To CCS or not?

How do we significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late?

Some say by carbon capture and storage (CCS), what is in essence the process of separating carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, or from gases produced in electricity generation and industrial processes, then injecting the captured CO2 into geological rock formations typically located several kilometers underground? 

CCS technology features in a number of government and industry proposals. But it is still not on track and is in fact far behind where it will need to be within decades to meet the necessary targets for global emission reductions.

Part of the problem is how these technologies are still very much at the developmental stage, despite using them since the 1970s. 

“In terms of the actual efficiency of carbon capture, it’s not nearly as effective as people claim it is,” said Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. His research into two CCS projects, factoring in production and processing emissions, found they trapped only between 10-11 percent of net carbon emissions averaged over 20 years. “It’s never better to capture carbon than it is to use that money to replace coal or gas,” Jacobson said.

Questions also surround just how meaningfully CCS technologies are currently contributing to carbon emission reductions. For example, CCS is being used to funnel CO2 back underground to stimulate oil fields that are running dry, in a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR) — a way, say CCS critics, not so much of reversing course on global warming but of prolonging the life-blood of the fossil fuel industry. Strictly speaking, such technologies fall under the umbrella of carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS.

“You have biofuels. Nuclear power. Coal and carbon capture. They all claim that they can do things, and all they need is another billion dollars to solve it,” said Jacobson. “It becomes a part of what people assume is working, whereas really, it’s just a pyramid scheme.”

https://truthout.org/articles/is-carbon-capture-and-storage-a-climate-solution-or-a-pyramid-scheme/