CONTROVERSIES AROUND CARBON REMOVAL

Inevitably, when there’s a new technology or solution to reduce carbon emissions you are faced with two objections: It won’t work or it’s too impractical.

We’ve already covered the cost issue, and given the parallel of what happened to solar power becoming the cheapest source of electricity.

And / or - It’s a trick by polluters to carry on business as normal, while looking like they are doing something. This criticism usually comes from climate change activists.

In August and September there were a number of pieces taking aim at carbon removal programmes, in particular CCSCarbon Storage Sequestration.

For example, an opinion piece in The New York Times on 16 August was headlined, “Every Dollar Spent on This Climate Technology Is a Waste”

The piece was by Dr Charles Harvey of MIT and Dr Kurt House of KoBold Metals, who make the charge of greenwashing:

“Instead of spreading doubt about climate science, the industry now spreads false confidence about how we can continue to burn fossil fuels while efficiently cutting emissions. For example, Exxon Mobil advertises that it has “cumulatively captured more carbon dioxide than any other company — 120 million metric tons.”

Then the Economist in July wondered, “what if carbon removal becomes the new big oil.” This was an imaginary piece looking ahead to 2050, talking about “money from thin air.”

Finally, the New Scientist quoted a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), an Australian think tank, which said that carbon capture projects were underperforming.

For example, ExxonMobil’s LaBarge facility at Shute Creek in Wyoming had underperformed by 36% in terms of capacity, while the Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan, Canada, has captured about 50 per cent less than planned.

We’ll make a few points in response:

1 - These pieces are largely about Carbon Storage Sequestration, not about Direct Air Capture (DAC). They are related, but not the same thing.

Christina Beckmann from Tomorrow’s Air summarises it succinctly as follows:

“Basically - CCS takes CO2 from the source of emission (think oil and gas production as discussed in the article) while DAC takes CO2 from the ambient air.”

Climeworks has a useful page on their website, where they explain the difference between the two:

“CCS is a technology that helps to reduce emissions at the point source because it prevents new fossil CO₂ from entering the atmosphere. DAC+S, on the other hand, is a technology that goes beyond reducing: it removes carbon dioxide from the air, which produces so-called negative emissions. DAC+S allows us to remove unavoidable or historic emissions that are already in the atmosphere.”

2 - Of course, there is understandable scepticism about anything promoted by the fossil fuel industry.

However, it’s still early days for carbon removal. It stands to reason that some projects will fail at this stage.

You could also turn some of the findings around. To take the New Scientist article as an example:

Instead of saying that ExxonMobil’s facility had underperformed by 36%, you could just as easily say that it was operating at 64% on target, and was on the road to being successful.

3 - Related to that, Edinburgh University’s Stuart Haszeldine, a Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage says a lot of these findings are too simplistic, and that carbon removal and storage programmes can work with the right mix of regulations and market incentives.