In the background of those discussions are carbon capture
and carbon removal, technologies most, if not all, producers are counting on to
meet their pledges to get to net-zero emissions. Skeptics worry the technology
is being oversold to allow the industry to maintain the status quo.
“The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world
meet its energy needs and climate goals – which means letting go of the
illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution,”
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said before the
start of talks.
WHAT EXACTLY IS CARBON CAPTURE?
Lots of industrial facilities like coal-fired power plants
and ethanol plants produce carbon dioxide. To stop those planet-warming
emissions from reaching the atmosphere, businesses can install equipment to
separate that gas from all the other gases coming out of the smokestack, and
transport it to where it can be permanently stored underground. And even for
industries trying to reduce emissions, some are likely to always produce some
carbon, like cement manufacturers that use a chemical process that releases
CO2.
“We call that a mitigation technology, a way to stop the
increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Karl Hausker, an
expert on getting to net-zero emissions at World Resources Institute, a
climate-focused nonprofit that supports sharp fossil fuel reductions along with
a limited role for carbon capture.
The captured carbon is concentrated into a form that can be
transported in a vehicle or through a pipeline to a place where it can be
injected underground for long-term storage.
Then there’s carbon removal. Instead of capturing carbon
from a single, concentrated source, the objective is to remove carbon that’s
already in the atmosphere. This already happens when forests are restored, for
example, but there’s a push to deploy technology, too. One type directly
captures it from the air, using chemicals to pull out carbon dioxide as air
passes through.
For some, carbon removal is essential during a global
transition to clean energy that will take years. For example, despite notable
gains for electric vehicles in some countries, gas-fired cars will be operating
well into the future. And some industries, like shipping and aviation, are
challenging to fully decarbonize.
“We have to remove some of what’s in the atmosphere in
addition to stopping the emissions,” said Jennifer Pett-Ridge, who leads the
federally supported Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s carbon initiative
in the U.S., the world’s second-leading emitter of greenhouse gases.
HOW IS IT GOING?
Many experts say the technology to capture carbon and store
it works, but it’s expensive, and it’s still in the early days of deployment.
There are about 40 large-scale carbon capture projects in
operation around the world capturing roughly 45 million metric tons of carbon
dioxide each year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s a tiny
amount — roughly 0.1% — of the 36.8 billion metric tons emitted globally as
tallied by the Global Carbon Project.
The IEA says the history of carbon capture “has largely been
one of unmet expectations.” The group analyzed how the world can achieve net
zero emissions and its guide path relies heavily on lowering emissions by
slashing fossil fuel use. Carbon capture is just a sliver of the solution —
less than 10% — but despite its comparatively small role, its expansion is
still behind schedule.
The pace of new projects is picking up, but they face
significant obstacles. In the United States, there’s opposition to CO2
pipelines that move carbon to storage sites. Safety is one concern; in 2020, a
CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured, releasing carbon dioxide that displaced
breathable air near the ground and sent dozens of people to hospitals. The
federal government is working on improving safety standards.
Companies can also run into difficulty getting permits.
South Dakota regulators this year, for example, rejected a construction permit
for a 1,300-mile network of CO2 pipelines in the Midwest to move carbon to a
storage site in Illinois.
The technology to remove carbon directly from the air exists
too, but its broad deployment is even further away and especially costly.
WHO’S SUPPORTING CARBON CAPTURE?
The American Petroleum Institute says oil and gas will
remain a critical energy source for decades, meaning that in order for the
world to reduce its carbon emissions, rapidly expanding carbon capture
technology is “key to cleaner energy use across the economy.” A check of most
oil companies’ plans to get to net-zero emissions also finds most of them
relying on carbon capture in some way.
The Biden administration wants more investment in carbon
capture and removal, too, building off America’s comparatively large spending
compared with the rest of the world. But it’s an industry that needs subsidies
to attract private financing. The Inflation Reduction Act makes tax benefits
much more generous. Investors can get a $180 per ton credit for removing carbon
from the air and storing it underground, for example. And the Department of
Energy has billions to support new projects.
“What we are talking about now is taking a technology that
has been proven and has been tested, but applying it much more broadly and also
applying it in sectors where there is a higher cost to deploy,” said Jessie
Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, an industry
advocacy group.
Investment is picking up. The EPA is considering dozens of
applications for wells that can store carbon. And in places like Louisiana and
North Dakota, local leaders are fighting to attract projects and investment.
Even left-leaning California has an ambitious climate plan
that incorporates carbon capture and removing carbon directly out of the air.
Leaders say there’s no other way to get emissions to zero.
WHO’S AGAINST IT?
Some environmentalists argue that fossil fuel companies are
holding up carbon capture to distract from the need to quickly phase out oil,
gas and coal.
“The fossil fuel industry has proven itself to be dangerous
and deceptive,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at Center for
Biological Diversity.
There are other problems. Some projects haven’t met their
carbon removal targets. A 2021 U.S. government accountability report said that
of eight demonstration projects aimed at capturing and storing carbon from coal
plants, just one had started operating at the time the report was published
despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.
Opponents also note that carbon capture can serve to prolong
the life of a polluting plant that would otherwise shut down sooner. That can
especially hurt poorer, minority communities that have long lived near heavily
polluting facilities.
They also note that most of the carbon captured in the U.S.
now eventually gets injected into the ground to force out more oil, a process
called enhanced oil recovery.
Hausker said it’s essential that governments set policies
that force less fossil fuel use — which can then be complemented by carbon
capture and carbon removal.
“We aren’t going to ask Exxon, ‘pretty please, stop
developing fossil fuels,’” he said.