CCS Redux: Carbon Engineering Was All the time A Figleaf For Fossil Gasoline Business, Now It’s Owned Outright By Them

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Carbon seize and sequestration in all of its numerous ineffective, inefficient and costly kinds is having one other run up the hype cycle. Nothing has actually modified. The issues nonetheless exist. The alternate options are nonetheless higher. The potential to be used continues to be minuscule. And so, the CCS Redux sequence, republishing previous CCS articles with minor edits.

What number of methods are there to say that mechanical direct air seize (DAC) of carbon dioxide is a deeply silly thought? Regardless of the quantity is, I’ve most likely used nearly all of turns of phrase. So have many others. That, in fact, doesn’t cease the fossil gasoline trade, those who they affect, individuals who simply don’t know any higher and hopeful individuals with no STEM capabilities from loving the sector.

And Occidental Petroleum simply confirmed its love in a giant method, committing $1.1 billion to purchase Carbon Engineering, the Canadian-ish DAC agency that arrange store in Squamish, BC a number of years in the past. On the time, I used to be aggravated that the Canadian authorities was throwing taxpayer cash at it, however unsurprised at what number of fossil gasoline corporations had chipped in.

That motivated me to publish 9 prolonged items assessing totally different points of the know-how and its precise markets, after which wrap them up in a 54-page case examine with a foreword by Professor Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford, well-known for his group’s ongoing work on a state of affairs of 100% renewables by 2050, now protecting 143 nations. I went deeply nerdy on this, rebuilding my mind to be a poor excuse for a chemical engineer, working in moles and reviewing scads of literature on artificial gasoline manufacturing. I’ve a bunch of chemical engineering nerd followers as a result of I each labored up the chemistry and identified that Carbon Engineering was fully missing in something resembling garments, by no means thoughts ones befitting royalty.

For these within the full case examine, right here’s a downloadable PDF model of it: Chevron’s Fig Leaf: A Case Examine of Carbon Engineering’s Direct Air Seize Plan.

Within the authentic sequence, I checked out the entire potential use instances for the know-how and asserted that Carbon Engineering’s Solely Market Is Pumping Extra Oil. That was, certainly, the headline of that article, and solely a few months later, Carbon Engineering signed a take care of Occidental to do precisely that within the Permian Foundation oil area of the southern USA. Because the engineer behind it, David Keith of Harvard College, made clear in his peer-reviewed publications over a decade in the past, the plan was to use pure fuel to energy a few kilometers of 20-meter excessive, 3-meter huge followers blowing air by way of dripping carbon-capturing resolution, after which to warmth the carbon-rich resolution to 900° Celsius to unlock the CO2 so it might be captured. Oh, and to energy the 2 totally different carbon seize techniques required to seize the half-ton of CO2 from pure fuel per ton of CO2 from the air as nicely.

Keith can be identified for his couple of remarkably weak research that discovered that wind power — , one of many two greatest power success tales and about essentially the most benign type of electrical technology we now have right now — wasn’t all that, and his tireless efforts to place a bandaid on international warming by pumping sulfur particles into the stratosphere, ignoring the entire different issues with burning large quantities of fossil fuels, together with ocean acidification. That he has the ear of so many prosperous and influential individuals resembling Invoice Gates continues to perplex me.

Yeah, let’s take a bunch of sequestered carbon in pure fuel, pump it up from underground, burn it to create 500 thousand tons of CO2, and use the facility to seize 1,000,000 tons of CO2 from the air. Then we’ll pump all of the CO2 underground to sequester it. Feels like a win, doesn’t it? Destructive CO2?

Besides, it’s important to ask the following query. The place is there numerous low-cost pure fuel and a spot to place CO2? Properly, in tapped-out oil fields. They typically have pure fuel that’s simply sitting there leaking out of the fracking and shale oil websites in quantities too small to be price piping to markets, however enough for illuminating a fig leaf.

Particularly with the following bit. Tapped-out oil wells aren’t empty of oil, they’re empty of simply extractable oil. There’s a bunch of tarry sludge left underground, and CO2 has this useful property of liquifying tarry sludge. Pump it underground into tapped-out oil wells, liquify the sludge, improve the stress, and pump the oil out the opposite finish. That’s one of many methods of enhanced oil restoration (EOR). And it sometimes recovers a lot oil that the CO2 discount claims are fully bogus, particularly with burning pure fuel to energy the package.

What’s with the Venn diagram? Properly, that’s the dimensions of the CO2 within the environment proper now, with the dimensions of our historic additions and the dimensions of our annual additions. The invisible dot is our present annual consumption of CO2 as a commodity. Why do I convey this up? As a result of the only greatest marketplace for CO2 right now is enhanced oil restoration, a couple of third of that 230 million tons that any individual pays for yearly.

