has the motto "Move fast and break things"

moves too fast and breaks everything, including his only successful original product

Alright, I came in pretty hot there and it's fair to call me on it. This is a topic that really irritates me, and I admit I was not the most polite I've ever been. Let me explain why:

Firstly, you're absolutely right that rare earth mining and the production of things like steel or plastics will nearly always create pollution (unless we find some exotic sci-fi process that eliminates pollutants, but I can't see the future). This is the best use of hydrocarbons, and something worth conserving them for since they're a fundamentally limited resource at this point in time. Not to mention plastics and steel are absolutely necessary to produce.

Secondly, Debbie Downer over here has a deep-seated, primal hatred toward grifters who prey on good intentions. Carbon capture is a genuinely useful technology worth developing, but the conversation around it (so far as I've heard, at least) is largely based around "Hey, the environment isn't screwed after all--we've got carbon capture now!" which is dishonest. What carbon capture is capable of right now is not nearly enough.

This generation of carbon capture technology can't live up to the hype of shiftless Greenwashing marketeers. I think it's a shame to see how positive the response is to news about developments in this sphere, 'cause the people who actually care about what they're reading are going to set themselves up for decades of disappointment. Again, I'm not trying to tear down carbon capture tech here, I just want the conversation to be grounded in reality, even if it isn't as uplifting per se.

Carbon Offsets/Carbon Credits are generally pure-and-simple scams where you pay money for someone to say "Okay, you're good. You may clear your environmental conscience" in the style of medieval Catholic Church indulgences or today's Elon-Muskian vaporware. Ask any Australian how their carbon offset programs have gone for more info.

And as myself and other commenters have mentioned, carbon capture and carbon offsets divert attention from solving the actual root of the problem, which is unsustainable use of a limited resource when better alternatives are available. Passive CO2 control through plants isn't just possible, it's something the earth has been doing for literally 10,000 times longer than anything remotely human has existed. There are literal mountains of evidence to that effect.

We can power reasonably sized consumer cars with electricity now. Yes, those are nasty to produce with the heavy metals and carbon required, but ultimately they're much, much better, and the tech will only continue to improve. If that car is powered by hydroelectric/solar/tidal power plants rather than coal plants, all the better.

Yes, this is all much easier said than done, but that doesn't make me incorrect. It's going to be a painful process with a learning curve, but the world changes faster than anyone expects. A couple decades ago, my house had one land-line phone; at this very moment, I'm using a more modern phone to (apparently) write an essay on why I hate "Green Grifters" for the eyes of one well-intentioned stranger. Technology moves in unpredictable ways, but regardless of how efficient carbon capture ultimately becomes, it will always make more macroeconomic sense to deal with power pollution by creating less pollution in the first place.

A wise man once said "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now." I truly hope the carbon capture tech we have now is a big, healthy tree in 20 years. Right now, I'm still betting on plants.

I'm so tired of hearing about this sort of thing. The most scalable, sustainable way to mitigate pollution is not polluting in the first place.

Even if these plants are powered by renewable energy, it's still not as clean as just putting that renewable energy to better use. You know, like powering your house.

Just invest in green energy, my dudes. You simply have to understand it's more efficient than scraping carbon out of the air. It's essentially like refusing to use toilets, and paying someone to follow behind you with a broom and a hose for when you make a mess. Just stop making a damn mess ffs.

This is not a political issue or necessarily an environmental issue--it's about not having to solve a problem that you're creating for yourself.

Carbon capture is cool and all, don't get me wrong, we just can't think about it as the solution to our dirty power problem.