2. Carbon Sequencing by Adrian Ristevski Ristevski

CONTENTS

Introduction to Carbon Sequencing

Introduction to Carbon Sequencing & discourse

6-9

The Contemporary

The need for The need for Carbon Dioxide Removal

13-35

The Carbon Conundrum

37-57

Assessment of Contemporary CDR Projects

59-93

The Forthcoming

Consideration of CDR in the future

97-109

CDR, an expensive attempt to prolong the use of fossil fuels

111-115

Bibliography

118-119

Carbon Sequencing

INTRODUCTION

Introduction to Carbon Sequencing & Discourse Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is a geoengineering strategy that aims to capture large quantities of CO2, condense it into a liquid form, and permanently store the captured CO2 underground. To be more precise, there are two main types of CDR; Direct Air Capture (DAC) which captures C02 concentration directly from the air, and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) which captures the greenhouse gases from point of source (flue gases). To understand the importance of CDR, it is important to know why C02 is being captured in the first place. Carbon dioxide is a natural colourless gas, which is considered to be a greenhouse gas (GHG). The earth receives heat from the sun, known as short wave radiation, and in return, the Earth emits heat which is referred to as longwave radiation. The CO2 and other GHG (methane, nitrous oxide, etc) in the atmosphere have a high heat retention level, which means they hold the heat emitted from the earth, this process is known as the greenhouse effect. However, a new term being used, ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’, refers to anthropogenic warming, as a result of the exponential spike of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere causing increasingly higher warming. Carbon Brief Staff have calculated the incredible number of CO2 from man “530 gigatons of carbon dioxide between 1850 and 2000, and 380 gigatons of carbon dioxide since 2000. This makes a total of 910 gigatons of carbon dioxide released by human activity”.Thus, highlighting how CO2 has almost doubled in an extremely short time, which has undeniably resulted in devastating effects on the environment, and without doubt, threatening the survival of mankind.

Carbon Sequencing

Aforementioned, IPPC states that emissions must be reduced by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, in order to maintain the 1.5°C thresholds. This is exponentially challenging when they have also approximated that 60% of global carbon emissions are a consequence of fossil fuel power plants and other industrial facilities, thus highlighting the international reliance on these fossil fuels. Therefore, the implementation of CDR certainly sounds crucial in this international mission in reducing these GHG emissions from both point source and from the air. Companies such as Climeworks and ExxonMobil are some of the largest catalysts within the CDR realm, as they both aim to capturing enormous amounts of C02. Climeworks have develop what they call the worlds largest and completely sustainable DAC storage plant in Iceland called ‘Orca’ (Figure 1). Launched recently on 8/9/2021, Climeworks state that “Orca will capture 4000 tons of CO2 per year - making it the world’s biggest climate-positive facility to date”. Climeworks have also created a method of converting the captured CO2 into stone by mixing it with water and storing the mixture in basaltic rocks, which safely and permanently dispose of the captured carbon. ExxonMobil ‘Shute Creek Gas Processing Plant’ is the worlds largest CCS facility. ExxonMobil has captured more than 120 million metric tons of CO2 which is approximately the same as emissions from 25 million cars annually. Symptomatic of innovative technology, in 2010, ExxonMobil implemented higher efficient CCS technology which allows for 7 million tonnes of Carbon dioxide to be captured annually. The captured CO2 is used in Enhanced Oil Recovery in order to extract higher amounts of oil from a natural reservoir.

Figure 3: Diagram of Climeworks DAR and storage

Carbon Sequencing

Figure 3: World map of current small and large scale CCS projects

Carbon Sequencing

Introduction to Carbon Sequenicng However, this book will unmask the appealing facades of CDR and critically analyse the ethical and effectiveness of these geoengineering strategies. This will be expressed through discussion of CDR in the present and future. The focus across these timescale will highlight whether or not Carbon Capture will be enough and whether it is a reliable solution. The volume will refer to respectable people such as Greg Borunes, climate councillor and energy expert, who states “Carbon capture and storage is not a climate solution but an expensive attempt to prolong the role of fossil fuels in the energy system... right now, the government needs to be focused on building a resilient, renewable economy, not throwing taxpayer dollars at fossil fuel produces and fails technologies”. This book will also contrast and refer to people such as Stavros Dimas, EU Commissioner for the Environment who states “The world will fail to halve emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2050 without the deployment of technology to capture and store the emissions spewed out from fossil-fuel burning power plants” (Figure 2). Another question that will be raised is the reaction of humanity if CDR becomes the mainstream geoengineering strategy, and is one of the most reliable and effective ways to reduce carbon emission. Will CDR influence capitalist companies and governments to continue their greedy and unsustainable use of fossil fuels?.

Carbon Sequencing

THE CONTEMPORARY

Carbon Sequencing

The need for Carbon Dioxide Removal

Carbon Sequencing

22/10/2021, 21:34

Yale Environment 360

Geoengineer the Planet? More Scientists Now Say It Must Be an Option - Yale E360

A view of Earth from the International Space Station.

Geoengineer the Planet? More Scientists Now Say It Must Be an Option Human intervention with the climate system has long been viewed as an ill-advised and risky step to slow global warming. But with carbon emissions soaring, initiatives to study and develop geoengineering technologies are gaining traction as a potential last resort.

BY F RED PEARC E • MAY 29, 2019

nce seen as spooky sci-ﬁ, geoengineering to halt runaway climate change is now being looked at with growing urgency. A spate of dire scientiﬁc

warnings that the world community can no longer delay major cuts in carbon emissions, coupled with a recent surge in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, has left a growing number of scientists saying that it’s time to give the controversial technologies a serious look. “Time is no longer on our side,” one geoengineering advocate, former British government chief scientist David King, told a conference last fall. “What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years.” King helped secure the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, but he no longer believes cutting planet-warming emissions is enough to stave off disaster. He is in the process of establishing a Center for Climate Repair at Cambridge University. It would be the world’s first major research center dedicated to a task that, he says, “is going to be necessary.” Technologies earmarked for the Cambridge center’s attention include a range of efforts to restrict solar radiation from reaching the lower atmosphere, including spraying aerosols of sulphate particles into the stratosphere, and refreezing rapidly https://e360.yale.edu/features/geoengineer-the-planet-more-scientists-now-say-it-must-be-an-option

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22/10/2021, 21:34

Geoengineer the Planet? More Scientists Now Say It Must Be an Option - Yale E360

known as direct air capture —or by more natural methods. One of those would be to turn large areas of land over to carbon-absorbing crops, probably trees.

e harvested

biomass could then be used as fuel in power stations, and the emissions from burning them reabsorbed by new crops. e net emissions could be zero.

ALSO ON YALE E360 Climate Solutions: Is it feasible to remove enough CO2 from the air? Read more.

Intake fans at a direct air capture facility in Zurich, developed by the Swiss company ClimeWorks, that removes CO2 from the atmosphere. JULIA DUNLOP / CLIMEWORKS

If biomass burning were combined with technology to capture and bury the carbon emissions from the power plants — delivering a technological combo known as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) — emissions could be negative. In theory, the more you burned, the more CO2 you would suck from the air. e UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) enthusiastically adopted BECCS in its ﬁfth assessment, published in 2014. It said most scenarios for keeping warming below 2 degrees would require “the availability and widespread deployment of BECCS and aﬀorestation in the second half of the century.” It could happen. Biomass burning is increasingly popular in power stations. And carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a proven technology, though not yet adopted at scale.

at could soon change, following the announcement this month that

industrial emitters in the European ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Ghent plan to join forces to pump 10 million tons of CO2 a year into adjacent oﬀshore gas ﬁelds. But critics say the problems with BECCS are manifold.

e land requirement would

be huge. And the forests created to provide the fuel would be monocultures of fastgrowing tree species like eucalyptus and acacia. If the land were taken from farmers, then who would feed the world? And if it were taken from existing natural forest areas, the carbon beneﬁts of BECCS would largely disappear, says Simon https://e360.yale.edu/features/geoengineer-the-planet-more-scientists-now-say-it-must-be-an-option

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Summary

Carbon Sequencing

Fred Pearces article, ‘Geoengineer the Planet? More Scientists Now Say It Must Be an Option’ addresses the earth’s increasing warming climate and highlights Geoengineering as humanity’s last resort. Pearce starts the article off by highlighting how human intervention with climate is ill-advise and a risky procedure, however, proposes that the interception of technology with nature through geoengineering strategies such as Carbon Dioxide removal may be the only and last resort to save humanity from the risk the proposed Anthropocene. Referring to people such as former British government chief scientist David King, who previously stated “What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years”, as King refers to the IPCC report of meeting the carbon emission cut by 2030, it is without a doubt that this target must be reached otherwise serious irreversible consequences will certainly occur and enhance. Thus, Pearce reinforces and communicates the urgent need of CCS technologies, as human intervention through geoengineering may be our last hope to save what’s left of the planet for the future generations. Carbon Sequencing

PERSPECTIVE PUBLISHED ONLINE: 16 DECEMBER 2012 | DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1695

Last chance for carbon capture and storage Vivian Scott*, Stuart Gilfillan, Nils Markusson, Hannah Chalmers and R. Stuart Haszeldine Anthropogenic energy-related CO2 emissions are higher than ever. With new fossil-fuel power plants, growing energy-intensive industries and new sources of fossil fuels in development, further emissions increase seems inevitable. The rapid application of carbon capture and storage is a much heralded means to tackle emissions from both existing and future sources. However, despite extensive and successful research and development, progress in deploying carbon capture and storage has stalled. No fossil-fuel power plants, the greatest source of CO2 emissions, are using carbon capture and storage, and publicly supported demonstration programmes are struggling to deliver actual projects. Yet, carbon capture and storage remains a core component of national and global emissions-reduction scenarios. Governments have to either increase commitment to carbon capture and storage through much more active market support and emissions regulation, or accept its failure and recognize that continued expansion of power generation from burning fossil fuels is a severe threat to attaining objectives in mitigating climate change.

ossil fuels are expected to remain the dominant source of energy for decades to come1 (Fig. 1). Capturing and isolating the CO2 from fossil-fuel combustion could help prevent the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. As a result, carbon capture and storage (CCS) — the selective capture and long-term geological storage of CO2 from fossil-fuelled power plants and large industrial sources — is a much heralded and major component of many national and global scenarios for emission reduction. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) Blue Map scenario2 envisages a 19% CO2 reductions contribution from CCS by 2050. This suggests a need for the construction of hundreds of CCS operations worldwide in the 2020s, rising to thousands in the 2030s and beyond, to capture, transport and store over 8 Gt of CO2 per year by 2050 — double the mass of current global annual oil consumption3. So far, the viability of CCS to deliver on anything approaching this scale remains unproven — confirmation or otherwise is essential to inform climate mitigation strategy and to have any hope of limiting atmospheric CO2 levels to 450 ppm (ref. 4.) The IEA World Energy Outlook 20111 forecasts that existing energy facilities will account for four-fifths of the available energyrelated emissions budget to 2035 without exceeding 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration. Without further action the remaining fifth will be built by 2017 (Fig. 1). This predicament presents clear challenges for CCS. Is it technically feasible? If so, how can it be made to deliver? To answer these questions, we examine the status, prospects and challenges facing CO2 capture, transport and storage processes, assess current CCS activity and explore necessary actions to enable effective deployment. CCS is not perfect, but is technically feasible with existing technologies. Current capture processes can remove 85–95% of the CO2 contained in the waste gases produced by a power plant or industrial process. The capture, transport and storage processes all require energy, so more fuel needs to be extracted, transported and burnt to produce the same saleable output of electricity or product 5. However, no alternative yet exists for mitigating emissions from the continued use of fossil fuels for electricity generation, or from high-CO2-emitting industry, for example, steel, cement and fertilizer production.

Capturing CO2

Industrial-scale capture of CO2 from power plants and other large sources presents a complex technical challenge, but is achievable

now. Pilot (up to 1/10 scale) testing and development integrated with commercial sources has proved successful, and major industrial technology vendors are confident in their ability to deliver commercial-scale CO2-capture facilities for power plants, generating low-carbon electricity at a cost comparable to that from renewable and nuclear power 6. CO2 capture typically takes one of three different approaches: post-combustion — CO2 removal following normal combustion; pre-combustion — CO2 removal before combustion (for example, following gasification of solid fuel); and oxyfuel — altering the combustion constituents to produce a highly concentrated CO2 waste gas. As the single largest source of anthropogenic CO2, the deployment of CCS in coal-fired plants is an immediate priority. For coal, there is as yet no clear winner among the close-tocommercial CO2 capture approaches. The large-scale demonstration of CCS for coal power is critical to comparing the merits of the different methods for new coal-burning plants, whereas post-combustion is the simplest approach for retrofitting existing facilities. Continued construction of new fossil-fuelled power capacity worldwide requires the development and delivery of retrofit CO2 capture options. Retrofitting CCS to existing plants presents considerable, though by no means insurmountable, technical challenges. A recent study commissioned for the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme explored potential approaches to allowing at least some beneficial integration between power plants and retrofitted capture facilities7. Measures to encourage the design of new power plants to allow for the easier (and cheaper) subsequent integration of CO2 capture — capture readiness — are now included in some jurisdictions (for example, the EU). Such measures are expected to have a relatively marginal upfront cost — typically around 1% or less of the total capital cost of the plant. The effectiveness of these requirements will depend on how stringently they are implemented and enforced8,9. Increasing natural gas availability and affordability resulting from the development of unconventional gas extraction (shale gas) has strengthened the need to demonstrate and deliver CO2 capture for gas. Switching fuels — from coal to gas — can deliver significant and rapid emissions reductions, but gas is still a high-CO2-emitting fuel and the long-term aim for energy decarbonization requires CCS application to both coal and gas. A growing body of work indicates gas with CCS may prove both economically comparable and technically (the impact on overall generation efficiency) advantageous over coal with CCS, especially if assessed by cost per unit of

Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK. *e-mail: vivian.scott@ed.ac.uk NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | VOL 3 | FEBRUARY 2013 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange

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NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1695 OECD Europe Russia

OECD North America E. Europe/Eurasia

1443 TWh

4450 TWh

China

2323 TWh

6636 TWh

Middle East OECD Asia Oceania Africa

Other Renewables Wind Hydro Nuclear Oil Gas Coal

Latin America

1669 TWh

10100 TWh India 2219 TWh

1259 TWh 3264 TWh

1717 TWh

Figure 1 | Projected global electricity sources in 2035. Fossil fuels continue to dominate in many developed and developing economies. CCS is the only technology proposed at present that could enable emissions mitigation with continued use of fossil fuels. Data from IEA World Energy Outlook 20111.

low-carbon electricity (instead of the common but arguably less relevant metric of cost per unit CO2 abated)10–12. Post-combustion capture is now favoured for CCS in gas power plants. The lower flue-gas CO2 concentration makes separation more challenging, but once captured, the CO2 volumes needing transportation and storage per unit of electricity produced are around half those of coal. Oxycombustion options for gas are under development, but require significantly more effort to reach commercial viability. Pre-combustion of natural gas is technically feasible, but is considered unattractive as there are few advantages in transforming one gaseous fuel to another. With hindsight, CCS demonstration programmes and associated research underway in the developed world are perhaps overly focused on coal power. The research (and related industry) community needs to also consider how experience of CO2 capture gained on coal could be best adapted to gas. As a relatively immature technology, considerable opportunity exists to increase capture efficiency and reduce costs13. One key challenge is to balance exploration of relatively high-risk options that might offer step-change advances, with the development of incremental improvements to established technologies that can more rapidly be applied. For technologies available or close to commercial deployment, details associated with realistic operating environments need to be addressed. In electricity networks with significant renewable generation capacity, flexibility from any fossil-fuel power plant with CO2 capture will be crucial to achieving a reliable low-carbon electricity supply 14. Although it is well acknowledged, capture flexibility has received inadequate attention until recently and is a priority both in terms of delivering low-carbon energy, and in providing investor confidence in the long-term viability of CCS in markets where future base-load requirement is uncertain. Last, given the increasing likelihood of CO2 emissions-reduction targets being breached, the CO2 capture community should also look to develop scientifically robust ‘carbon negative’ (Box 1) solutions that might be required to stabilize or reduce atmospheric levels of CO2.