How do I do know that? Properly, it’s as a result of the identical 12 months I checked out the entire important carbon seize services for the previous 50 years primarily based on World Carbon Seize and Sequestration Institute — sure, it’s transparently a fossil-fuel trade lobbying and advocacy group — knowledge and went by way of public info to determine what precisely was what. As I decided out with out a lot effort, Carbon Seize’s World Funding Would Have Been Higher Spent On Wind & Photo voltaic. Giving CCS each potential profit out of the doubt, and burdening wind and photo voltaic power with excessive prices and low capability components, it will have been vastly higher to construct wind and photo voltaic as an alternative.

Claiming that we are able to vacuum CO2 out of the environment to take care of the historic and annual drawback is specious nonsense, after which utilizing CO2 to pump extra oil so as to add to the issue is including insult to damage.

So yeah, after taking a look at just about each use for CO2 and the Carbon Engineering technical resolution, it was clear that the claims of constructing low-cost plug-compatible artificial fuels have been nonsense and that its solely pure market was enhanced oil restoration.

Oh, wait. The corporate was claiming one thing apart from the one factor the package was good for? Yeah, and it nonetheless is. However right here’s the factor. They have been sucking CO2 out of the air at nice energetic costly, considerably like closing the barn door after the horses had fled, if the horses have been numbered within the billions, invisible, tiny, and will fly, after which have been going to make use of electrical energy from someplace to get hydrogen at a lot higher energetic expense. After which they claimed that they have been going to create carbon impartial diesel or jet gasoline at but extra energetic expense, and that this was going to be virtuous and cheap.

Did any of this stand as much as the slightest scrutiny? No, in fact not. The desk above was the freight truck comparability, the place it’s way more costly and excessive carbon to make use of their resolution in the absolute best case state of affairs the place I gave them each advantage of the doubt than simply placing the electrical energy into electrical vehicles. I did the identical with jet gasoline vs sustainable aviation biofuel, and the comparability was a lot worse.

Be aware the “BC Electrical energy.” British Columbia, the jurisdiction Carbon Engineering has its idyllic Squamish base in, has actually low-carbon electrical energy at 12.9 grams CO2e per kWh. That was used each for manufacturing the hydrogen for Carbon Engineering’s artificial gasoline and the electrical energy for the Tesla Semi in my workup. You’ll be able to’t make artificial fuels from inexperienced hydrogen with out them having carbon money owed which are multiples of simply utilizing the electrical energy straight. Nearly each jurisdiction on the planet has electrical energy that may multiply that carbon debt above the extent of diesel, often by a good distance. For example, the USA’s common is 389 grams of CO23 per kWh, 30 instances worse. Carbon Engineering’s diesel would have had a CO2 load 16 instances that of diesel on the typical USA grid electrical energy.

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Nobody goes to purchase artificial fuels made out of direct air seize and hydrogen as a result of there are decrease carbon, less expensive alternate options. And but, that is the declare Occidental is making, per the press launch.

“The U.S. oil producer goals to construct about 100 crops utilizing direct air seize (DAC) know-how that strips carbon dioxide (CO2) from the environment to bury underground or to be used in making merchandise resembling concrete and aviation gasoline.”

“About” is a enjoyable phrase, isn’t it? However let’s faux that Occidental goes to construct 100 of Carbon Engineering’s crops along with the one which it’s constructing within the Permian Basin for enhanced oil restoration. That needs to be “about” 100 million tons of CO2 captured from the air yearly, with one other 50 million tons created from burning pure fuel. Certain.

Per the press launch, 30 of these services shall be in-built Kleberg County, Texas. Remarkably, that county has numerous tapped-out oil wells. I’m wondering what Occidental goes to do with 30 enhanced oil restoration machines burning pure fuel in that county?

Properly, it’ll be harvesting the USA’s Inflation Discount Act turbocharged 45Q tax credit for carbon seize and sequestration in fact, and sharing within the largesse of $4.5 billion to arrange a CCS hub within the area. Once I was at a convention a number of years in the past the place one in all Carbon Engineering’s engineers was on a panel, they let slip below gentle questioning that the corporate was going to be receiving $250 per ton of CO2 from a few governmental tax credit for its enhanced oil restoration. Looks as if that financial and local weather madness is continuous.

The $1.1 billion buy value doesn’t appear so large now. Occidental will most likely be capable to harvest that and the prices of constructing the partitions of followers powered by pure fuel straight from taxpayers with out passing go. A lot of the oil that it pumps as much as proceed to make the local weather disaster worse shall be pure revenue. Who couldn’t want taxpayer-funded earnings upon a serious oil agency?

And who couldn’t want an oil-soaked however very profitable exit from a startup for Invoice Gates and Breakthrough Vitality Ventures, early buyers in Carbon Engineering? In any case, their total function is to place cash into local weather options. Isn’t it? Anybody? Bueller? Anybody?