The Current State of Carbon Capture Does Not Meet The Existential Need in Combatting Climate Change

Rachel Dobbs, News Editor at The Economist, in a January 23rd newsletter states that with all the promises made by politicians and businesses, climate change mitigation plans as they currently exist are “not enough.” They are not nearly enough to offset the pollution we keep putting into the air that is raising the planet’s temperature. And the solutions we currently have at our disposal are not in place or nearly developed enough to draw down what already is in the air. She states we have no wiggle room anymore.

A recent publication, “The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal: A global independent scientific assessment,” a collaboration of research done in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Europe Union calls for the need to remove between 450 billion and 1,100 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere by 2100 if we hope to keep mean global temperatures within the Paris Climate Agreement goal of 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) or even 2.0 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

Artur Runge-Metzger, of the Mercator Research Institute, states in the State of Carbon document that CO2 removal “will not fall from heaven like manna.” Manna may have delivered the Jews of the bible from starvation after leaving Egypt, but there is no godly intervention to save us from ourselves. We need negative carbon emissions technology now.

How significant is the challenge? Across the globe, currently, we remove 2 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is accomplished largely through reforestation, forest maintenance, and soil carbonation, not from novel technologies. The technologies that do exist, Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) remove a mere 0.1% of the total CO2. But it appears that, short of cutting off all sources of CO2 emissions with all the consequences that would entail, it is DAC and CCS that will likely if ramped up help us to remove the 450 to 1,100 billion tons which means a 1,300 times increase in CDR technologies.

The Challenges We Face to Remove Carbon Emissions

What steps are needed to make 450 to 1,100 billion tons of CO2 disappear? Here’s my list:

• Stop fossil fuel companies from developing new oil and gas resources.
• Ramp up renewable energy using solar, wind, tide, wave, storage and satellites.
• End fossil fuel use in making steel, aluminum, concrete and in other heavy manufacturing.
• End fossil fuel use to power transportation.
• Close coal, oil and natural gas-fired power plants or, if still needed, convert them to become negative CO2 emitters.
• Fund and build DAC and CCS projects rather than talk about building them.
• Find safe underground permanent storage capacity to take all of the CO2 we capture.
• Get wealthy countries, businesses and individuals to pony up the money needed to aid those most affected by climate change now and in the future.
• Get the United Nations or an equivalent with clout to measure, report, verify, and hold countries and companies to account regarding emissions and CDR.

A Canadian Case Study: The Oil Sands Promise CDR With A Catch

In Canada, we have the oil sands, a significant producer of CO2 emissions. The current amount is 70 million tons of CO2 annually which is 12.8% of the country’s 545.6 million total. The number is deceiving because it only covers emissions from operations and not from the consumption of its products.

The five largest producers recently formed the Pathways to Net Zero, an alliance that has been filling the airwaves in our country promoting a solution and CDR plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The Alliance wants to capture CO2 at the point of production and transport the gas via pipeline to a permanent underground storage site 400 kilometres (approximately 250 miles) away. When up and running it claims this will reduce CO2 emissions from operations by 40 million tons annually. By the century’s end, the Alliance states that it can remove more than twice the amount of CO2 the country currently produces annually.

There is, however, a hitch. The Alliance promises if it gets regulatory approval and permits in place it can start capturing, transporting, and storing CO2 as early as 2026. All it needs from two levels of Canada’s government is money over and above existing tax and financial advantages offered to it. In other words, it wants the government to mitigate its financial risk. This is an old fossil fuel industry act which during earlier CDR projects saw governments partner with operators putting in hundreds of millions of dollars and providing loan guarantees only to have the companies walk away leaving public debt.

A recent CBC article talks about how Canada’s governments have been very generous to the fossil fuel industry providing all kinds of financial contributions which the World Trade Organization defines as subsidies, “a financial contribution by a government or any public body… that confers a benefit.”The industry doesn’t consider tax deductions and credits to be subsidies. Yet that’s what the latest round of Canadian federal largess has delivered in addition to the many grants, direct funding, loan guarantees, royalty credits and royalty reductions for leases of government-owned land where producers operate.

So the Pathways Alliance is playing a game of blackmail. Give us more money and we promise to build something that promises to be the CDR answer we need in Canada to fulfil our global commitment to net zero by 2050.

These same companies have made record windfall profits since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukraine war and supply chain challenges, have compensated their executives lavishly and issued dividends to shareholders. What they haven’t done is taken those profits and put them into CDR. One of the oil sands executives in an interview today stated that oil sands companies are being aggressive in addressing emissions but are “not yet at the point where we can invest billions in these projects.

The Alliance claims to have spent a half billion dollars on planning for the CDR project and now they want matching funding because with the Inflation Reduction Act recently passed in the U.S., that’s what is being offered fossil fuel companies on similar projects south of the border. Canada’s Environment Minister has responded stating that with record-level profits “If not now, then I don’t know when,” in hearing the interview. Stated a spokesperson from Greenpeace Canada referring to the request for more federal money, “They’re still waiting for the government to come and pay for them.”

If the rest of the fossil fuel industry is as equally unwilling to meet the challenge of climate change then maybe governments should be rethinking how these companies operate within their countries. After all, the people of the planet and all the other life that calls Earth home need to see 450 to 1,100 billion tons of CO2 removed to mitigate global warming. It is pretty clear that fossil fuel companies like those in the Pathway Alliance will have to be either shamed, coerced or dragged kicking and screaming into doing their part to make the planet whole.