CO2 transport

Onshore, CO2 pipeline technology is well established, with thousands of miles of pipelines supplying enhanced oil recovery 106

(EOR) operations in the southern US. Offshore, a small amount of CO2 pipeline is also in operation. Further research is underway into many aspects including corrosive process prevention — establishing standards for water and other trace chemical content that might result from different source and capture varieties, mechanisms to prevent catastrophic pipeline failure resulting from Joule– Thompson cooling, and understanding CO2 dispersion in the event of leakage. But knowledge is sufficient to proceed with projects, which will in turn provide invaluable operational experience. CO2 shipping, building on experience with liquefied natural gas (LNG), can be used to fill specific niches. Small CO2 volumes can be shipped at relatively low cost, which could prove valuable in early offshore storage development, enabling flexibility and cost-efficient testing of offshore storage sites. Longer term, shipping may remain cost-effective for very-long-distance transport especially from isolated sources. The main challenge for CCS transport infrastructure is planning and coordination. Geographical locations of CO2 sources and possible storage sites rarely match. Any significant degree of CCS deployment will probably require considerable transport infrastructure with large-scale shared networks — for example, across Western Europe to storage in the North Sea — offering considerable cost savings over individual developments15. Developing large CO2 transport networks is logical, but presents a classic chicken and egg problem. An existing transport infrastructure, adapted for the connection of new sources and sinks, through for example the over-sizing of pipes, would make deployment of CCS easier, cheaper and thus potentially faster. But, the rewards for investing in such infrastructure can only be reaped in the future after substantial CCS deployment has taken place.

Long-term storage of CO2

Ultimately, the success of CCS depends on the safe and secure longterm storage of CO2. Geological storage, where CO2 is injected into a deep subsurface storage site has emerged as the preferred option. CO2 has been injected into the subsurface since the 1970s to increase oil production via CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Although EOR operations inject millions of tonnes of CO2 per year at present,

NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | VOL 3 | FEBRUARY 2013 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange

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NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1695 for CCS to seriously impact CO2 emissions the amount injected must increase by orders of magnitude. This requires a fundamental problem to be overcome — the subsurface does not contain any empty space. Injection of CO2 into either depleted hydrocarbon fields or saline formations will raise the formation pressure causing either displacement or compression of the existing fluids. In a depleted oil or gas field, the pressure can be raised to be close to the initial discovery pressure of the field without any detrimental effects on cap-rock integrity 16. However, if a depleted oil field has undergone water injection for secondary oil recovery, water will now partially fill the spaces that previously contained oil, maintaining a high reservoir pressure and limiting injection capacity 17, although producing extra oil via EOR can partially overcome this issue. Saline formations (also known as saline aquifers) offer much larger CO2 storage potential. Early research suggested that these had the capacity to store hundreds of years of CO2 emissions5. These original estimates have now been downgraded, as they did not accurately take into account the fluid pressure increase that would result from the injected CO218,19. For storage security it is essential that the fluid pressure in a saline formation is not significantly raised, to ensure that faults and fractures are not created or reactivated. The increase in fluid pressure is due to two issues. First, a local overpressure effect around the CO2 injection wells, as a result of high CO2 velocities. Increasing the number of injection wells and spacing them appropriately can control this, albeit at further expense18. Second, regional pressure builds up from the inefficient displacement of water by the injected CO2, meaning that the volume of water being displaced is not enough to compensate for the volume of CO2 injected16. This cannot be reduced by increasing the number of injection wells, and is the key limiting factor in the storage capacity of a given saline formation. Pressure dissipation in saline formations has recently been hotly debated20–22. The discussion focuses on whether the pressure induced by CO2 injection can dissipate laterally, termed an ‘open formation’, or not, a ‘closed formation’. As a closed formation will not permit pressure dissipation, CO2 injection will cause pressure build up, low injectivity, brine displacement and possible CO2 leakage. In reality, natural saline formations are somewhere in the middle of these two scenarios and are ‘semi-closed’ with respect to single phase flow 23,24. This is due to the inherent flow characteristics of the sealing rocks that surround the formation. For pressure dissipation this includes not just the top seal as conventionally considered, but also side seals and the base seal. Rigorous modelling work has shown that there is a range of seal permeabilities that can retain CO2 and yet transmit pressure to relieve injectivity 19. In the event that pressure build up becomes an issue, it is possible to produce (extract) water from the formation, alleviating pressure build up and creating further volume into which CO2 can be injected. Water production is routine in the hydrocarbon industry, with an average of three times more water than oil being produced on a daily basis25. There are now three projects injecting in the region of 1 Mt CO2 per year apiece into saline formations. Snøhvit (Norway) experienced a significant pressure build-up early in the injection phase, but this was remediated by re-perforating the well at a slightly shallower depth, allowing access to a portion of the saline formation with better injectivity 26. No such problems with pressure buildup have been experienced in the In Salah (Algeria) and Utsira (Norway) saline formations, despite a magnitude difference of the order of four in injectivity between the formations27. Future injection rates will have to be an order of magnitude larger again, and the response of a saline formation to such a large quantity of CO2 is difficult to simulate. As indicated by the initial injection issues experienced at Snøhvit, the only certain means to identify how a particular formation will respond to dynamic injection of CO2 is to actually inject CO2 into it. Evaluation of the response of a formation

could be achieved through the test injection of a small amount of CO2 allowing injectivity issues to be identified before large scale injection begins. To get the greatest learning benefit from early projects, captured CO2 should both be stored in the best available sites to establish confidence, and also (in smaller quantities) be strategically used to test potential future storage reservoirs. Adopting a phased approach, using a secure closed structure such as a depleted gas field in a saline aquifer for initial storage, would allow CO2 to be easily injected into the aquifer adjacent to the gas field, enabling accurate pressure responses and injectivity to be determined to inform about suitability for further CO2 storage28. All potential storage sites are to some extent unique. Although it is possible to transfer experience from one site to another, there will always be uncertainty that can only be addressed by actually injecting CO2. Specific injection and monitoring strategies have to be devised for each site, but this should not prevent CO2 storage taking place. At present, around 30 pilot projects are in operation globally, all of which are successfully injecting CO2 and demonstrating that it can be traced and accurately monitored. Without doubt, secure storage verification and monitoring remains an area of development — we do not yet have all of the answers, but we do know enough to get started.

Integrating CCS

Integration of CCS components is a challenge in terms of both technical design, and managing the diverse expertise and expectations from the wide range of disciplines and industries involved29. Technical issues include agreeing standards for the CO2 — pressure, temperature and impurities — as it passes between different components, and managing flexible operation and intermittent flow across the system. System integration has been achieved at pilot scale, but demonstration at a commercial scale is crucial to understanding and developing effective largescale system integration.

Delivering CCS

Four large-scale CCS projects are in operation at present — three in facilities scrubbing CO2 from extracted natural gas, and one storing CO2 produced from coal gasification. Several natural gas processing operations in the US also sell CO2 for EOR use. In all these cases, the new technology and extra expense required lie principally in the compression, transport, injection and monitoring of the CO2 in place of venting it into the atmosphere. In contrast with power plants or energy-intensive industry, CO2 capture and its energy requirements and costs are inherent in the overall production process, making such projects relatively low-hanging fruit in terms of complexity and expense. However, although these existing CCS projects capture and store significant volumes of CO2, they are far from carbon neutral. The products remain high-carbon fuels that are subsequently burnt without abatement. We recommend the division of CCS projects into three classes in terms of their overall CO2 emissions reduction30: carbon positive (7 projects existing, including EOR projects storing some CO2, 5 in construction and 29 in planning with delivery uncertain); near carbon neutral (26 projects in planning with delivery uncertain); and carbon negative (largely speculative)31 — see Box 1. This is not to say that carbon-positive projects should not be encouraged. They remain beneficial as compared with no abatement, and offer the opportunity to establish CO2 transport and storage infrastructure relatively cheaply and with minimal policy support. Efforts to establish CCS in fossil-fuelled power plants and industry (class 2 candidates) are focused around publicly supported CCS demonstration programmes. Intended to accelerate development by making up the capital funding difference between actual project cost and commercially viable cost, a global total

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NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1695 Making CCS happen

Box 1 | Classes of CCS project

Class 1: Carbon positive — a significant proportion of the carbon in the fuel will still be released to the atmosphere as CO2. This is because significant amounts of carbon are released when the products are combusted (for example, natural gas processing, refineries and coal-to-liquids). Projects that store CO2 as part of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations, resulting in increased oil production, may (or may not) be carbon positive depending on project specifics. Class 2: Near carbon neutral — the vast majority of the carbon in the fuel is converted to CO2 that is captured and stored, producing a commercial product which contains no combustible carbon (for example, electricity, hydrogen and heat). Class 3: Carbon negative — a net reduction of cumulative CO2 in the atmosphere. This could be achieved by direct removal of CO2 from the air, or by applying CCS to the combustion of biomass to produce electricity (using similar technology to that used for CO2 capture from coal and gas combustion). CO2 fixed from the atmosphere through growth is not released when biomass is combusted. Biomass must be sustainably grown to replace that used. All operating large-scale CCS projects at present are class 1, proposed CCS demonstration projects (see main text) are predominantly class 2, and class 3 remains largely speculative at this stage. of between US$14–20 billion is now (2012) available to support first-generation large-scale CCS projects32. Funding CCS demonstration programmes has inevitably resulted in debate over the relative merits of CCS in climate mitigation. The primary role of CCS demonstration projects is to inform this debate by establishing evidence in three key areas: first, the costs of fully integrated CCS technology at commercial scale and operation; second, wider exploration of the viability and availability of storage sites; and third, levels of stakeholder (government, industry and publics) acceptability of CCS at scale. At first glance, CCS demonstration programmes and associated R&D activities seem encouraging. In addition to operating commercial projects, 65 large-scale projects (mostly in coal-fired power plants) are in some stage of development 31. Numerous smaller-scale pilot projects have successfully tested capture technologies. Storage assessments and some limited testing have identified appropriate storage locations, and regulatory frameworks to permit CO2 storage are being enacted. However, despite half of the total available funding for CCS demonstration being at least provisionally allocated to projects, actual delivery is, at best, worryingly slow and is falling far short of that required to significantly cut CO2 emissions in the near future (Fig. 2). Only two of 41 proposed power plants (class 2) CCS demonstration projects — Kemper County (Mississippi, USA) and Boundary Dam (Saskatchewan, Canada) — are commencing construction. Both have received considerable public funding (around $700 million each), and both will sell captured CO2 for use in EOR. Worse, well funded and technically advanced flagship projects — for example, AEP’s Mountaineer (West Virginia, USA), ZeroGen (Queensland, Australia), 2Co’s Don Valley (Doncaster, UK) and Scottish Power’s Longannet (Fife, UK) — have been cancelled, and with considerable delays the future of many others is in serious doubt. A degree of attrition is inevitable for any innovative technology, but progress is both much slower than international ambition “to launch 20 CCS projects on power and industry by 2010”33, and inadequate to properly and timeously inform policy options. 108

Ultimately, progress with CCS hinges on the political will to make it happen, and CCS is facing the challenge of going from talk to action. The on-going global financial crisis is severely constraining both public and private appetite for major investment at a critical moment. Further, with influential countries and industries (motivated by perceptions of the cost and complexity of climate mitigation) working against progress with climate policy, the will to act on CCS is faltering. It may even be that such actors are keen to talk about CCS to avoid acting on climate policy — the governments expressing the most enthusiasm for CCS are not necessarily the same actors that have the highest ambitions about carbon mitigation34–36. Assuming there will be a political will to act, there are key policy measures that need to be adopted.

Real incentives required

In the absence of stringent CO2 emissions regulation (via a high carbon-price or otherwise), CCS for electricity generation (class 2) is a costly process with little revenue benefit. This is preventing early deployment, and in turn precluding learning and possible cost reductions. Producers of CO2 perceive little advantage in being first movers in CCS. Public funding to cover the extra capital expenditure of construction is available, but without greater revenue return for CCS-abated low-carbon electricity (or other products), the business case is weak. Technology development involves considerable commercial risk, and only where CCS offers a possible asset-management benefit (for example, as a long-term future for fossil fuels owned by a utility), or reliable revenue through the sale of the CO2 (for example, for EOR) can this risk perhaps be justified to, and by, investors. Until now, the frameworks created by policymakers have encouraged utilities and industry to examine CCS, but not to seriously commit to investment 37. Alternative generation methods, or inactivity, have a more credible return at present. This problem is well acknowledged, but efforts to address it are limited. As part of wider electricity market reform, the UK Government is including CCS as a low-carbon power-generation method to receive an incentive price, but critical specifics are yet (November 2012) to be clarified. In the EU, carbon prices remain far too low and uncertain to act as an incentive, however, in the US, although preferential pricing (rate recovery) for CCS electricity remains in consideration in some states and enabled in Mississippi38, others have rejected it leading to project cancellations. Carbon pricing offers simplicity, but also uncertainty and vulnerability to external shocks – the EU Emissions Trading Scheme price has plummeted to unforeseen levels courtesy of over-supply resulting from global recession, increased gas availability and other factors. Either carbon pricing needs significant reform to deliver a high price with long-term certainty, or (and) demonstrating CCS, like early wind energy, needs to be made temptingly profitable by attractive tariffs, in the form of a price bonus or a price guarantee39. All low-carbon technologies are required to deliver substantive climate mitigation. Ascribing to the principal of ‘let the market decide’, goverments of most developed countries are reluctant to pick winners among low-carbon technologies. We disagree, properly supporting CCS demonstration is about establishing a possibility, not picking a winner. Almost all the CO2 that could potentially be captured and stored is now ‘leaking’ into the atmosphere. Long-term national and regional emissions-reduction targets are in place, but there is little clarity as to how they are to be achieved. Exercises to explore potential decarbonization pathways (for example, the EU 2050 Energy Roadmap40) envisage a significant role for CCS, but most (if not all) jurisdictions are yet to develop coherent strategies for its deployment. Yet, we continue to allow construction and operation of fossil-fuelled power plants and energy-intensive industry.

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Figure 2 | Prospects for CCS deployment. The IEA 2009 Blue Map scenario (back) presented an ambitious pathway for CCS deployment, contributing to stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 ppm (ref. 2). CCS demonstration programmes are suffering delays and setbacks, reducing project numbers and pushing delivery for many projects back to 2016–17 and beyond. This suggests that at best by 2020 only half of projects envisaged in the Blue Map might be in place (front), and subsequent deployment remains highly uncertain (purple). Data compiled from ref. 31.

Assuming CCS demonstrations happen and are successful, the question then becomes what do we do next? An approach using mandated timetables for emissions reduction (with or without incentives for CCS) would give utilities and industry the choice between investment in CCS or replacing their CO2 production with other low-carbon alternatives. Alternatively, the focus could be on the carbon-containing fuel. In a carbon-constrained world, CCS is the long-term future for the fossil-fuel industry. Instead of CO2 storage being a separate (and minor) part of the hydrocarbon industries’ activities it could become an integral component of the overall fossil-fuel extraction business model. The price for continuing to extract and sell fossil fuels is the proper disposal of the consequences. Such changes cannot be introduced at full force overnight, but phasing them in can begin now.

