Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumDespite A Decade Of Expensive Flops, Carbon Capture Stumbles On, Now W. Generous Federal Support
With his climate agenda stalled in Congress, President Joe Biden has managed to win billions in federal spending for one pillar of his platform that is gaining increased attention globally: carbon capture. In a major win for oil, coal, utilities and other industries, the federal government is poised to make its largest investment evermore than $12 billion from last years infrastructure billin technologies that capture carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions or straight from the air.
ExxonMobil, Southern Company and other oil fossil fuel giants have promoted carbon capture and storage as a tool for cutting emissions for more than a decade, with little to show for it. Still, carbon capture is gaining traction with politicians in both parties, policy experts, scientists and even some environmentalists who say that the threat of climate change is so dire that it requires every possible solution.
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The last year has seen a wave of new carbon capture, storage and removal projects announced, with at least 55 in the United States alone since the beginning of 2021, according to the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group. Some are highly speculative, such as a proposal by Exxon to build a $100 billion carbon capture hub in the Houston area. Exxon announced the first proposed project for the hub on Wednesday, a plan to attach carbon capture to its refinery complex in Baytown, Texas, to produce low-emissions hydrogen. The company has said the hub can proceed only with substantial government funding and tax incentives worth $100 per ton of carbon dioxide removed, twice the current rate. In North Dakota, an energy company bought a coal power plant slated for closure and said it would revive it by attaching carbon capture technology.
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If these arguments sound convincingwho wouldnt want to lock away emissions for good?many environmental advocates say they gloss over an important detail. Despite decades of research and development, and billions of dollars spent, carbon capture and removal remain extremely expensive and energy-intensive, even as the costs of alternatives have plummeted. Building new renewable energy projects is cheaper than building new fossil fuel power plants in much of the world, and in some cases is even cheaper than continuing to operate coal or natural gas plants. Adding hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to build and operate a carbon capture system only worsens the math. A December report by the Government Accountability Office said the Department of Energy gave nearly $684 million to six coal plants for carbon capture projects from 2010 through 2017, but that only one of those projects was built and it ceased operations in 2020, citing high costs.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09032022/carbon-capture-and-storage-fossil-fuels-climate-change/