CO2 capture technologies

Chevron and its partners in the project, including Shell and ExxonMobil, said it would capture up to 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide (...) It was supposed to cut the direct greenhouse gas emissions from the Gorgon liquified natural gas (LNG) development by 40%. Nearly 10 years on, this is yet to happen.

According to a recent report by the Global CCS Institute, there are 77 CCS projects in operation. About half are for “enhanced oil recovery”, which means the greenhouse gas is pumped underground to help extract more oil, a process that further adds to the climate crisis.

A controversial plan to store CO2 deep under Lake Maurepas was intended to greatly limit greenhouse gas emissions from a nearby industrial plant, but a new proposal raises the possibility that significantly less will be sequestered.

(...) just months after receiving the state's blessing for air emissions based on that low-carbon vision, Air Products has asked for a do-over.

The proposed change could allow the [Air Products' project called] Louisiana Clean Energy Complex to become among the top 25 industrial emitters of greenhouse gases in the state, (...)

Some environmental groups, which have opposed carbon capture projects because they claim they won't live up to the storage rates being promised, speculated the air permit changes indicate the company is trying to hedge its bets.

Gov. Jeff Landry has also instituted a temporary moratorium on new underground carbon injection permit applications to prioritize a review of existing applications. Six projects were fast-tracked under the order, but Air Products' permit wasn't one of them.

Fossil fuel companies and pro-carbon capture trade groups are capitalizing on AI’s growing energy demand to justify a new wave of dirty fossil-fuelled power plants— often wrapped in the fig leaf of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to appeal to big tech companies’ desire to be seen as green. This, despite the evidence that CCS is a smokescreen push by fossil fuel companies to make it appear that oil, gas, and coal can magically turn into “low carbon” fuels.

Carbon capture has become the fossil industry’s favorite lifeline — a convenient myth that lets polluters claim they can keep burning fossil fuels while staying “low-carbon.”

88% of CCS projects have failed, while close to 90% of proposed CCS capacity in the power sector was never built. Of the eight coal projects funded with $684 million in US public money, only one — the Petra Nova project in Texas — ever came online, capturing far less CO2 than claimed and then used captured CO2 to extract more oil, making it likely a net emitter.

Since 2005, the fossil fuel industry has spent $954 million lobbying the US government in favor of carbon capture, with half of the lobbying by just fifteen organizations, all of which have direct ties to fossil fuels. In return fossil fuel companies stand to receive over $30 billion in US subsidies for CCS through 2032 according to an official estimate.

"This is a fig leaf for mass expansion of the fossil fuel industry."

According to a report by the Climate Council, more than $4 billion in public money has been spent on developing CCS globally since 2003, yet it has "consistently failed to deliver promised results."

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24097907

archived (Wayback Machine)

Well, maybe. If greenhouse gas emissions do not start coming down very soon, there will inevitably come a "point of no return" at which climate change enters a runaway feedback loop. If we haven't reached that point yet, then there is still a chance to bring carbon dioxide levels down, but it would need to happen through photosynthesis on a massive scale.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23352534

archived (Wayback Machine)

• Artificial upwelling is a form of geoengineering that aims to use pipes and pumps to channel cool, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean to the surface. In doing so, it could fertilize surface waters, prompting the growth of plankton, which can then absorb and store large amounts of atmospheric carbon.
• Long considered a potential marine carbon dioxide removal (CDR) method, artificial upwelling has more recently been coupled with seaweed farming to potentially soak up even more atmospheric CO2.
• But technological challenges have plagued open-water upwelling experiments, while environmentalists worry that large-scale use could ultimately prove ineffective and ecologically harmful.
• Experts state that though upwelling could prove a viable solution to improve fisheries and protect coral reefs from marine heat waves, more research is needed. Considering the rapid current pace of climate change, it’s debatable as to whether implementation at scale could come in time to stave off dangerous warming.

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://ponder.cat/post/1442233

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17553386

• Challenge 1: Scaling up
• Challenge 2: Energy requirement
• Challenge 3: Siting
• Challenge 4: Cost

the world would need to generate billions of tonnes of CO2 credits at an affordable price. That prospect doesn't look likely. The largest DAC plant in operation today removes just 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, and the price to buy the company's carbon-removal credits on the market today is $1,500 per tonne.