Ensure regulation does not inhibit CCS development

CO2 storage must be appropriately regulated to protect the public, but excessive concern — given the minimal health risks41 — has perhaps had a detrimental influence on some early CO2 storage legislation. The current EU legislation places difficult technical and financial restrictions on developers of potential storage sites. First, ‘permanent’ CO2 storage is required — a scientifically naive requirement. Second, the potentially onerous liability arrangements attached to stored CO2 are unconducive to encouraging investment in early projects. With respect to ‘permanence’, a rigorously scientific approach is required. Given that the purpose of CO2 storage is to mitigate climate, arguably a 1% eventual leakage from a deep geological store is less problematic than 100% immediate leakage from the power station flue-stack. Early modelling work shows that even relatively insecure CO2 storage — where a significant proportion (up to 1% per 1,000 years) of the CO2 migrates back to the atmosphere — could be beneficial to at least medium-term climate mitigation efforts42,43. Further determination of the relationship between long-term leakage and climate would assist in properly informing storage regulation.

Regarding liability, it remains unclear how unplanned CO2 migration would be penalized, and what long-term arrangements would be made for the period following closure of a storage site. Storage in demonstration projects must be recognized as experimental, and so if governments wish to explore CCS as an option and make investment forthcoming, it will need to take a large share of the risks. Post-demonstration, the state could take over liability within 20–30 years of successful completion of CO2 injection. Another approach would be to copy the US Price–Anderson Act for civil nuclear-accident liability, which blends mutual company-contributed insurance with commercial insurance and final state liability.

Encourage CCS in the developing world

Low-carbon technology options need to be rapidly deployed worldwide to mitigate climate change. Considerable CCS R&D activity is already underway in China — as of 2006 the largest emitter of energy-related CO2. Impressively low capture costs (US$30–35 per tonne CO2) have been achieved at pilot post-combustion CO2 capture facilities44, and numerous large-scale demonstration facilities exploring all the available technologies are in development, both domestically and in partnership with western technology vendors (Fig. 3). However, CCS R&D does not necessarily result in deployment — serious international political action on climate remains critical. Enabling deployment in developing economies raises two major issues — financing and support in developing CCS technologies. Following many years of negotiation, CCS was formally included in the Clean Development Mechanism at the Durban 2011 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change45. However, the key issue of long-term liability agreement was avoided by placing it at the discretion of host countries to negotiate with investors. At present, it remains unlikely that the Clean Development Mechanism, dependent on the activity of other carbon markets, can realistically supply the finance required. Technology support raises issues around the protection of intellectual property rights46.

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Figure 3 | CCS activity in China. Post-combustion pilot facilities are in operation in conventional coal power plants. Some integrated gasification combined cycle (enabling pre-combustion capture) coal power plants are under construction and others are in the final stages of planning. Oxyfuel coal power plants, capture from industrial facilities, CO2 EOR and saline formation storage are also in development. Data from refs 31, 32, 49).

Whereas a balance that gives some benefit from research investment must be found, it is important to recognize that the market in CCS technology is essentially speculative at present. The overarching priority should be to co-ordinate and share efforts to help create and establish worldwide deployment of the technology.

Outlook

CCS now sits at a critical point 47. The next few years will determine whether the present aspirations attached to it as an option for climate mitigation are achievable. The outcome of CCS demonstration remains unclear. Should CCS prove, in some combination, technically, financially or politically overly challenging, it will be shown to be inadequate and the development of further fossil-fuel-derived energy capacity must be recognized as making current objectives of climate change mitigation unattainable. Alternatively, CCS could prove technically possible, but on balance more costly than alternative (non-fossil-fuel) technologies. Limited deployment might take place where CCS is of benefit to managing existing assets, and on industrial emissions where no alternatives exist, but its overall role would be much reduced. Last, CCS demonstration could prove successful both technically, in achieving reasonable cost and costreduction potential, and in attracting renewed political interest. Significant reductions in CO2 emissions could then be achieved through rapid worldwide deployment, both as a retrofit to existing facilities and in new power and industrial plants. Lessons should be learned from history. Governments have to intervene, either by providing money and direct command, or by making the rules of tax, planning, extraction, operation and emission such that decarbonization is guaranteed. Development and deployment of early nuclear power technology resulted from direct management by national governments through programmes lasting several decades. By contrast, as a result of the introduction of stringent, ambitious regulation forcing the market to innovate and adapt, flue-gas desulphurization in coal power plants has largely been successfully implemented in participating countries29,48. Renewable technologies have also benefited from both legislative 110

and public support. The current stagnation of CCS activity shows that government action so far has been inadequate. If governments want CCS available, they have to make and sustain a major commitment that compels the market to deliver. CCS has much to offer. Although eventual aspirations for a lowcarbon future should rightly focus on demand reduction, renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency, it seems highly unlikely that these options can be scaled quickly enough to meet our seemingly ever-growing demand for energy. Considerable research effort and progress on all the constituent processes strongly indicates that CCS can provide an effective and rapidly deployable technology, and play a major role in preventing disastrous climate change. Several scientific challenges undoubtedly remain; linking the research agenda with priorities in the real world is crucial, but we know enough to get started. For CCS to realize its potential in reducing CO2 emissions it is imperative that fully integrated large-scale CCS projects are delivered as soon as possible. This is essential to allow learning by doing, facilitating the possibility of rapid, widespread and effective global roll-out. To this end, the key decisions remain in the hands of government. CCS is technically deliverable, but will it be delivered before it is too late? Received 6 March 2012; accepted 29 August 2012; published online 16 December 2012.

References

1. World Energy Outlook 2011 (IEA, 2011); available at http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org 2. Technology Roadmap: Carbon Capture and Storage (IEA, 2009). 3. Statistical Review of World Energy 2011 (BP, 2011). 4. Calvin, K. et al. 2.6: Limiting climate change to 450 ppm CO2 equivalent in the 21st century. Energy Econ. 31(Supplement 2), S107–S120 (2009). 5. IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005). 6. The Costs of CO2 Capture, Transport and Storage (ZEP, 2011). 7. Gibbins, J. et al. Retrofitting CO2 Capture to Existing Power Plants (IEAGHG, 2011).

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Summary

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Frank T. Princiotta & Daniel H. Loughlin’s Volume Article ‘Global climate change: The quantifiable sustainability challenge’ investigates the need for new technologies in order to both provide for Earth’s increasing population with high energy demands, whilst also trying to minimise the negative effect on the climate. The text proposes the IEA idea of implementing Nuclear energy which would supply more than 25% of the world’s electricity by 2050, however, this is becoming less likely after the Fukushima accident. Moreover, the text goes one to highlight how “renewable technologies such as wind and solar cannot readily generate the base load power that nuclear could have provided, coal, natural gas, and energy storage, or some combination of the three, may have to fill much of this gap” Therefore, to achieve the crucial emissions reductions, The authors highlight that CCs will certainly have to play a role, and an even bigger on than IEA assumed. Although, due to CCS still being in its early stages, the effectiveness is being questioned in relation to its expensive cost and storage sites. Carbon Sequencing

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ISSN: 1096-2247 (Print) 2162-2906 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uawm20

Global climate change: The quantifiable sustainability challenge Frank T. Princiotta & Daniel H. Loughlin To cite this article: Frank T. Princiotta & Daniel H. Loughlin (2014) Global climate change: The quantifiable sustainability challenge, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 64:9, 979-994, DOI: 10.1080/10962247.2014.923351 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10962247.2014.923351

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REVIEW PAPER

Global climate change: The quantifiable sustainability challenge Frank T. Princiotta⁄ and Daniel H. Loughlin

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Air Pollution Prevention and Control Division, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA ⁄Please address correspondence to: Frank T. Princiotta, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, APPCD, 109 TW Alexander Dr., Durham, NC 27711, USA; e-mail: princiotta.frank@epa.gov

Population growth and the pressures spawned by increasing demands for energy and resource-intensive goods, foods, and services are driving unsustainable growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Recent GHG emission trends are consistent with worst-case scenarios of the previous decade. Dramatic and near-term emission reductions likely will be needed to ameliorate the potential deleterious impacts of climate change. To achieve such reductions, fundamental changes are required in the way that energy is generated and used. New technologies must be developed and deployed at a rapid rate. Advances in carbon capture and storage, renewable, nuclear, and transportation technologies are particularly important; however, global research and development efforts related to these technologies currently appear to fall short relative to needs. Even with a proactive and international mitigation effort, humanity will need to adapt to climate change, but the adaptation needs and damages will be far greater if mitigation activities are not pursued in earnest. In this review, research is highlighted that indicates increasing global and regional temperatures and ties climate changes to increasing GHG emissions. GHG mitigation targets necessary for limiting future global temperature increases are discussed, including how factors such as population growth and the growing energy intensity of the developing world will make these reduction targets more challenging. Potential technological pathways for meeting emission reduction targets are examined, barriers are discussed, and global and U.S. modeling results are presented that suggest that the necessary pathways will require radically transformed electric and mobile sectors. While geoengineering options have been proposed to allow more time for serious emission reductions, these measures are at the conceptual stage with many unanswered cost, environmental, and political issues. Implications: This paper lays out the case that mitigating the potential for catastrophic climate change will be a monumental challenge, requiring the global community to transform its energy system in an aggressive, coordinated, and timely manner. If this challenge is to be met, new technologies will have to be developed and deployed at a rapid rate. Advances in carbon capture and storage, renewable, nuclear, and transportation technologies are particularly important. Even with an aggressive international mitigation effort, humanity will still need to adapt to significant climate change.

Introduction Scientific studies clearly show that the planet is warming. For example, a 2010 synthesis of results from 160 research groups over 48 countries came to the conclusion that the top 10 indicators of global climate change all point to warming (Arndt et al., 2010). Warming is expected to continue, given that carbon dioxide emissions have increased annually by an average 3% from 2000 through 2011 (Peters et al., 2011; International Energy Agency [IEA], 2012). This growth rate corresponds to the most pessimistic emission projection from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2000). While U.S. and European emissions have leveled off since 2000, the global greenhouse gas (GHG) increases are being driven largely by economic growth in China and India. Combined emissions from China and India more than doubled from 2000 to 2010 (Le Quéré et al., 2013; Global Carbon Project, 2012).

If we continue on this emissions trajectory, global circulation models indicate that the planet could experience surface warming of 4 C from preindustrial levels as early as 2065 (Betts et al., 2010). Surface temperatures over the continental United States are expected to increase as much as 5 to 8 C under the same scenario, since land warms more rapidly than the oceans (Sanderson, 2010). Warren (2010, p. 233) summarized the implications of a 4 C warmer world as follows: Enormous adaptation challenges in the agricultural sector, with large areas of cropland becoming unsuitable for cultivation. . . . large losses in biodiversity, forests, coastal wetlands. . . supported by an acidified and potentially dysfunctional marine ecosystem. Drought and desertification would be widespread, with large numbers of people experiencing increased water stress. . . . Human and natural systems would be subject to increasing levels of

979 Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 64(9):979–994, 2014. This article not subject to US copyright law. ISSN: 1096-2247 print DOI: 10.1080/10962247.2014.923351 Submitted February 10, 2014; final version submitted May 7, 2014; accepted May 7, 2014.

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agricultural pests and diseases, and increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. While some level of increase in global temperatures is now inescapable due to emissions already in the atmosphere, strategies to reduce global GHG emissions have the potential to limit warming and its associated deleterious effects. However, when describing the challenge of a 50% global emission reduction program, from 2007 to 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has characterized the technological changes that would be necessary: “A global revolution . . . in ways that energy is supplied and used” (IEA, 2008, p. 37). The study authors further stated such a mitigation program “requires urgent implementation of unprecedented and far reaching new policies in the energy sector” (IEA, 2008, p.38). The setting of the required reduction targets is challenged by drivers such as population and economic growth and by the increasingly energy-intensive lifestyles of developing countries as they industrialize and urbanize. Proposals for implementing GHG emission reduction targets have also faced difficulties because of the perception that they will hamper economic development by increasing energy costs. The objective of this review paper is to quantify the challenges faced in large-scale GHG mitigation. First, we decompose the drivers of GHG emissions growth and examine the GHG reductions from a per-capita perspective. Next, at a global level, we discuss and analyze a recent IEA report that provides a global perspective on technological pathways for mitigation and the critical technologies. We present modeling of the U.S. energy system, showing how drastically energy supplies and demands must change if we are to achieve even a more modest emission reduction target. Then we summarize global energy research and development expenditures to illustrate inadequacy in funding. Additional technological challenges are discussed regarding nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration, two technologies that have been identified as being components critical

to many mitigation pathways. We illustrate with modeling how the necessary rate of emission reductions increases dramatically if we postpone action and that even a major, yet not transformational, global mitigation program will yield substantial warming and precipitation changes. Finally, we argue that unless and until humanity moves aggressively to deal with GHG emissions, we are moving in a dangerous and unsustainable path.

Assessing the Climate Change Sustainability Challenge A holistic view A holistic view of long-term sustainability cannot ignore humanity’s ever-growing demands on fossil fuels, water, and other finite geological resources. Figure 1 illustrates the key factors that are responsible for potentially unsustainable global impacts, with a focus on climate change (Princiotta, 2011). Such impacts have the potential to modify the planet so that it is inhospitable to the needs of the growing population, expected to pass 9 billion by midcentury. The root cause of potentially deleterious impacts is the technological challenge of meeting human “needs” that are growing dramatically, especially in developing nations. These needs are indicated by the box to the left side of the figure. Over time, the developed nations have expanded their list of needs to include personal transportation, large residences with energy-intensive heating, cooling, and lighting requirements, a diet heavily oriented toward meat production, and a growing array of consumer goods. Developing countries such as China and India, with large populations, are moving in the same direction. Although it is difficult to quantify the growth rate of such percapita needs, it is reasonable to relate these needs to per-capita annual economic growth, which has been approximately 3% in recent years. The problem is further magnified by a global population that is growing at roughly 1% per year. The

Figure 1. Global climate change: A key challenge to long-term sustainability. Adapted from Princiotta (2011).

