"The head of the IPCC has compared the rollout of carbon capture and storage (#CCS) to "trying to push water uphill," questioning a technology that the oil and gas industry has long touted as integral to net-zero emission plans.
The International Energy Agency has previously called for the oil and gas industry to let go of the "illusion" that carbon capture is a solution to climate change, pushing instead for energy majors to ramp up investments in clean energy."
So the experts say CCS is a dud.
ExxonMobil CEO:
CCS is a cool technology (makes big profit for us) and
Fossil fuel companies are the ONLY people who can help you with that tech;
Never mind that the tech is unproven and expensive and –
What, the public doesn't want to pay for our profit, you'd rather have cheap wind and solar?
IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT THERE'S NO CLIMATE ACTION.
Why won't climate activists let us help WAAAAH.
Wow.
Gaslighting at its finest.
The world isn’t on track to meet its climate goals — and it’s the public’s fault, a leading oil company CEO told journalists. Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Darren Woods told editors from Fortune that the world has “waited too long” to begin investing in a broader suite of technologies to slow planetary heating. That heating…
So far, "nearly all #CCS projects in the U.S. are actually enhanced-recovery projects that keep the oil and gas flowing."
Real, long-term CO2 storage requires the right site.
"But site characterization takes time that we don't have. The DOE spent more than 20 years evaluating Yucca Mountain. It spent some 14 years studying the New Mexico site."
But we need to HALVE CO2 emissions by 2030.
"Right now [CCS is] mostly a dangerous distraction."
Overview of methods to capture and store carbon.
None of these look all that great.
The message is not, which method is best,
the message is: CUT the emissions.
"Its Wyoming-based Project Bison plans to capture 5 million metric tons of CO2 annually by 2030 - a tiny fraction of U.S. overall carbon emissions of more than 6 billion tons per year. The company hopes to use improve its technology and scale it up.
The oil industry sees the technology as a potential lifeline because it can remove carbon dioxide produced from burning fossil fuels."
#CCS
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/us-based-carboncapture-raises-80-mln-saudi-aramco-others-2024-03-12/
America’s #CornBelt Bristles at $8 Billion Lifeline
"After regulator pushback and vocal opposition from #farmers who don’t want to be anywhere near a project they claim tramples on landowner rights, Summit Carbon Solutions has gone back to the drawing board to revise the #pipeline’s path 6,300 times."
#CCS
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-13/summit-carbon-pipeline-in-us-corn-belt-awaits-state-permits-farmer-support?srnd=homepage-americas
Someone needs to tell farmers that an acre of solar panels can give 70 times the EV miles than an acre of corn can drive a gas car.
The Decatur, IL plant received $281 million in taxpayer dollars.
It produces ethanol from corn (grown using a lot of diesel and fossil fuel-derived fertiliser).
The plant has captured only 10-12 percent of the plant’s emissions at most.
"Some studies have shown that ethanol blended with gasoline is worse for the climate than straight gasoline because of the vast amounts of land needed to grow corn, plus emissions from making it and burning it in vehicles."
https://news.oilandgaswatch.org/post/in-illinois-a-massive-taxpayer-funded-carbon-capture-project-fails-to-capture-about-90-percent-of-plants-emissions
#CCS
The project, run by ethanol producer Archer Daniels Midland and partners, received $281 million in taxpayer dollars via Department of Energy grants. It has stored more than 2.8 million metric tons of CO2 since 2011. However, EPA records show that represents a capture rate of only about 10-12 percent of the plant’s emissions each year at most, allowing the rest of the carbon dioxide to escape into the atmosphere. This small percentage raises questions about whether industrial-scale carbon capture technology can be a meaningful solution to global warming.
Lies, damn lies, and "carbon capture and sequestration"
"Projections of the size and scale of a future #CCS industry should come with heavy doses of scepticism."
Also:
"When the Australian reported that “#Australia could generate nearly $600bn in revenue”, what we are actually referring to is revenue for the organisations proposing #CarbonCapture and storage projects. Right now, that’s mostly oil and gas companies."
This makes explicit why the #FossilFuel industry is pushing so hard for "carbon capture" and "hydrogen with #CCS": It's an excuse to keep pumping oil and gas.
"Aramco is heavily investing in #CarbonCapture technology and aims to produce blue ammonia, which has a lower carbon footprint compared to traditional ammonia."