The researchers recognize that there is room for energy efficiency improvements in the future, but DAC units will always be subject to higher work requirements than CCS applied to power plant or industrial flue gases, and there is not a clear pathway to reducing work requirements much below the levels of current DAC technologies.

"Given the high stakes of climate change, it is foolhardy to rely on DAC to be the hero that comes to our rescue."

The Northwest Landowners Association, the North Dakota Farm Bureau and others argue that state laws regulating the underground storage of carbon dioxide are unconstitutional.

“This is really just a made-up work for taking property,” the Northwest Landowners said in a news release Thursday.

(Image Source)

Since peat bogs collect and store large amounts of carbon, they are what is known as a “carbon sink.” So, one way to help the planet would be to protect these spaces, but unfortunately peat, and often the land, is valuable.

"Worldwide, the remaining area of near natural peatland (over 3 million km2) sequesters 0.37 gigatonnes of CO2 a year. Peat soils contain more than 600 gigatonnes of carbon which represents up to 44% of all soil carbon, and exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types including the world’s forests.“ IUCN

Peat is built up dead vegetation that(thanks to the wet and low-oxygen environments) does not break down, creating a sponge-like effect. They hold carbon, help control water flow(helping with both floods and droughts), and improve water quality through filtering.

If harvested on a small and sustainable scale, it can provide a firewood alternative, a plant substrate, a fertilizer, and more. However, the peatlands are drained on large scales, so it is important that people know the importance of these (often hated) areas.

More Info:

• https://youtu.be/MtsQPV49cAk
• https://youtu.be/fOYaUZdgCA0
• https://youtu.be/r-LY17qcQEk

An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:

On a slice of the ocean front in west Singapore, a startup is building a plant to turn carbon dioxide from air and seawater into the same material as seashells, in a process that will also produce "green" hydrogen — a much-hyped clean fuel.

The cluster of low-slung buildings starting to take shape in Tuas will become the "world's largest" ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant when completed later this year, according to Equatic, the startup behind it that was spun out of the University of California at Los Angeles. The idea is that the plant will pull water from the ocean, zap it with an electric current and run air through it to produce a series of chemical reactions to trap and store carbon dioxide as minerals, which can be put back in the sea or used on land... The $20 million facility will be fully operational by the end of the year and able to remove 3,650 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, said Edward Sanders, chief operating officer of Equatic, which has partnered with Singapore's National Water Agency to construct the plant. That amount is equivalent to taking roughly 870 average passenger cars off the road. The ambition is to scale up to 100,000 metric tons of CO2 removal a year by the end of 2026, and from there to millions of metric tons over the next few decades, Sanders told CNN. The plant can be replicated pretty much anywhere, he said, stacked up in modules "like lego blocks...."

The upfront costs are high but the company says it plans to make money by selling carbon credits to polluters to offset their pollution, as well as selling the hydrogen produced during the process. Equatic has already signed a deal with Boeing to sell it 2,100 metric tons of hydrogen, which it plans to use to create green fuel, and to fund the removal of 62,000 metric tons of CO2.

There's other projects around the world attempting ocean-based carbon renewal, CNN notes. "Other projects include sprinkling iron particles into the ocean to stimulate CO2-absorbing phytoplankton, sinking seaweed into the depths to lock up carbon and spraying particles into marine clouds to reflect away some of the sun's energy."

But carbon-removal projects are controversial, criticized for being expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuels. And when they involve the oceans — complex ecosystems already under huge strain from global warming — criticisms can get even louder. There are "big knowledge gaps" when it comes to ocean geoengineering generally, said Jean-Pierre Gatusso, an ocean scientist at the Sorbonne University in France. "I am very concerned with the fact that science lags behind the industry," he told CNN.

Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/427506

📢📢📢 OpenAir joins 350+ companies and organizations from across the CDR sector to call for a method-neutral EU #CRCF 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺  docs.google.com/document/d/1...