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combination of these growth rates results in the demand for such needs to double every 25 years, a rate that likely is unsustainable. The middle of the figure indicates that these human needs are met by means of a large array of industrial, agricultural, and energy technologies and practices. Although there are a multitude of inputs and outputs associated with humankind’s “technologies and practices,” the major threats to long-term sustainability for an advanced level of civilization are shown in the figure. These threats include depletion of fossil fuels without adequate quantities of alternative forms of energy, depletion of mineral and water supplies, and the various impacts associated with the emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases. Although air, water, and waste contamination are serious potential consequences of our current resource intensive infrastructure, there appears to be a reasonable chance that we can modify our industrial infrastrucFigure 2. Factors influencing CO2 emissions, 2000–2010. ture to maintain a tolerable impact of these contaminants over the long term. The United States, European Union (EU), and Japan have been able to keep such impacts at close to tolerable levels despite population growth (in the Factors influencing CO2 emissions United States) and industrial growth in recent decades. That Figure 2, derived from the Global Carbon Project (2012) data, is why these contaminants are shown in a dashed-line format. was generated utilizing energy-related factors that have driven On the right-hand side of the figure is a listing of key global CO emissions for key countries from 2000 to 2010. The factors 2 impacts associated with the technology and practices currently considered are gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, popuused to meet human needs. As indicated by the red return arrows, lation, carbon intensity (i.e., carbon emissions per unit of climate change has the potential to exacerbate global impacts energy), and energy intensity (i.e., energy usage per unit of associated with non-energy-related technologies and practices. GDP). The relationship is as follows: Carbon emissions ¼ Ocean and forest degradation are examples of such amplifica- GDP per capita � population � carbon intensity � energy tion. Climate change can also yield unique impacts, such as intensity. The sum of the rates of change of these factors approxinfrastructure damage due to seawater rise and storm damage. imates the annual carbon (and CO ) emission growth rate. For 2 As indicated by the return flow at the top of the graphic, in a example, the sum of the bars for “Global” in Figure 2 equates to business-as-usual scenario, these impacts will challenge the approximately 3% per year. While emissions in the United States ability of humanity to meet its needs over the long term, challen- and Europe have decreased slightly in the last decade, those for ging long-term sustainability. The bottom of the figure indicates China and India increased by 9% and 6% per year, respectively, that there are two classes of mitigation opportunities: modifying driven by economic and population growth. our current carbon intensive technologies and practices, the most commonly considered approach, and modifying social and cul- The per capita challenge tural behavior toward a less energy- and resource-intensive lifestyle. More than 100 countries have adopted an upper global warmAlthough this paper focuses on low-carbon technologies ing limit of 2� C (Meinshausen et al., 2009). We examine the CO2 and practices, the mitigation challenge likely goes beyond per-capita emissions reductions that would be necessary to reach what is feasible by technology alone. Additional steps may this target. The analysis provides insights into the current carbon need to be taken to move humanity away from its current intensity of key countries and the per-capita reductions that energy- and resource-intensive culture to a more sustainable would be needed to meet various emission reduction targets. model. Such societal changes could be encouraged by incenFigure 3 summarizes an in depth global per-capita analysis tivizing material recycling programs, energy efficiency in using 2008 data (IPCC, 2014). This instructive graphic plots perbuildings, mass transit, and land practices that maximize capita emissions versus world population, which was 6.8 billion vegetative sequestration of atmospheric CO2. More difficult in 2008. All major countries are included, with per-capita emisand controversial transitions affecting population growth and sions per country decreasing from left to right. The area of each dietary choices may also be necessary. Reducing resource country’s rectangle equals its 2008 CO2 emissions. Australia and demands not only has the potential to reduce GHGs; co- the United States, with almost 18 and 17 tonnes per capita, benefits may include improved air and water quality, respectively, have the highest values. The Congo, Bangladesh, improved ecosystem services (e.g., forest and ocean health), Nigeria, and Ethiopia emit less than 0.5 tonnes per capita. China, and reduced mineral resource depletion. with a value of 5.2, is the world’s largest emitter, given its 1.3 Figure 1 also indicates the synergistic relationship between billion population. The average per-capita value for the develenergy production and fresh water use. The production of energy oped world was 10.2, while the global average was 4.1. requires large quantities of water, and supplying potable water Figure 3 also allows comparison of 2008 per capita values utilizes considerable quantities of energy. relative to what will be needed to limit warming to 2� C in 2050,

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Figure 3. Total energy-related per-capita emissions by country (red and grsy bars) compared to global per capita levels in 2050 (0.5 to 1.3 range) to limit warming to 20 C with a 50 to 75% probability. Source: IPCC (2014).

when population is estimated at 9.2 billion. The IPCC (2014) concludes that global per capita emissions will need to be reduced to the range of 0.5 and 1.3 tonnes to constrain warming to 2 C. This corresponds to global emission reductions between 2008 and 2050 of 53 to 83%. Figure 4 uses the data from Figure 3 and assumes that by 2050 the global per capita emissions will increase to 10.2. This is a credible scenario if there is no serious global mitigation program, and if the currently non-Annex 1 countries industrialize and move toward the energy- and resource-intensive economies of the Annex 1 countries. This figure illustrates that current global per capita emissions would have to be reduced from 4.1 to 0.5 tonnes to achieve an 83% reduction target, and to 1.3 tonnes per capita to meet a 53%

reduction target. Just to reach the 1.3 tonnes global per capita goal, the United States would have to reduce its per-capita emissions by 92% from 2008 levels. China, the world’s largest emitter, would have to reduce per capita emissions by 64%, at the same time that its per-capita emissions are growing at a fast rate as China industrializes and moves toward the Annex 1 countries’ resource-intensive social and economic model. In fact, as of 2013, China’s per-capita emissions had already increased from 5.2 in 2008 to 7.0 in 2012 (Olivier et al., 2013). It is instructive to analyze a “what-if ” scenario that assumes that by 2050 all countries will achieve the industrialized world’s 2008 per capita emissions of 10.2 tonne per capita. Figure 4 illustrates the emission implications of such an analysis. Under that scenario, emissions would more than triple from 2008 levels. Interestingly, such an emissions annual growth from 2008 to 2050 would be about 2.9%, which is close to the 2000 to 2011 3.0% global growth rate that was derived from earlier references. As the figure illustrates, given the current trend of the developing countries moving toward the developed world’s resource-intensive behavior and the massive reductions that are necessary, the mitigation challenge is monumental.

Mitigation Options The mitigation challenge: What role can energy technologies play?

Figure 4. A potential future scenario: By 2050 all countries emit CO2 at the Annex 1 countries’ 2008 per capita rate. Total emissions, represented by the bars, are in units of GT CO2. Per-capita values, indicated at the top of each bar, are in tonnes.

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In the absence of lifestyle, behavioral, and structural changes, mitigating the roughly 4 trillion tonnes of CO2 required to constrain warming below 2.0 C this century will be impossible without the extensive use of improved and, in some cases, breakthrough energy technologies (Princiotta, 2011). Such technologies are necessary for both energy production and to enhance end-use efficiency (e.g., lower emission vehicles).

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In 2010, the International Energy Agency (IEA) completed an extensive analysis to understand the potential of various energy technologies to prevent CO2 emissions (IEA, 2010). The key emission scenario assessed was the Blue Map scenario, which assumes both an aggressive and successful research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) program to develop and improve technologies to support a comprehensive technology demonstration and deployment program. The scenario also assumes policies in place that would encourage the use of these technologies in an accelerated time frame, encouraging lowcarbon technologies with costs up to US$200 per tonne of CO2. A variety of regulatory and incentive approaches could be applicable in such a scenario, such as CO2 cap and trade requirements, emission rate limits, taxes, or subsidies. The Blue Map scenario targets a 50% CO2 reduction target by 2050, relative to 2007. We analyze this scenario since it is similar to the 53% value mentioned already as a lower bound on necessary reductions by the IPCC (2014). Figure 5, reproduced from IEA (2010), illustrates the energysector implications of the Blue Map scenario compared with projected baseline emissions up to the year 2050. In the baseline scenario, oil and gas prices are assumed to be high, and energy security concerns increase as imports rise. In this scenario,

Figure 5. Emissions by sector for baseline and Blue Map scenarios to 2050 in Gt CO2. Source: Energy Technology Perspectives 2010 (IEA, 2010). © OECD/IEA, 2010, fig. ES3, p. 54.

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energy-related CO2 emissions in 2050 would be twice the level they were in 2007. This corresponds to an annual growth rate of 1.9%, which is significantly lower than the 3% growth in global CO2 emissions in the 2000 to 2011 time period. Nearly all of the growth in energy demand and in emissions comes from nonOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. As Figure 5 shows, for the Blue Map scenario, major reductions are required in every energy sector, with particularly deep reductions in the power-generation sector since such reductions are projected by the model to be lower in cost than those in other sectors. In Figure 6, we illustrate the quantities of CO2 avoidance by technology for the Blue Map scenario. The sum of all the bars yields 43 Gt avoided in 2050 versus the baseline projections. The results suggest that a diverse array of technologies in all energy sectors will be needed if these avoidance goals are to be met. Of particular importance are end-use technologies in the building, transport, and power-generation sectors, as well as carbon storage technologies in the power-generation and industrial sectors.

What are the challenges to early and deep CO2 reductions? The Blue Map scenario helps identify the implications of an aggressive mitigation strategy because this scenario involves early and deep carbon reductions across all energy sectors. The in-depth IEA analysis of this option offers valuable insights regarding RD&D needs, the role that new technology must play, and investment requirements. For example, in Figure 7 we show that new and advanced technologies must be available in the near term to achieve the required Blue Map scenario emission reduction goals. Figure 8, derived from IEA data (2010), illustrates the magnitude of the annual need of installed low-carbon power generation facilities to reduce emissions consistent with the Blue Map scenario. This graphic illustrates that the world will need to add about 160 GW of low-carbon technologies each year until 2050.

Figure 6. Technologies needed to meet Blue Map scenarios avoidance goal of 43 Gt CO2 mitigated by 2050.

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Figure 13. The three key CCS technologies. Adapted from IPCC (2005).

assumption of enhanced end-use efficiency lowers overall electricity production in the Blue Map scenario in 2050 relative to the Baseline.

What is the status of CCS technology? Given the critical role that CCS would be assumed to play, the technology currently is in its early stages. Figure 13 (adapted from IPCC, 2005) depicts the three key CCS technologies: precombustion, postcombustion, and oxy-fuel combustion, all with underground sequestration. In Table 2, the current state of the art, conversion efficiencies, technological issues, and research challenges are summarized. When comparing efficiencies, modern coal-fired power plants without CCS are capable of efficiencies in the 37 to 45% range, depending upon the steam cycle temperature and pressure (World Coal Association, 2013). As indicated in Table 2, all the current CCS technologies substantially reduce conversion efficiency. Such efficiency degradation leads to higher operational costs and more impacts associated with the mining and transportation of coal per unit of power output. Although deep saline reservoirs will be needed for the scale of CO2 storage needed, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) opportunities will be important in enhancing the economics of such systems in the near-term. As can be seen in the next to last column, the RD&D needs for all three technologies are great, given the lack of large pilot- and utility-scale operation on both the capture a sequestration operations.

Current CCS research, development, and demonstration program There are active research and pilot operations ongoing for these three capture technologies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the EU, and Australia, among others. Table 3, derived from MIT’s database (MIT, 2013), summarizes the status of the U.S. and Canadian large-scale power generation CCS

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projects. Five large-scale demonstrations in the United States and two in Canada are in the planning or construction phases. Precombustion via the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), postcombustion (amine scrubbing), and combustion (oxy-fuel) technologies are all represented. Either enhanced oil recovery (EOR) or deep saline aquifer (DSA) storage was selected as the storage medium. Given the current demonstration schedules, it appears that we will have a much better understanding of the performance and economics of key CCS technologies in the 2016 to 2020 time frame. Although EOR has the advantage of potentially providing revenue for the petroleum extracted, there is not nearly enough EOR capacity to store the CO2 that would be associated with a serious national power generation mitigation program. In addition, petroleum extracted will ultimately be refined and the refined components will be burned, generating more CO2 than was stored (Farr et al., 2013). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) also has a significant sequestration field assessment program, testing injection of CO2 into a number of geologic formations on both small and large scales. The DOE sequestration program has supported projects implementing CO2 injection in other countries, including Canada, Algeria, Norway, Australia, and Germany (U.S. DOE, 2013). The program also has supported complementary RD&D projects investigating and assessing risks associated with storage options, as well as monitoring the fate of the injected CO2. These efforts provide a baseline of experience, but projects thus far have been on scales far smaller than would be required for commercial applications.

Geoengineering: Can it buy us time? Geoengineering is a potential supplemental mitigative approach that at least in concept could buy humanity some time to dramatically reduce GHG emissions. Seen as a delaying tactic or as a possible “last resort” action to limit catastrophic climate change, geoengineering is receiving increasing attention

Lower power plant efficiency yields greater control needs for sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and fine particulate matter (PM), as well as greater coal mining impacts, including acid mine drainage New: 31–34% Retrofit: Allows lower cost CO2 separation, but Large pilot followed by full-scale demos Same as above oxygen production cost is high needed 24–28% New: 30–33% Retrofit: Cost, safety, and efficacy Affordable CO2 removal technologies Same as above 22–25% issues; CO2 scrubbing is energyneed to be piloted and demonstrated intensive Electricity demands Cost, public acceptance, permanence Major program with long-term demos Potential water quality impacts include in efficiencies evaluating large number of above geological formations to evaluate environmental impact, cost, and safety High costs, issues for low-rank coals, Demos on a variety of coals, complexity and potential hot gas cleanup research reliability concerns

New and retrofit Developmental stage Underground storage of CO2

Oxy-fuel combustion Postcombustion CO2 capture

Close to early New and commercialization retrofit Reactants are near New and commercial retrofit

New: 30–33%

Early New only Coal IGCC with commercialization precombustion CO2 capture

Applicability State of the art Technology

Table 2. Status of the three key CCS technologies

Current efficiency for electricity production

Issues

RD&D needs

Potential environmental impacts and RD&D needs

Princiotta and Loughlin / Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 64 (2014) 979–994

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in the scientific community. Geoengineering measures attempt to compensate for GHG emissions via two fundamentally distinct approaches: (1) intentionally changing Earth’s solar radiation balance, or (2) removing CO2 from the atmosphere. See Figure 14 for key options for these two categories identified in the literature (T. Felgenhauer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, personal communication, 2013). These options are only at the conceptual stage, with only limited research conducted to date. Key questions that must be answered for each concept before such they can be seriously considered (Hemming and Hagler, 2011) include: What are the expected time frame and magnitude of global climate response to the proposed geoengineering action? What are the immediate ancillary (positive and negative) consequences associated with the action? What are the long-term risks associated with sustained greenhouse warming mitigation using this strategy (e.g., years to decades)? What are the immediate and long-term financial, material, and personnel demands for this strategy? How scalable and reversible is this strategy? Is the risk of unintended consequences distributed evenly or would some regions of the world pay a higher price? The complexity of the climate system strongly suggests that there will be winners and losers if climate is intentionally managed using the schemes proposed to date. How will the losers be identified and compensated? How do each of the suggested geoengineering strategies compare on a cost per tonne CO2 basis? The current literature, between global climate modeling studies to evaluate the effects of reduced solar flux and proposed projects to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, does not provide a common metric for comparing costs. While the viability of geoengineering as a serious climate management strategy is the subject of debate, the scientists participating in these discussions agree that aggressive action toward cutting GHG emissions should not be supplanted by geoengineering (Hemming and Hagler, 2011). Geoengineering, at best, should be regarded as a short-term strategy in the context of long-term management of humanity’s GHG emissions.

Adaptation Will Be Needed There appears to be a high probability that even if the global community decides to deal with GHG emissions aggressively, substantial warming will still occur with serious impacts on human settlements. Even if the current 3% emission growth rate transitions to a 1% decreasing rate, substantial warming is projected. We evaluate such a scenario, along with alternative start years, using the Model for the Assessment of Greenhousegas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC) model, version 5.3 (Wigley, 2008; Fordham et al., 2012). Results are shown in Figure 15. Depending on whether such mitigation starts in 2015 or 2025, MAGICC estimates warming in 2100 to be between 2.7 and 3.1 C,with the corresponding equilibrium warming between 3.3 and 3.7 C, plus or minus the model uncertainties, from

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992

Princiotta and Loughlin / Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 64 (2014) 979–994

Figure 17. Projected change in July precipitation (1990 to 2100) for a less than transformational mitigation approach.

fundamentally and dramatically changed weather patterns. The IPCC (2007) concluded that poorer countries will have the most difficulty in implementing required adaptation measures. Another concern is related to the national and global security implications of climate change. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (Simeone, 2012) conveyed the concern of the U.S. Department of Defense that climate change impacts, such as drought, extreme weather conditions, and rising sea levels, may challenge the stability of many nations by inducing tremendous economic, agricultural, and health stresses.