BUT
"It is very difficult to identify any off-take agreement in Europe [for blue hydrogen]... and they explained it's because of the high cost."
I'm a sucker for back-of-the-envelope estimates.
"In 2023, total CO2 #emissions were about 37 billion metric tons. If we wanted to remove just this amount each year, to keep the carbon dioxide level from rising, it would require 764 gigawatts of power. It would probably take more than 1,000 nuclear power plants.
The takeaway is pretty clear: Any idea that we can maintain our current lifestyle and just suck the CO2 out of the air afterwards is a fantasy."
https://www.wired.com/story/the-stupendous-energy-cost-of-direct-air-capture/
#CCS
Oh hey!
If you don't burn so much fossil fuels, there is also less emissions to capture and store.
"There are ways to prevent more of that pollution either by leaning into emerging technological solutions or by encouraging more sustainable consumer habits. "
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/13/24177104/limit-carbon-dioxide-removal-beccs-bioenergy-aviation-agriculture-industry
#CCS #CDR
Funding Failure: #CarbonCapture and Fossil #Hydrogen Subsidies Exposed
"[Report] reveals how governments in North America and Europe are preparing to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on these ineffective technologies, further benefiting the #FossilFfuel industry, despite their record profits."
"Funding Failure: Carbon Capture and Fossil Hydrogen Subsidies Exposed," reveals how governments in North America and Europe are preparing to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on these ineffective technologies, further benefiting the fossil fuel industry, despite their record profits.
Handouts to fossil fuel companies:
– USD 30 billion of public money handouts for carbon capture and fossil hydrogen to date.
– Five governments account for 95% of this spending:
United States: USD 12 billion
Norway: USD 6 billion
Canada: USD 3.8 billion
European Union: USD 3.6 billion
Netherlands: USD 2.6 billion
"Funding Failure: Carbon Capture and Fossil Hydrogen Subsidies Exposed," reveals how governments in North America and Europe are preparing to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on these ineffective technologies, further benefiting the fossil fuel industry, despite their record profits.
"Globally, governments have spent $4.2bn on projects that aim to produce blue #hydrogen from #FossilFuels using CCS.
The industry claims to have the technology to capture 90% to 95% of CO2, but in reality, it’s closer to 12% when every stage of the energy-intensive process is evaluated."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/29/unproven-climate-solutions-spending
Netherlands: 4 bn euro subsidies for "carbon capture and storage"
"Many flagship #CCS projects have been plagued by cost overruns, delays and missed capture targets.
Porthos is emblematic of the way oil and gas companies are securing subsidies for CCS schemes that present an appearance of climate action — but are never likely to attain the massive scale needed to make a dent in global #emissions."
https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/27/big-oil-is-the-winner-from-dutch-carbon-capture-subsidies/
This story is the second part of a DeSmog series on carbon capture and was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe, and in partnership with Follow the Money. To read the first story, click here. One Saturday in April, Dutch engineers manoeuvred a giant drill into position in the reclaimed, industrial extension of the Port […]
It leaks.
It's been operating for just a few years, and the site is supposed to store the carbon for centuries.
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found multiple Safe Drinking Water Act violations at the nation’s first carbon capture and sequestration (#CCS) storage project.
The #Decatur, IL, project, run by Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), violated rules meant to protect against leaks of captured carbon."
"The EPA is reassessing more than 100 pending permit applications for injection wells after an underground #CarbonCapture and storage reservoir in #Decatur, Illinois — owned and operated by agribusiness giant Archer-Daniels-Midland — leaked nearly 8,000 metric tons of liquid carbon into the rock formation above."
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2024/10/22/leak-imperils-a-key-climate-technology-0018491#insurance
#CCS
"After a surge of planned projects in the late 2000s and early 2010s failed to turn into operational carbon capture sites, there was a lull. But since 2020, the volume of planned #CCS has increased very significantly.
The pipeline for CCS has been surging for a half-decade now, and the amount of operational CCS has only grown by a few megatonnes of capacity. We were promised a CCS revolution, and we aren’t getting one."
https://ketanjoshi.co/2024/11/24/2024-ccs-update-the-revolution-refuses-to-arrive/#5e691595-7222-4bb6-936b-f8d1d98093eb-link
With receipts: CCS is a fossil fueled mirage
"Oil and gas producers have a lot a stake, after decades of advocating CCS as a ready-to-go climate fix.
