Agreed; this is how I view carbon capture technology. We need to learn to scale it now so that by the time we are at or near 100% renewables we can begin to remove the massive amounts of carbon we have pumped into the atmosphere over the past x many centuries.

>And doing that kind of transformation would cost 1.95 trillion dollars a year. That's assuming the method can be scaled and as you mentioned the methanol doesn't get used.

Yes, but you are assuming the idea scales by build numbers and that the cost doesn't scale by dollar value. Most researchers are projecting a significant decrease in costs as these units are scaled. There are also many people who think there is no long term way for humanity to adapt to climate change without learning how to efficiently remove carbon from the atmosphere. We get closer to making this work by discoveries like the one being researched in the article.