Summary GHG emissions have grown exponentially over the past 50 years, driven both by an increasing global population and by increasing per-capita demands for energy- and resourceintensive goods, foods, and services. Models project that if humanity continues on its fossil fuel-intensive trajectory, global mean temperatures will rise 4 C as soon as 2065, accompanied by impacts such as sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and more severe heat waves and droughts. These changes will impact ecosystems, agriculture, and built infrastructure, thus posing a major threat to long-term human settlement sustainability. Steps needed to avoid catastrophic impacts can be delineated and quantified. In this review, we discuss projected warming estimates, vectors driving GHG emissions growth, emission reduction needs, technology pathways for meeting those needs both at the global and national level, and research and development priorities. Per-capita analysis further helps quantify the challenge. The CO2 per-capita annual emission rate globally must be reduced from 4.1 tonnes in 2008 to less than 1.3 tonnes by 2050 in order to limit warming to about 2 C. Emission rates in 2008 for the United States and the industrialized countries, taken collectively, were 17 and 10.2 tonnes, respectively. However, as the developed world industrializes and urbanizes, if this drives global per-capita levels to those associated with the current industrialized world, emissions would more than triple in 2050

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compared to current values. The mitigation challenge is daunting; to constrain warming to approximately 2 C, the recent 3% annual growth in GHG emissions must be transformed into an approximately 3% annual decline for decades. As commercialized technologies are capable of achieving less than half of the reductions needed, new technologies must be developed and deployed at a rapid rate, especially for the power generation and transportation sectors. Global research, development, and deployment efforts appear to fall far short of what is needed. Although geoengineering options have been proposed to allow more time for serious emission reductions, these options are only at the conceptual stage and have many unanswered cost, environmental, and political issues. Although this paper focuses on low-carbon technologies and practices, the mitigation challenge likely goes beyond what is feasible by technology alone. Additional steps may need to be taken to move humanity away from its current energy- and resource-intensive culture to a more sustainable model. Reducing resource demands not only has the potential to reduce GHGs; co-benefits may include improved air and water quality, improved ecosystem services (forest and ocean health), and reduced mineral resource depletion. However, at the other end of the environmental impact spectrum, given the need for massive introduction of low-carbon technologies, the potential for serious environmental impacts of such technologies needs to be recognized and impacts need to be ameliorated if required. Examples of such potential impacts include leakage of stored sequestered CO2 into water-supply aquifers, land and ultimate solid waste disposal impacts of hundreds of square miles of photovoltaic panels, and biomass production and wind-farm impacts on ecosystems.

Acknowledgment The authors thank the many people who have contributed to this work, including Gloria Fuller of the EPA, who assisted in preparation of this document, and the members of the Energy and Climate Assessment Team (ECAT) of the EPA Office of Research and

Summary

‘Last chance for carbon capture and storage’ by V.Scott, S.Gilfillan, N.Markusson, H.Chalmers and R.Haszeldine creates a standpoint which emphasis that Carbon Dioxide removal technologies such as CCS will likely be humanity’s last chance in mitigating climate change in time. Undoubtedly, V. Scot (et al) address that CCS as whole is far from perfect, arguing factors such as the lack of knowledge and experimentation/experience, extremely expensive cost of carbon, low incentive and Political reasons, and long term ethics and dangers of storing. Despite these factors, they state that CCS “is technically feasible with existing technologies” which becomes a significant point in this article as the text depicts “Fossil fuels continue to dominate in many developed and developing economies. CCS is the only technology proposed at present that could enable emissions mitigation with continued use of fossil fuels.” Theoretically, the transition from non renewable energy sources to renewable ones, would be the best long term way in mitigating climate and creating a sustainable earth, however, this is almost an impossible challenge in such a short time. Moreover, the large-scale implementation of CCS is then crucial, as the article goes on to emphasize that “ CCS can provide an effective and rapidly deployable technology, and play a major role in preventing disastrous climate change”, highlighting the effectiveness and importance of CCS technologies in the current society. Carbon Sequencing

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The Carbon Conundrum

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22/10/2021, 21:38

Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

Could squeezing more oil out of the ground help fight climate change? The pros and cons of enhanced oil recovery. By David Roberts @drvolts

Updated Dec 6, 2019, 7:56am EST

Shutterstock

This is part two of a four-part series on carbon capture and utilization (CCU), the growing industry dedicated to using carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere to fight climate change. Part one introduces CCU and its basic forms, and part three is about other industrial uses of CO2. The fourth post considers how policymakers should approach CCU technologies. This post was first published in October.

To secure a stable climate for future generations, humanity will need to permanently bury gigatons of carbon dioxide. There is already too much in the atmosphere — 415 https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

parts per million, when scientists say 350 ppm is the upper bound of safety — and we emit more and more each year. Building a carbon capture and storage industry of sufficient size would mean starting immediately, but at least for now, there is little financial incentive to do so. Companies can’t make money burying carbon, so they mostly don’t. One way to scale up the carbon-capture side of the industry would be to boost demand for captured CO2, which can be used as an input or feedstock in various other industrial processes. Capturing carbon (either from industrial waste streams or from the ambient air) and using it in industry is known as carbon capture and utilization (CCU). The idea is that CCU can be used as an “on-ramp” for eventual CCS, pushing down the costs of carbon capture and laying down some of the foundational infrastructure, like pipelines, needed for eventual CCS at scale. This is the second in what will be a four-part series of posts on CCU. The first is a brief introduction to the need for CCS and the various types of CCU that might help get it going. It will give you a lay of the land. In the third post, I will cover some of the more intriguing and promising uses of CO2, such as in concrete, fuels, and plastics. In this post, however, I want to focus on what is currently the largest industrial use of CO2: enhanced oil recovery (EOR), whereby pressurized CO2 is injected into existing oil and gas reservoirs to squeeze more hydrocarbons out. Today, EOR is the only industrial use of CO2 that has reached appreciable scale. As this graphic from market research firm IHS Markit shows, 88 percent of global CO2 use is “gaseous,” meaning direct use of CO2 to boost fossil fuel recovery (in the US, it’s about 75 percent):

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

IHS Markit

And EOR holds another distinction: It is also the only current carbon sequestration industry of any scale. It uses a lot of CO2 and leaves a lot of it permanently buried. If there’s any on-ramp for CCS around, this is it. EOR is an easy call for the oil and gas industry. More oil, more revenue; it’s all upside. But for those of us interested in slowing and reversing the growth of global carbon emissions as quickly as possible, it is much more complicated. Vexing, even. There is a strong argument for EOR as a way to reduce the carbon intensity of oil and sequester substantial amounts of carbon. But there is also a compelling case against it, namely that there should be less oil and gas production, not more. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to about EOR feels at least a little conflicted about it. Is subsidizing oil production really the only way to get large-scale carbon sequestration started? Are we really going to let oil and gas companies influence the scale and speed of climate policy? Let’s try to suss this out. First, we’ll review the case for, then the case against. The climate case for EOR New industry groups like the Energy Advance Center (BP, Chevron, Southern Company) and coalitions like the Carbon Capture Coalition (trade groups, oil and gas companies, and a few nonprofits) are springing up, making the argument that digging more oil and gas out of the ground can help fight climate change. It might seem counterintuitive, but in theory, at least, it is possible. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

Let’s review the basics of EOR. When oil companies dig wells, there are three phases of production. During primary production, the natural pressure built up within underground reservoirs pushes oil to the surface; about 10 percent of the oil in the reservoir is recovered this way. During secondary production, a fluid, usually water or gas, is pumped through the reservoir to flush loose more oil; that can recover anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the oil. Tertiary production is anything done after that, including injecting any fluid not originally found in the reservoir. The most common form of tertiary production is EOR, whereby high-pressure CO2, sometimes alternated with pulses of water, is injected into wells to bond with the oil and carry more of it to the surface. EOR can recover up to 60 percent of the oil in a reservoir.

NETL

(Technically, EOR can involve injecting a variety of substances, but for the purposes of this post, I’m going to use it to mean EOR using CO2.) EOR has been around in the US since the early 1970s. The world’s most active EOR region is the Permian Basin, in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Of the 450,000 barrels per day produced by EOR in the US, 350,000 come from the Permian. Thousands of miles of pipeline and infrastructure have been built for the purpose. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

A note here: EOR is different from hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the much-betterknown practice of pumping high-pressure fluids underground to release more oil and gas. In a nutshell, fracking forces open new fissures in the rock, while EOR “scrubs” existing channels. (For the best technical rundown of EOR and its CO2 mitigating potential, see this new paper in Frontiers in Climate, by Vanessa Núñez-López and Emily Moskal of the Jackson School of Geosciences and the University of Texas at Austin respectively, henceforth “the Frontiers paper.” For a shorter and more accessible treatment, see this brief by researcher Deepika Nagabhushan for the Clean Air Task Force.) Most of the CO2 used in EOR stays underground When CO2 is injected underground for EOR, most of it, around 90 to 95 percent, stays there, trapped in the geologic formation where the oil was once trapped. If the CO2 comes from the right source and enough is buried, it could amount to substantial carbon sequestration. But those are important caveats. First, less than 15 percent of the CO2 used in today’s US EOR operations (as of 2010) is pulled from “anthropogenic” sources like natural gas processing and hydrocarbon conversions. Over 85 percent comes from “terrestrial” sources, a few big natural CO2 reservoirs under the Earth’s surface. It was already sequestered; it has to be dug up. The best EOR can hope to do is re-bury it, a decidedly carbon-intensive practice over the full lifecycle. (No appreciable amount of EOR CO2 yet comes from direct air capture, though there’s a big DAC demonstration plant running in the Permian.) Second, absent government policy, EOR operators view CO2 entirely as a cost. They want to minimize how much they buy, how much they use, and how much remains sequestered. EOR advocates in the climate community say that both these conditions can be changed through smart regulations and incentives. They say EOR companies can be guided by policy to a) prefer captured CO2 over terrestrial CO2, and b) use and bury as much CO2 as possible. In an ideal world, all EOR operations would draw exclusively on anthropogenic CO2, and they would all sequester the maximum amount possible. That might make them carbon negative on a lifecycle basis. Even short of that, they could lower the lifecycle emissions of the oil and gas produced. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

As long as oil and gas are being used, advocates say, it’s better to have lower-carbon versions. In other words, counter-intuitively, digging up more oil and gas could help make progress on climate change. This vision has a number of things to recommend it.

CATF

EOR is an attractive on-ramp for CCS First, the big problem with CCS is that, in the absence of a fairly stiff price on carbon, there’s no incentive to do it, which means it’s hard to get private capital to invest in it. EOR is the only form of large-scale, permanent carbon sequestration that currently makes a profit. Under the right policy regime, the profit-making motive could be harnessed in service of burying carbon. In the process, EOR could help scale up CCS and drive costs down. Second, while most of the saline aquifers (porous, brine-filled rocks deep underground) that are being discussed for large-scale CCS have not yet been explored in any detail, the reservoirs from which EOR draws are much better understood. There are more historical records, they have been subject to more testing and monitoring, and their ability to securely store their contents over long periods of time has been demonstrated by the fact that they trapped hydrocarbons for millions of years. They are promising locations with which to get started on CCS in the near term. Third, oil companies have the equipment, experience, and capital to manage a huge industry like CCS. They know exactly the price point at which burying CO2 would become more profitable than digging up oil and will switch from the one to the other when that price point is reached. They already have much of the infrastructure in place. It’s just up to policymakers to help make capture CO2 cheap. Ultimately, the ability to effectively use EOR to reduce carbon depends on a standardized method of measuring the full lifecycle emissions of the EOR process. Such https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

EOR is potentially big enough in scale to absorb most of the carbon captured at industrial facilities for the next several decades. And with the political and policy landscape so uncertain, the Frontiers paper concludes, “CO2-EOR is the main conduit through which companies planning to or already employing CCS find value in the face of political uncertainty.” That, in brief, is the climate case for EOR. The climate case against EOR The case against EOR is more piecemeal. Many environmental groups oppose it because of its potential effects on groundwater. Many environmental justice groups oppose it because they believe, with good reason, that the polluting facilities kept alive by carbon capture will be located in their communities. But the core of the climate case against EOR is simple: Climate change is an emergency. We need to bury lots of carbon, but it is crazy to let the oil and gas industry set the pace and the terms. EOR under certain rarified circumstances may be carbon negative, but you know what’s always carbon negative? Burying CO2 without digging up a bunch of oil to burn. Sooner or later, we’re going to have more carbon to bury than EOR can handle anyway. We’re going to have to figure out how to bury it in saline aquifers. From a climate perspective, it makes sense to figure that out, and start doing it, as soon as possible. Rather than slowly luring private capital into the enterprise by subsidizing oil and gas production — putting one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake — we should just https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

Fossil fuel protests in Brussels. | Photo credit should read EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

The climate case for EOR is ultimately an argument that a path forward amenable to oil and gas companies is the only path possible. Give them regulatory certainty and enough subsidies, and they will eventually build the CCS needed while unlocking billions of barrels of oil along the way. The climate case against EOR would urge us to think bigger. Thinking bigger about EOR and CCS If climate change is an emergency, policymakers ought to treat it that way. It cannot be enough to slowly induce oil and gas companies to shift to more carbon-friendly practices, taking care not to unduly startle them. They must be jolted. At the very least, 45Q should be strengthened, the monitoring and verification standards protected, and the subsidy for geologic storage increased. But here are a few policy ideas, listed in order of increasing ambition, that might get the decarbonization job done faster. � �Rather than simply subsidizing the EOR operations that choose to switch to captured CO2, all EOR operations could be required to do so. And they could be required to maximize (and verify) permanent geologic sequestration. Those requirements could be accompanied, in the beginning, by a subsidy, to avoid any alarming jumps in oil or gasoline prices, but over time, subsidies could fade out and they could simply become regulatory requirements. The social license of EOR https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Climate change: Is enhanced oil recovery a friend or foe? - Vox

operations should be contingent on their burying captured carbon, and they should shoulder those costs. � �A national low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS), like the one in California, could be put in place and steadily ratcheted down, requiring all oil and gas companies, not just those doing EOR, to offset more and more of the carbon content of their products, until eventually they were burying (or funding the burial of) an amount of carbon equal to the amount their fuels produced. (The LCFS would also apply to imported oil.) This would also amount to a fundamental change in the social license of oil and gas operations. You want to dig up oil and gas; you have to pay to bury carbon. � �Oil and gas companies could be nationalized and set, by policy, on a path that would steadily phase out production of hydrocarbons and steadily scale up carbon sequestration. Eventually, they would become large, publicly owned sequestration companies. There’s simply no reason to have private, profit-making entities standing as middlemen between the public and the solution to an existential crisis, slowing things down and skimming off the rewards. I don’t know that I necessarily endorse any of these ideas unreservedly — I’d need to do a lot more thinking and talking to people to wrap my head around them — but I list them to make a point: The EOR conversation among wonks and policymakers is woefully narrow. It is built around the presumption that oil and gas companies must be kept happy and that political disturbance must be minimized. Treating climate change as an emergency means embracing the fact that political disturbance is inevitable and so is a struggle with the political power of the oil and gas industry. It may be that EOR can play a constructive role in a comprehensive decarbonization plan, helping to reduce the carbon content of the oil we can’t avoid using. But its use and limitations should be shaped by the public interest, not by the interests of oil and gas investors.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism? Millions turn to Vox to understand what’s happening in the news. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/2/20838646/climate-change-carbon-capture-enhanced-oil-recovery-eor

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Summary

David Roberts (two out of four) article ‘Could squeezing more oil out of the ground help fight climate change?’ introduces the process of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and its role in Carbon Capture and storage. Robert highlights the multiple benefits of EOR, “EOR is the only form of large-scale, permanent carbon sequestration that currently makes a profit” as he mentions it’s hard to find investors and lands in order to store captured CO2 as there is minimal incentive. Furthermore, David delves into the practicality of the process, depicting how through EOR, “up to 60 percent of the oil in a reservoir”. Undeniably, this is a significant figure, communicating the effectiveness in EOR for storing large masses of CO2, which also creates a higher oil recovery. However, Roberts outlines that “Over 85 percent comes from “terrestrial” sources”, thus, questioning the reliability of EOR as a full proof and effective way of storing carbon if most of it is carbon that was already stored naturally. This also raises questions of ethics, as the process of EOR is a carbon conundrum, collecting carbon, storing the carbon, and using the oil received, releasing even more carbon dioxide. From a macro scale, this cycle seems both ineffective and unethical, leaving David Roberts to ask the questions “Are we really going to let oil and gas companies influence the scale and speed of climate policy?”. Carbon Sequencing

22/10/2021, 21:49

What is Carbon Capture and Storage? | Climate Council

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RESOURCES / EXPLAINERS

WHAT IS CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE? 612

20.07.21 BY CLIMATE COUNCIL

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, has been touted as a ‘technology’ that could help lower Australia’s emissions. But does it stack up? Let’s cut through the spin and look at the facts. Key points: Carbon capture and storage (otherwise known as CCS) is a licence to ramp up emissions. CCS will never be a ‘zero-emissions’ solution. CCS is eye-wateringly expensive. Chevron’s Gorgon Gas Plant in WA, which is the biggest attempt at a CCS project in the world, is a big, expensive failure.