Critics are quick to point out a track record of failure."
The few - small - projects that are running, are used to pump more oil.
CCS is very expensive.
So now the oil industry is asking for subsidies. That would mean subsidies both for pumping it, and for putting it back in to pump more oil. They pocket the profits at every step.
Will the EU fall for that?
The clock is ticking on a legal deadline for the petroleum industry to deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure – a technology it has championed for decades – at an unprecedented scale by the end of the decade. #EuropeNews
"For most countries around the world, sourcing energy entirely from wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower by 2050 would reduce their #energy needs and costs, improve air quality, and help slow climate change, according to a study.
These benefits, the authors say, could be realized at a fraction of the cost of implementing technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and capture it from stationary emitters like industrial smokestacks."
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-02-carbon-capture-renewables.html#google_vignette
#CCS #CDR
For most countries around the world, sourcing energy entirely from wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower by 2050 would reduce their energy needs and costs, improve air quality, and help slow climate change, according to a study in Environmental Science & Technology.
The daunting physics of carbon removal
"The [American Physical Society] report summarizes the current state of available carbon dioxide removal (#CDR) technologies and outlines recommendations for policymakers.
Above all, the report emphasizes that in most cases, cutting current carbon emissions is easier and less costly than large-scale, engineered carbon dioxide removal efforts may ever be."
https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2025/02/the-daunting-physics-carbon-removal
"The core message is that “it will take a lot of energy and material to do CDR at the gigaton scale” needed to have an appreciable impact.
Hence, the clear need for “a system of policies that balances the challenges of CDR with the challenges of curbing carbon emissions,” he says.
“This is a complex problem, but at this point, climate and carbon management is really a social and economic challenge,” says Taylor."
https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2025/02/the-daunting-physics-carbon-removal
Litmus test:
"#OilAndGas firms could be allowed to enter into a contract associated with a future commitment to carbon removals, posting collateral with a secure intermediary that would only be paid back if the removal is successfully delivered.
“Such a contract would be an important proof of concept,” he said. “[If] this contract would not be accepted in the market, this would reveal that most of the cost reduction expectations are probably too optimistic.” "
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/02/21/eu-must-not-slow-climate-action-on-hopes-of-future-carbon-removals-top-climate-advisor-war
#CCS
Then there's the leaks.
"Leakage of CO₂ from long-term disposal sites is a major technical risk and New Zealand’s framework must be clear on how it would deal with this liability."
The history of leaks is not encouraging.
New Zealand’s government will likely model its carbon capture legislation on Australia and the EU, which means operators are responsible for leaks for a time after a carbon disposal site is closed.
"[A new] study found that global carbon storage capacity was 10 times less than previous estimates after ruling out geological formations where the gas could leak, trigger earthquakes or contaminate groundwater, or had other limitations.
That means carbon capture and storage would only have the potential to reduce human-caused warming by 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.26 F) — far less than previous estimates of around 5-6 C (9-10.8 degrees F), researchers said."
A new study says the world has far fewer places to securely store carbon dioxide deep underground than previously thought, steeply lowering its potential to help stem global warming. Researchers identified geological formations where the gas could leak, trigger earthquakes, contaminate groundwater or where there were other limitations. They concluded that carbon storage capacity and the technology's potential to reduce human-caused warming were 10 times less than previous estimates. Authors say carbon capture and storage still is important, but their findings underscore the need to quickly reduce emissions from fossil fuels. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Thank you for this!
Shocked.
Shocked, I say.
@CelloMomOnCars
I wonder how many square miles/kilometers of wetlands we'd need to restore and how much arable land we'd need to turn back to woodlands to accomplish the same thing.
We live near a busy highway.I think about these things as the cars stream by.
I once did another back-of-the-envelope estimate, and arrived at about 225 mature trees required to soak up the CO2 emitted by a single Prius driven 15,000 miles a year.
It's not only the emissions, it's also the physical and mental health of the commuters, their productivity, and the cost to maintain the road infrastructure.
The return to office push is basically just employers and landlords wanting to get their money on the real estate they own or rent, that's all.
It *is* absurd.
But their lobbyists have managed to turn both CCS and hydrogen into quite a hype, and governments have started to fund those things. As if the fossil fuel industry was cash-poor.
CelloMom On Cars
Dag
glasspshr
Jeff C
Richard Michael Blaber
Old Hippie Ⓥ Resistance!