Honestly, the only “technology” that has a chance of removing carbon is found in nature: plants and animals. As carbon goes up, plants grow bigger (thus containing more carbon). “But wait,” you say, “if plants and animals are growing better, why would we want to remove carbon?” Well, that’s why carbon removal technologies are stupid.

Just like it is better to put “green” energy to sensible use by powering homes and businesses, it is better to capture all that extra carbon into things we can use, like food and resources. Using them to remove carbon—e.g. by burying them under the ground—instead of making useful materials is ultimately harmful and stupid. It’s better to harvest trees for lumber to use for building homes and businesses than it is to harvest lumber only to bury it under the ground.

Sensible people would and do understand this, which is why no one is interested in stupid technologies.

Carbon removal makes absolutely no sense at all without there first being a massive excess in available resources. Any resources spent on carbon removal are resources not spent on something with actual utility. Short of achieving energy post-scarcity, it’s not clear that carbon removal could ever be net-positive, even in theory.

It’s like converting perfectly useful food corn into ethanol with exorbitant energy loses and opportunity cost. No one would ever think to do something that stupid…..umm, errr….maybe they should join Sisyphus for a practical demonstration.