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/

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What is Carbon Capture and Storage? | Climate Council

WHAT IS CCS? Carbon capture and storage (CCS) involves capturing, transporting and storing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power stations, energy intensive industries, and gas �elds by injecting the captured greenhouse gases back into the ground. CCS is proposed in a range of different areas, but this fact sheet focuses on the forms of CCS attached to fossil fuel energy infrastructure. Not everything here applies equally to other uses of CCS. CCS backers claim that it can be used to reduce the impact of emissions-intensive industries like cement, steel and chemical production. However, CCS will never be a ‘zero-emissions’ solution, particularly where it’s attached to highly-polluting coal and gas projects.

CCS IS A LICENCE TO POLLUTE Carbon capture and storage is a licence to ramp up emissions. Around the world, CCS projects are being built to enhance oil and gas production, not reduce emissions. In Australia, the coal and gas industry is pushing for CCS so it has a licence to keep its polluting projects going, not because it wants to cut emissions.

IT’S EXPENSIVE After decades of CCS research and billions of dollars invested around the world, including here in Australia, there is little to show for it. In fact, when CCS is attached to coal and gas power stations it is likely to be at least six times more expensive than https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/

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What is Carbon Capture and Storage? | Climate Council

electricity generated from wind power backed by battery storage. Every CCS project that has been undertaken so far has resulted in significant delays and massive cost blowouts. Even when they get a project up and running, CCS trial sites like Chevron’s Gorgon gas plant continue to belch out huge amounts of pollution. Worldwide, CCS trials on coal-�red power stations have been monumental failures. The few that have got off the ground have grossly exceeded budget and schedule, massively underdelivered on carbon promised to be captured, and are now mostly shuttered. No company is prepared to underwrite a CCS project for the life of storage; which leaves that risk to taxpayers. It is far better and cheaper to avoid carbon emissions in the �rst place, rather than try to capture them after they’ve been released. Rather than wasting money on something that’s expensive and ineffective, Australia should be investing in the things we know can cut emissions quickly and bring down power prices – like renewables backed by storage. Over the past decade, wind and solar have become cheaper each year and are now the cheapest type of new energy build. Over the same period, CCS has remained extremely expensive. There is not a single carbon capture and storage project in the world that has delivered on time, on budget, and captured the agreed amount of carbon.

AUSTRALIA’S EXPENSIVE CCS FAILURE Chevron’s Gorgon Gas Plant in Western Australia is the biggest attempted CCS project anywhere in the world, which the Federal Government has highlighted as “a �agship”. Attached to a gas plant plagued by leaks and cracks which is frequently evacuated, the Gorgon CCS trial has been a big, expensive failure. It is capturing less than half the emissions needed to make CCS viable, with the CO2 Injection Project costing an estimated $2 billion.As of July 2021, Gorgon has reached a milestone with five years of failure, falling millions of tonnes short of its emissions capture promises. If Chevron is required to make good on its failed promises using carbon credits, this will cost the company nearly $100 million.

CCS IS NOT A VIABLE CLIMATE SOLUTION CCS has not been trialled and tested – anywhere in the world – at the scale required to tackle the climate crisis. When attached to fossil fuel developments – like coal, oil and gas – CCS is not a climate solution, as digging up and burning fossil fuels only adds to the problem. Global temperatures do not stop increasing until emissions https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/

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What is Carbon Capture and Storage? | Climate Council

reach net zero. To achieve that we must stop digging up and burning fossil fuels. CCS is extremely expensive and cannot deliver zero emissions. The only solution is to stop burning coal, oil and gas. When paired with coal and gas, CCS is simply an attempt to prolong the life of polluting fossil fuels in our energy system. Want to know more about how gas is contributing to climate change? Watch this video!

How is gas driving climate change? \\ Climate… Climate…

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Related resources Narrabri? Narrabye: First-ever plan for a gas-free NSW unveiled

Gas Campaign Webinar https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/

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Australia’s leading climate change communications organisation, Climate Council, have a strong stance against CCS technologies, which they discuss in one of their explainers ‘What is carbon capture and storage?’. Within the opening of the explainer, they address four points “Carbon capture and storage is a licence to ramp up emissions, CCS will never be a ‘zero-emissions’ solution, CCS is eye-wateringly expensive, Chevron’s Gorgon Gas Plant in WA, which is the biggest attempt at a CCS project in the world, is a big, expensive failure.” Off the bat, the Climate Council denounces CCS as a viable mitigation strategy. The organization highlights the carbon conundrum of CCSin two ways, by establishing that CCS strategies are a “licence to ramp up emissions”, a distraction from actuallying cutting down on non renewable sources. Moreover, CCS projects are being used to enhance oil and gas productions across Australia which is a paradox to the intention of CCS, as emissions aren’t cut, but are added through resourcing more fossil fuels. The explainer further highlights that “There is not a single carbon capture and storage project in the world that has delivered on time, on budget, and captured the agreed amount of carbon” depicted the lack of effectiveness CCS currently has from their perspective. Climate council makes a clear and supported statement to determine that CCS is neither effective in reaching net zero emissions, nor is it ethical as it allows for large corporations to continue their capitalist greedy ways of using fossil fuels. Carbon Sequencing

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Yale Environment 360

How Far Can Technology Go to Stave Off Climate Change? - Yale E360

ANALYSIS

How Far Can Technology Go to Stave Oﬀ Climate Change? With carbon dioxide emissions continuing to rise, an increasing number of experts believe major technological breakthroughs — such as CO2 air capture — will be necessary to slow global warming. But without the societal will to decarbonize, even the best technologies won’t be enough.

BY DAVID BIELLO • JANUARY 18, 201 7

he U.S. now has two coal-burning power plants that avoid dumping carbon dioxide into the air. Petra Nova in Texas and Kemper in Mississippi use

technology to stop CO2 in the smokestack and before combustion, respectively. Unfortunately, that makes two out of more than 400 coal-ﬁred power plants in the U.S., the rest of which collectively pour 1.4 billion metric tons of the colorless, odorless greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each year. Even Kemper and Petra Nova do not capture all of the CO2 from the coal they burn, and the captured CO2 is used to scour more oil out of the ground, which is then burned, adding yet more CO2 to the atmosphere.

e carbon conundrum grows more complex — and

dangerous — with each passing year.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_far_can_technology_go_to_stave_off_climate_change

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How Far Can Technology Go to Stave Off Climate Change? - Yale E360

The Petra Nova facility in Texas will capture more than 1 million tons of CO2 annually. NRG ENERGY

In a world with thousands of coal-ﬁred power plants, nearly 2 billion cars and trucks, and billions of tons of coal, oil, and natural gas mined and combusted, it is no surprise that some 40 billion metric tons of CO2 are discharged into the atmosphere annually.

e oceans and the world’s plants absorb some, yet

concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere inexorably rise year by year, climbing in 2016 past 400 parts per million, compared to 280 before the Industrial Revolution. is is setting oﬀ changes from a meltdown in the Arctic, to thawing glaciers worldwide, to weird weather and rising seas. Indeed, the atmosphere has now accumulated enough CO2 to stave oﬀ the next ice age for millennia, and every person on Earth now breathes air unlike that inhaled by any previous member of our species, Homo sapiens.

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How Far Can Technology Go to Stave Off Climate Change? - Yale E360

To have any hope of slowing such pollution and, ultimately, reversing it, will require an energy revolution and some game-changing technological breakthroughs. After all, it took the advent of cheap methods to fracture underground shale rock with high-pressure water and sand — the technique known as fracking — to free natural gas and make it cheap enough to begin to kill coal in the U.S. As a result of this cheap natural gas freed by fracking, U.S. emissions of CO2 are now back down to levels last seen in the last decade of the 20th century. Of course, natural gas is still a fossil fuel and fracking generates sizable leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. So even though fracked natural gas is an improvement over coal, it still adds to the relentless buildup of CO2. e key question is: Can engineers and entrepreneurs invent and deploy enough technologies — and the world’s governments adopt the right incentives and policies to eliminate carbon from the global economy — all in time to avert major upheaval from climate change? Already, technological advances are making clean energy sources such as solar and wind more efficient and cheaper, leading to steady growth in their deployment. But renewable energy increases are still being outrun by even-faster increases in fossil fuel consumption as the economies of developing nations like China and India grow and developed nations, such as the U.S., do far too little to wean themselves off oil, coal, and natural gas. is lack of progress underscores the urgent need for technological innovations, although deploying technologies at the scale needed to significantly slow climate change will require major government expenditures and, hence, a massive dose of global will that has so far been lacking. Some of these technologies may not even be on the horizon, but one tool that many experts say will have to be used is the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. Oliver Geden, a climate analyst and head of the European Union research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, says it’s “pretty clear” that without carbon removal technologies, the world community will not reach the goals agreed upon in Paris of limiting temperature increases to 1.5 or 2 degrees C (2.7 to 3.6 F). Even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that a massive amount of CO2 removal will be required this century — at least 500 billion metric tons pulled back out of the air — if we are to avoid the worst of global warming. But Geden adds, “At the same time, you can observe a tendency to avoid even talking about carbon removal strategies.”

Deploying technologies to signiﬁcantly slow climate change will mean major government expenditures. e IPCC went so far as to name a preferred technological breakthrough: bioenergy with CO2 capture and storage, or BECCS for short.

ese facilities resemble coal-

ﬁred power plants, but use recently grown energy crops rather than fossilized swamp plants as fuel and capture the CO2 from combustion. Since the crops, such as fast-growing trees and switchgrass, had to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere in https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_far_can_technology_go_to_stave_off_climate_change

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Summary

‘How Far Can Technology Go to Stave Off Climate Change?’ an article by David Biello, addresses the need for new technological advancements which can slow down the rate of global warming. Within the article, he describes CCS as a possible solution for climate mitigation, addressing two companies in America that utilize this technology, Petra Nova and Mississippi Power. However, there are over 400 coal based power plants in the U.S, which produce over 1.4 billion metric tons of GHG annually. Thus, Biello puts into scale the amount of GHG produced and the importance CSS may play if it becomes widespread. Although both Petra and Kemper CCS capture approximately 80-90% of the waste, highlighting how CCS is not 100% effective, and furthermore, if the technology is implemented at a large scale, CCS therefore wouldn’t be able to capture an enormous amount of GHG emitted. This is important to note, as all GHG would need to be captured to reach a net zero emission as stated by IPCC, IEA and others. Furthermore, Biello highlights how “The carbon conundrum grows more complex — and dangerous — with each passing year” as the CO2 capture from the two companies is then used to “scour more oil out of the ground, which is then burned, adding yet more CO2 to the atmosphere”. Thus, highlights that the way CCS is being used is unethical and an extreme waste of money and resources , and further not an effective way to reduce emission if captured CO2 leads to more of fossil fuels being burnt. Carbon Sequencing

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Assessment of Contemporary CDR Projects

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Climework’s - Orca 60

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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The world’s largest cli atepositive direct air capture plant: Orca! Launched September 8th 2021

https://climeworks.com/orca

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From vision to reality

22/10/2021, 21:55

Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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On 8th September 2021, we launched Orca, the world’s first and largest climate-positive direct air capture and storage plant, making direct air capture and storage a reality. The launch of Orca was not only a monumental moment for Climeworks but the direct air capture industry as a whole.

Orca in the news

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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Read here: The Economist https://climeworks.com/orca

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

Orca updates – the latest news

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The launch 08.09.21 The 8th September 2021 marked a monumental milestone in our company history, launching Orca, the world’s first large-scale direct air capture + storage plant with our Icelandic partner Carbfix. The day began with the former President of Iceland, Mr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who opened the launch event, followed by Ms. Katrín Jakobsdó�ir, Prime Minister of Iceland, and Mr. Dagur B E ertsson, Mayor of Reykjavik. We also welcomed renowned climate scientists Dr. Julio Friedmann of Columbia University and Prof. Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, as well as Noah Deich, co-Founder and President of climate-focused NGO, Carbon180. And last but certainly not least, Dr. Edda Arado�ir, CEO of Carbfix - together with our co-CEOs Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald, who brought their vision of industrial-scale direct air capture and storage into reality.

The collector containers part 2 01.03.21 The construction of Orca in the Geothermal Park in Hellisheidi, Iceland, is well underway! Now, all eight collector containers of the Orca plant have been mounted and are ready to start capturing carbon dioxide. The collector containers are the heart of our plant: this is where the two-step process to of capturing carbon dioxide takes place. Having all eight collector containers mounted marks an important milestone in the construction of Orca, as this is the starting point for all outside installations. The next step will be to assemble the interconnecting piping to our process unit to prepare for the most complex step of the construction process — the installation of the process unit itself.

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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The collector containers part 1 26.01.21 The construction of Orca on the geothermal park in Hellisheidi in Iceland is well underway. The plant is expected to be in operation in late summer 2021. Evolving from a 50-ton capacity pilot installed in 2017 in Iceland, Orca demonstrates that Climeworks is able to significantly scale carbon dioxide removal capacity quickly. These developments will lead to several million tons of direct air capture and storage.

https://climeworks.com/orca

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

The first collector being li�ed by a crane.

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Crane work Orca consists of four plants that consist of two collector containers. In this picture, we see the second collector container being put on top of the first one.

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

The first collector being li�ed by a crane.

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Crane work Orca consists of four plants that consist of two collector containers. In this picture, we see the second collector container being put on top of the first one.

https://climeworks.com/orca

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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Liquefaction equipment Here's our CO₂ liquefaction equipment being installed. We use this equipment so that the CO₂ can be liquefied for further purification or easier transportation. This equipment sits inside our process hall, right next to the collectors outside.

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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Water pipes This shot shows the cooling water pipes and hot water pipes that run from the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant to our process hall. Notice the thick insulation around the pipes to protect them from the extreme temperatures in Iceland.

Sunlight beaming through the process hall.

https://climeworks.com/orca

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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The rapid construction of Climeworks' new direct air capture and storage plant Orca has started 02.12.2020 Climeworks continues to make large-scale carbon dioxide removal a reality with the rapid construction of its new direct air capture and storage plant Orca. The construction of Orca has just started: it will take six months and comprises two phases. Phase one has started in 2020 and was finalized in January 2021. It includes the infrastructure and the foundation for the new generation of Climeworks' CO₂ collectors. Read the full press release here.

The construction site and the landscape.

https://climeworks.com/orca

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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Climeworks, ON Power and Carbfix lay the foundation to scale up carbon dioxide removal significantly to 4'000 tons per year 26.08.20 Ideal location, strong partners Climeworks has signed groundbreaking agreements with both Carbfix, carbon storage pioneers, and ON Power, the Icelandic geothermal energy provider, to lay the foundation for a new plant that will significantly scale-up carbon removal and storage in Iceland. Climeworks’ agreement with Carbfix ensures the safe storage of the CO₂ through underground mineralization. The underground basaltic rock formations in Iceland provide the ideal conditions for this process, providing a permanent solution for CO₂ storage. The energy required to run the direct air capture process comes from purely renewable resources and is supplied by ON Power, operating the Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant. Positive industry Orca was designed in a way to express the positive and synergetic combination of nature, natural processes as well as technology. We chose earthy colours and natural materials that give Orca a natural touch, emphasizing our commitment to a positive industry. Full press release

https://climeworks.com/orca

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Orca - the world's first large-scale direct air capture and storage plant

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Summary

“Orca” is the name of Climeworks’ new direct air capture and storage plant in Iceland. Recently launched on the 8th of September 2021, it is set to be the newest revolutionary Direct-Air-Capture (DAC) for CO2 removal. Orca will capture approximately 4000 tons of CO2 per annum - making it the world’s largest climate-positive facility to date. The CO2 will be safely removed from the ambient air, liquefied, and stored permanently underground through Carbfix mineralisation technique. Clime works have established this facility adjacent to ‘ON Power’s ‘ geothermal power plant, allowing Orca to run entirely on renewable energy. This factor is revolutionary within the CDR geoengineering realm, as almost all CCS and DAC are powered on fossil fuels, resulting in the carbon conundrum. Undoubtedly, utilising renewable energy for this process is ethically correct, as no extra fossil fuels are burned and released into the atmosphere. The more readily introduction of DAC facilities is vital to Climeworks, as they mention, “Only with direct air capture can you remove carbon dioxide that is already in the air. Further advantages of direct air capture over point source capture is that direct air capture machines can be built anywhere, eliminating the need for transport. With air being an infinite resource, direct air capture can moreover secure long-term carbon dioxide supply.” To bolster Orca’s already great portfolio, Climeworks have partnered with revolutionary company Carbfix, which have developed an ecologically sustainable and cost-effective strategy to store captured CO2 by turning it into stone through a mineralisation process. Turning the captured CO2 into stone stops the need for long-term management as it is impossible for

any leakage once the CO2 turns into stone. Without a doubt, this project is ethically and moral forthright, as Climeworks has put an emphasis on cutting CO2 level by relying solely on renewable sources and developing a permanent and safe way to store the captured CO2, minimising the liability aspect, which is the result of the slow advancement in carbon dioxide removal technologies. However, despite Orca ensuring ethical functionality all around, the merits of its effectiveness come to question. Aforementioned, 4000 metric tons of carbon dioxide will be captured and stored annually, which according to Climeworks, equals the annual emission of approximately 790 cars. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated that 2020 global emissions totalled around 31.5 billion tonnes; thus, the CO2 captured compared to the output is extremely minuscule. There are 15 DAC planets worldwide currently, which capture approximately 9000 metric tons of CO2 annually; even with all the CCS and DAC plants in the world, capturing the amount of CO2 produced annually is impossible. Furthermore, studies have shown that around 10 billion tons of CO2 must be captured every year by the mid-century, which seems like an unlikely feat currently. Overall, Climeworks’ Orca plant is undoubtedly a revolutionary step within the DAC and CDR realm, and without doubt, built on an ethically forthright basis. However, the only thing questionable is the effectiveness of this facility and DAC overall result of the low quality captured compared to the amount needed to meet net-zero. Without a doubt, further development with this technology will lead to higher results, making DAC and CDR one of the last hope in mitigating Anthropogenic climate change. Carbon Sequencing

ExxonMobil Shute Creek Gas Processing Plant 76

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ExxonMobil invests in energy research and innovation | ExxonMobil

Carbon capture

Cleaner power: reducing emissions with carbon capture and storage For more than 30 years, ExxonMobil engineers and scientists have researched, developed and applied technologies that could play a role in the widespread deployment of carbon capture and storage. Article Nov. 15, 2018

Research opportunities with CCS Achieving meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will require a wide range of solutions, and ExxonMobil believes that carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to play an important role. CCS is the process by which carbon dioxide from power-plant and other industrial activities that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere is captured, compressed and injected into underground geologic formations for safe, secure and permanent storage. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that fossil fuel power plants and large industrial facilities account for as much as 60 percent of global carbon emissions. Thus, the broad-based deployment of cost-effective carbon capture and storage would potentially make a massive impact on the world’s greenhouse gas levels. The greatest opportunity for future large-scale deployment of CCS may be in the natural gas-fired power generation sector. While CCS technology can be applied to coal-fired power generation, the cost to capture CO2 is about twice that of natural gas power generation. In addition, because coal-fired power generation creates about twice as much CO2 per unit of electricity generated, the geological storage space required to store the CO2 produced from coal-fired generation is double that required for gas-fired generation.

In 2017, ExxonMobil captured 6.6 million metric tons of CO2 for storage – the equivalent of eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 1 million passenger vehicles. ExxonMobil is leveraging this expertise to conduct proprietary, fundamental research to develop breakthrough carbon capture technologies with an aim to reduce complexity, lower the cost and ultimately encourage wide-spread global deployment of this crucial technology.

The carbon capture and storage process

https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Climate-solutions/Carbon-capture-and-storage/Cleaner-power-reducing-emissions-with-carbon-capture-and-sto…

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ExxonMobil invests in energy research and innovation | ExxonMobil

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Step 1: Capturing CO2 The first step in the CCS process is capturing, or separating, the CO2 from power generation plants or industrial manufacturing facilities. Capture represents the costliest and most energy-intensive step of the entire process. ExxonMobil has extensive experience in separating CO2 from hydrocarbons at its natural gas processing facilities, where impurities are removed from the gas before it is transported via pipeline. ExxonMobil is working to develop new CO2 capture technologies with a goal of reducing costs, complexity of operation and need for large initial capital allocations. For example, ExxonMobil and FuelCell Energy, Inc., have partnered to develop CO2 capture technologies using carbonate fuel cells. These novel approaches have the potential to be less costly and easier to operate than existing technologies, while being deployable in a modular fashion with applicability to multiple industry settings.

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Step 2: The transportation process The second step is transporting the captured CO2 via pipeline to storage in underground geologic formations, such as depleted oil or gas reservoirs. ExxonMobil Pipeline Company operates or has an interest in more than 12,000 miles (more than 19,000 kilometers) of pipeline in the United States, using the most advanced technology and extensive quality-control procedures to ensure the safety of its lines. The company’s integrity management program includes a wide range of testing and monitoring techniques – from hydrotesting to tools that travel through the pipeline to inspect for flaws or ongoing corrosion control. In addition to these inspection and maintenance measures, the company’s Operations Control Center monitors pipeline operations on a 24-hour basis.

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Step 3: Injection and storage The third and final component of CCS is injecting CO2 into underground reservoirs for storage. ExxonMobil has extensive experience with such operations, with a lengthy history of safely using CO2 injection for Enhanced Oil Recovery at mature fields in the North Sea, west Texas, Wyoming, and elsewhere.

ExxonMobil is also developing sub-surface CO2 storage capability by leveraging decades of experience in the exploration, development and production of hydrocarbon resources. This expertise is key to permanently storing CO2 deep underground in a safe and secure fashion. https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Climate-solutions/Carbon-capture-and-storage/Cleaner-power-reducing-emissions-with-carbon-capture-and-sto…

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ExxonMobil ‘Shute Creek Gas Processing Plant’ is one of the worlds most extensive CCS facilities. ExxonMobil has captured more than 120 million metric tons of CO2, approximately the same as emissions from 25 million cars annually. Symptomatic of innovative technology, in 2010, ExxonMobil implemented higher efficient CCS technology, allowing close to 7 million tonnes of Carbon dioxide to be captured annually. The captured CO2 is used in Enhanced Oil Recovery to extract higher amounts of oil from a natural reservoir. Since 2000, ExxonMobil has invested approximately 9 billion dollars (US) in energy-efficient and lower emissions. Additionally, ExxonMobil has referred to the IPPC, where they mention, “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that fossil fuel power plants and large industrial facilities account for as much as 60 per cent of global carbon emissions. Thus, the broad-based deployment of cost-effective carbon capture and storage would potentially make a massive impact on the world’s greenhouse gas levels. In 2017, ExxonMobil captured 6.6 million metric tons of CO2 for storage – the equivalent of eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 1 million passenger vehicles.” The company also cooperates with 80 universities around the world to explore next-generation energy technologies.Thus, it is visible that Exxonmobil has clear ethical

intentions by finding low carbon emission solutions such as their CCS to make a significant change, and as of current, are pretty efficient in doing so, evident as they capture approximately 7 million tonnes of CO2 annually. However, the downside of this ethically forthright project is the way the captured CO2 is stored. Undeniably, EOR is one of the few ways within the carbon storage realm where a substantial profit is actually gained through the higher recovery rates of oil, and moreover, the CO2 is effectively stored in these natural oil reservoirs. However, EOR storage only contributes further to the carbon conundrum. ExxonMobil has prided themselves in cutting emissions through their technology in order for a more sustainable and cleaner planet, yet, they are contradicting themselves as they have spent so much time and money to develop facilities that capture and store carbon dioxide emissions to gain higher yields of oil which are then burnt and release a million tonnes of greenhouse gasses back into the atmosphere. Unquestionably, projects such as ExxonMobil must continue to be developed as there would be much more significant GHG emissions cuts within a short period. However, the way these GHG emissions are stored is vital in ensuring that carbon conundrums are avoided through EOR projects and by taking out GHG emissions from the atmosphere for good. Carbon Sequencing

Chevron’s - Gorgon Gas Plant WA 82

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Time’s up on Gorgon’s 5 years of carbon storage failure

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CHEVRON

Time’s up on Gorgon’s ve years of carbon storage failure On July 18 Chevron will be millions of tonnes short of required CO2 injection at Gorgon LNG. If the WA Government stands firm the carbon credit bill could approach $100 million. PETER MILNE 16 JUL 2021 • 6 MIN READ

https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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Time’s up on Gorgon’s 5 years of carbon storage failure

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ANALYSIS Chevron was allowed to build its $US55 billion Gorgon LNG plant on the Barrow Island nature reserve for one reason only: to bury millions of tonnes a year of carbon dioxide from offshore reservoirs into a formation deep under the island. Since LNG production began in March 2016, Chevron's attempts to meet its commitments to the WA Government to inject CO2 underground have been late, then bungled and now curtailed by a worried regulator. The importance of CO2 injection at Gorgon goes well beyond WA. It is the world's largest carbon capture and storage project dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not enhancing oil recovery. If oil and gas giant Chevron backed by its two major partners Shell and ExxonMobil, could not get it right at Gorgon more than a decade after the project was approved, then forecasts of a massive global CCS rollout before 2050 look doubtful. Without significant CCS, the only way to maintain global temperature rise to within 2℃ is an immediate and drastic curtailment of fossil fuel use. The WA Government laid out two clear requirements for CO2 injection at Gorgon in its environmental approval for the project. Before Chevron and its partners Shell and ExxonMobil committed to the project in 2009, they knew they had to: https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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1. "Implement all practicable means to inject underground all ABOUT

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reservoir carbon dioxide removed during gas processing."

2. "Ensure that calculated on a 5-year rolling average, at least 80 per cent of reservoir carbon dioxide removed…is injected." In March 2016, Gorgon produced its first load of LNG two years late after a budget blowout of $US18 billion ($24 billion). Over the next 12 months, the plant's second and third LNG trains entered production. Despite an additional two years of construction, Chevron was not ready to inject CO2 underground. By mid-2016, wells had not been completed, equipment at the top of the wells was not installed, and the CO2 pipeline was not connected, according to Chevron's annual report to the Federal Government. Being so far behind appears at odds with Chevron's first requirement to "implement all practicable means" to store all the CO2.

Simply difficult What Chevron was attempting to do was as simple as carbon capture and storage gets but still a complex exercise. The Gorgon LNG plant is supplied with gas from two offshore fields: Jansz-Io containing negligible CO2 and the Gorgon field with about 14 per cent CO2. LNG plants must extract all CO2 from the gas before it is liquified to prevent solid frozen CO2 damaging equipment. Chevron completed that first step, which is required for the plant to produce revenue, on time. The second step of CCS – storage - has cost $3.1 billion to mid-2020 and proved problematic despite Chevron having studied it since 1998.

https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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Time’s up on Gorgon’s 5 years of carbon storage failure

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CO2 injection facilities on Barrow Island. Source: Chevron Australia Pty Ltd

Up to four million tonnes of CO2 a year extracted at the LNG plant has to be compressed to a so-called super-critical phase with the density of a liquid but flowing freely like a gas. The CO2 is then piped up to 7km and injected into a sandstone layer about 400m thick more than 2000m underground. About 4km away, water is pumped to the surface from the same layer to make room for the CO2. This water is then pumped into a different layer of rock above the CO2.

Not working: again, and again and again When Chevron eventually started preparing the equipment for startup it found a long list of problems it had missed in the preceding years. The most serious was a design issue with the compressors that could cause water and CO2 to mix and form an acid that would corrode the equipment. In April 2017, Chevron claimed its third $20 million tranche of funding from the Federal Government linked to the milestone "ready for startup of the first CO2 compressor." https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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Time’s up on Gorgon’s 5 years of carbon storage failure

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CO2 injection facilities on Barrow Island. Source: Chevron Australia Pty Ltd

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Time’s up on Gorgon’s 5 years of carbon storage failure

Months later, Chevron reported that CO2 injection would not start until ABOUT TOPICS NEWSLETTER CONTACT mid-2018 to allow the compressors to be modified.

The compressor modifications were incomplete in mid-2018, and Chevron pushed first CO2 injection back to early 2019. However, Chevron also missed that target, and injection did not begin until August 2019. Even when CO2 injection began 3½ years after the first LNG production, the system was not fully operational. The wells designed to remove water to make way for the CO2 were out of action as they clogged with sand during testing. During 2020 CO2 injection averaged 70 per cent of maximum capacity under a series of permissions from WA's Department of Mining, Industry Regulation and Safety to operate without the water wells working. Finally, in December 2020, the regulator's patience wore out, and it cut the permitted injection rate to 30 per cent of maximum capacity until Chevron fixed the so-called pressure management system. Without the water being removed there was a risk that the increasing pressure required to pump the CO2 underground would fracture the rock around the injection wells and permanently damage the system's performance. Gorgon has been in production for 5½ years, but there has not been a day when all elements of the CO2 injection system worked at the same time.

What's the deal? While on Barrow Island engineers were tackling technical problems in Perth Chevron and the Government were at loggerheads over the fine print of what the US giant and its partners Shell and ExxonMobil were obliged to do. In dispute was the start date of the first five-year period when 80 per cent of the CO2 from the reservoir must be injected

https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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Time’s up on Gorgon’s 5 years of carbon storage failure

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Sources: Clean Energy Regulator emissions figures and Chevron reports to WA and Federal Governments. Analysis: Boiling Cold.

Total emissions have exceeded what Chevron planned every year except in 2015-2016 when only one train operated for a few months and 20202021 when only two out of three trains operated while Chevron repaired cracked propane vessels. Emissions exceeded the generous Federal Government safeguard mechanism baseline for two years, but Chevron was allowed the flexibility to have performance measured over a three-year period. About 26 million tonnes of carbon pollution has been emitted from burning gas to generate power or drive compressors.

https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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Almost 15 million tonnes of CO2 has arrived on Barrow Island with the gas produced from the offshore fields, and about 30 per cent has been injected underground, well short of the 80 per cent target. If all reservoir CO2 vented because 80 per cent injection was not achieved counted, then Chevron and its partners would be liable for about seven million tonnes of CO2. Source: Boiling Cold

However, the EPA's determination that emissions before an operating licence is awarded do not count means the liability is about 4.8 million tonnes. Purchase of Australian Carbon Credit Units to offset the shortfall at the recent spot price of about $20 a tonne would cost about $100 million. Chevron's $47 million share of such a bill would be just over two days of its 2020 Australian revenue of $US5.9 billion ($7.9 billion). Minister for Environment and Climate Action Amber-Jade Sanderson expects Chevron to provide an update regarding CO2 injection at Gorgon once the first five-year measurement period ends on July 18. "The Minister has called Chevron in for a meeting to discuss her concerns and to seek an explanation of how the company intends to address the issue," a spokesperson said. The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation has requested Chevron provide details regarding its CO2 injection performance by August 9. https://www.boilingcold.com.au/times-up-on-gorgons-five-years-of-carbon-storage-failure/

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Peter Milne’ Time’s up on Gorgon’s five years of carbon storage failure” discusses Chevron’s Gorgon Gas Plant in Western Australia. This project is the one of the most significant attempts at a CCS project globally, planning to capture and store 4 million tonnes of CO2 underground. However, this project has a universal claim as an “expensive failure”, especially from Greg Bournes (Climate Council) and the Australian Federal government. Western Australian government provided two requirements for Chevron in the CCS endeavour, “Implement all practicable means to inject underground all reservoir carbon dioxide removed during gas processing.” and “Ensure that calculated on a 5-year rolling average, at least 80 per cent of reservoir carbon dioxide removed…is injected.” It has been over a decade since 2009 when the idea was proposed for Chevron to begin LNG production and injection of CO2; however, the company has been plagued with unfortunate technical circumstances in planning, processing and building the systems. Injections planned for 2016 have had a five and a half year delay, as there has not been a single day when all elements of the CCS systems are working simultaneously. Milne addresses that “about 26 million tonnes of carbon pollution has been emitted from burning gas to generate power or drive compressors. Almost 15 million tonnes of CO2 has arrived on Barrow Island with the gas produced from the offshore fields, and about 30 per cent has been injected underground, well short of the 80 per cent target.” It is unquestionably clear how ineffective this project has been in Capturing and

storing carbon, as it was scraping injection of 30% of total emission out of the 80 % target. Furthermore, this is not to mention the many unethical scenarios in dangerous injections in the saltwater aquifers, as Milnes mentions the multiple problems they discovered in the preceding years “most serious was a design issue with the compressors that could cause water and CO2 to mix and form an acid that would corrode the equipment”. Further unethical outcomes are certainly highlighted through the billions of dollars being wasted to make this project work “The second step of CCS – storage - has cost $3.1 billion to mid2020 and proved problematic despite Chevron having studied it since 1998.”. Milne addresses in the text, “The importance of CO2 injection at Gorgon goes well beyond WA. It is the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not enhancing oil recovery. If oil and gas giant Chevron, backed by its two major partners Shell and ExxonMobil, could not get it right at Gorgon more than a decade after the project was approved, then forecasts of a massive global CCS rollout before 2050 look doubtful.” The success and completion of Grogon as the world’s largest CCS plant was extremely crucial in establishing a reliable way of cutting emissions through CCS technologies. If successful, it would have become a catalyst for many investors, changing the current lack of incentive for CCS. However, it has taken over ten years and is still being developed, announces that CCS may not be as ethical or practical as the world has hoped for. Carbon Sequencing

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THE FORTHCOMING Carbon Sequencing

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Consideration of CDR in the future

Carbon Sequencing

Sci Eng Ethics (2014) 20:1111–1128 DOI 10.1007/s11948-013-9474-z ORIGINAL PAPER

Examining the Role of Carbon Capture and Storage Through an Ethical Lens Fabien Medvecky • Justine Lacey • Peta Ashworth

Received: 6 July 2013 / Accepted: 16 September 2013 / Published online: 24 September 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The risk posed by anthropogenic climate change is generally accepted, and the challenge we face to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a tolerable limit cannot be underestimated. Reducing GHG emissions can be achieved either by producing less GHG to begin with or by emitting less GHG into the atmosphere. One carbon mitigation technology with large potential for capturing carbon dioxide at the point source of emissions is carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, the merits of CCS have been questioned, both on practical and ethical grounds. While the practical concerns have already received substantial attention, the ethical concerns still demand further consideration. This article aims to respond to this deficit by reviewing the critical ethical challenges raised by CCS as a possible tool in a climate mitigation strategy and argues that the urgency stemming from climate change underpins many of the concerns raised by CCS. Keywords CCS Climate change Ethics Intergenerational justice Mitigation Responsibility Risk Introduction The risk posed by climate change and the recognition of its anthropogenic causes are generally accepted by most in society (IPCC 2007a). With the latest projections suggesting the world’s emissions are trending towards the extreme (Peters et al. 2013), the challenge to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to limit global F. Medvecky (&) The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia e-mail: f.medvecky@uq.edu.au J. Lacey P. Ashworth Division of Earth Science and Resource Engineering, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), QCAT, Kenmore, Australia

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complex technical, environmental, economic and social systems (Sotoudeh 2009). This can also reflect a potential discrepancy between objective risk and public perceptions of risk, which Singleton et al. (2009) have characterised as realist versus social constructivist risk perspectives on CCS. However, one key issue that emerges from this distinction relates to how technologies and the risks associated with them are perceived (Fischhoff and Fischhoff 2001). In this regard, public perceptions of risk tend to be more socially determined. For example, research has shown that trust is an important co-determinant of the perceived risks and benefits associated with CCS (Bradbury et al. 2009; Huijts et al. 2012). As Huijts et al. (2007: 2781) argue ‘‘trust may cause greater tolerance of uncertainties, willingness to explore opportunities, and openness to new information. It allows people to make decisions and enjoy the benefits of new and potentially risky technologies without having to understand all the details’’. The literature also demonstrates that people can accept risks if there are tangible benefits associated with them, but they assess these risks against the perceived impacts to themselves and their friends, and how irreversible the perceived impacts might be (Slovic 1993). Further, people are also more likely to have a greater tolerance for unavoidable versus avoidable risks and the associated negative consequences. In many ways, decisions about CCS reflect ethical decisions about ‘‘the level, acceptability and distribution of risk in society beyond those in the legislative arena (Bradbury et al. 2011: 9), particularly in relation to the more technical risks, many of which are similar to those discussed with regard to nuclear power and storage of radioactive waste (Spreng et al. 2007; Hansson and Bryngelsson 2009). In examining the nature of these ethical decisions about risk, Brown (2008, 2011) suggests that the potential harms identified in relation to CCS can be broadly categorised as follows: (1) risks to local populations located near CCS sites who may be exposed to higher concentrations of CO2 because they live near injection wells or feeder pipelines (Reiner and Nuttall 2011; West et al. 2011), and (2) risks posed by long-term leakage or maintenance issues. According to Brown (2011) such risks can be readily overcome by locating injection wells in unpopulated areas. However, it does not necessarily follow that removing these risks from populated areas automatically addresses the potential technical risks associated with leakage. Rather, Brown’s solution merely removes this as an immediate harm for a human population but it does not address the remaining question of how leakage might also impact on animals, plant life and natural ecosystems, which may also have longer term implications for humanity. This again highlights how those immediate term considerations about siting of CCS facilities also need to be balanced against longer term impacts that may have far reaching consequences. Alongside these technical risks and their potential impacts, there are also questions about the role of compensation and geographic equity associated with the siting of CCS facilities. The risks associated with the ongoing storage of CO2 in these facilities are that the facilities may leak or be accidentally excavated in the future (Wilson et al. 2003; van der Zwaan and Gerlagh 2009). At a local level, the possible consequences of leakage vary from suffocation of human and animal life to contamination of potable water to induced seismicity (Wilson et al. 2003). However, the potential for leakage from any given storage site has clear implications for the level of risk involved, and

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Intergenerational decisions raise two strands of ethical issues. One strand is concerned with theoretical issues of the rights and duties of future generations. The other strand is concerned with how our views concerning our duties towards, and the rights of, future generations can be applied to intergenerational decisions. These reflect meta ethics and applied ethics problems respectively. At the core of the meta ethical issues are questions over whether future generations can or should have any rights (Gosseries 2008). A core challenge to granting future generations’ rights is that those future generations (or at least the majority of their constituents) do not yet exist, and to attach a right to a non-existent entity seems nonsensical (Parfit 1987). Worse still, it is not clear what harm we might do to future generations. This latter problem arises because whichever policy we enact will generate a unique set of future individuals. If we were to enact a mitigation policy, we would generate a specific set of individuals, and if we were to enact an alternative policy (say, ‘business as usual’), we would generate a different set of individuals. Hence, for any set of future individuals, they will only be alive only because we enacted the policies we did in fact enact. If future individuals have a life worth living, then it seems illogical for them to wish we had enacted a different policy as this would be equivalent to wishing a different set of individuals had come to be (and hence to wish they, themselves, were not alive) (Kavka 1982). If existence is essential for the possibility of rights and the possibility to be harmed, then current actions do not and cannot harm future generations, and future generations do not and cannot have any rights (Grey 1996). Yet, the claim that we have no moral reason to take future generations’ well-being seriously seems deeply counterintuitive One way of taking the well-being of future generations seriously, without committing to having duties towards future generations or to granting future generations rights, is to claim that future generations’ interests are taken care of because we, the current generation, have an interest in the well-being of our progeny and incorporate that interest in our views (Marglin 1963). But this claim has a long history of failing. For example, when men claimed to have ‘incorporated’ their wives’ views and interests, thereby making universal suffrage irrelevant, or when the well-being of slaves and servants were ‘incorporated’ in their masters’ decisions because happy slaves work better (Goodin 1996). Indeed, it seems almost inevitable that we do have some moral responsibility towards future generations, although it has been recognised that there are psychological barriers to turning these responsibilities into motivations for action. A more promising avenue that has received increasing attention is to think of intergenerational justice in terms of human rights. By appealing to human rights, the exact constitution of future generations falls to the background. Instead, the environment in which these future generations will live and the capacity for this environment to provide them with adequate living standards in terms of health, food and so forth become the focus (Caney 2010). Thus, if we accept that future generations have rights, the next question becomes ‘‘what rights do future generations have and what duties do we (the current generation) have towards them? Determining the rights of and duties towards future generations is particularly important because future generations are strangely vulnerable participants in intergenerational decisions. Intergenerational decisions

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Summary

‘Examining the Role of Carbon Capture and Storage Through an Ethical Lens’ by F.Medvecky (et al.) discusses the merits of CCS as they investigate this technology on both practical and ethical grounds. The text highlights substantial attention to the practicality CCS has received, focusing on questioning the ethics of the geoengineering strategy. The text focus on the intergenerational risk and ethics of CCS, as they highlight two risks “(1)risks to local populations located near CCS sites who may be exposed to higher concentrations of CO2 because they live near injection wells or feeder pipelines, (2) risks posed by long-term leakage or maintenance issues”. The authors communicate the ethical consideration of the location of such CCS technologies regarding its potentially damaging effect on the population. Furthermore, ethical consideration must be made in case of long term leakage and what this may do to the environment and bio-diversities of the location. Such considerations highlight the possible ineffectiveness of storing the CO2 underground, which currently is unknown and uncertain. The ethical and liability risk to this is substantial because as the world advances and implements CCS technology, storing the CO2 must propose no possible risk. The reason as to why this is important is because of events such as the Lake Nyos in the hilly jungle terrain of western.

Africa, where carbon dioxide escaped from the floor of the lake, asphyxiating thousands of people and animals. However, Companies such as Carbfix have the potential of mitigating this risk by turning the CO2 into stone. However, many more considerations such as location, transport, and freshwater usage must be made. Furthermore, the ethical consideration regarding the effect storage sites may have on the environment must be investigated. Considerations such as what happens when we run out of natural storage sites and start to degrade the land to fit the CO2 we are capturing and the effects on the land biodiversity come into question. Moreover, the intergenerational equity of this geoengineering strategy must be addressed. The text states, “Intergenerational decisions raise two strands of ethical issues. One strand is concerned with theoretical issues of the rights and duties of future generations. The other strand is concerned with how our views concerning our duties towards, and the rights of, future generations can be applied to intergenerational decisions.” Intergenerational equity is involved in starting the process of wide-scale ccs, issues arise from leaving what we are doing in the hands of future generations, is it fair to put this immense responsibility and problems to our future generation. Carbon Sequencing

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“The solution is to consider direct-air capture as a kind public good” Kim Stanley Robinson

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Kim Stanley Robisons’ Direct Air Capture is a public good for the climate era” is a captivating artwork that illustrates humanity’s future with direct air capture as a part of human society. Robinson’s address societies carbon-heavy dependence, as he states that more than 35 gigatonnes of CO2 are being released into the atmosphere every year and further mentions how a maximum threshold of 1000 more gigatonnes of CO2 can be released before we reach the 2-degree celsius increase. Robison further mentions that “keeping our collective fever under the 2c targeted by signatories to the Paris Agreement or even better, below the 1.5c they’d preferred - already looking very difficult.” Therefore, he mentions that the easiest and quickest way to minimise carbon dioxide levels is to resort to carbon sequencing. Robinson puts forth possible natural mitigations such as “reforestation, regenerative agriculture, kelp and seagrass, aquaculture, wetlands restoration, and so on.” Unfortunately, there is too little time for natural solutions to fully mitigate the climate in this way, depicting how we have burned approximately 2 million years of forest growth, and the biological world cannot take in 2 million years within a few decades. “The solution is to consider direct-air capture as a kind of public good”, Robinsons establishes. He proposes that through DAC technology, there is a real chance to save this planet. He repeatedly illustrates that DAC is a “pure good” or “public good” as he emphasises that Earth is humanity’s lifeline and that there is a chance to save the

planet through DAC. The artwork is a futuristic illustration that represents what humanity future may look like with DAC technology. The figure’s body language in the foreground emphasises how the persona is almost leaning back and taking a breath of fresh air, emphasised as all the pollutants (in green) are being sucked into large extractors that seem to be integrated with buildings of possible metropolitan areas in the future. Furthermore, the artwork highlights the reality of having a potential symbiotic relationship with technology. Despite technological advancements being a reason for such degradation of the Earth, it may be the exact reason for humanity to prosper and allow Earth’s systems to be protected. Artworks such as Kim Robision’s ‘Direct Air Capture is a public good for the climate era’ provide a visual illustration of what humanity may have to resort to maintaining the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold. It is of utmost importance that today’s society takes a risk and implements technology fixes such as DAR or CCS. Although, we must consider how ethical and practical this technology will be when going into the future. A crucial consideration is the economic side; the technology is extremely costly to develop a product with minimal profit turnover. How this would affect the global economy is vital to address, especially if thousands of these technologies would need to be produced every year. Overall, Robisons provides a clear message that despite how much etc, DAC will undoubtedly be a part of humanity in the future if we want to save our planet. Carbon Sequencing

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(Pielke et al. 2007). However, there is general agreement that adaptation on its own is simply not sufficient, and that a large part of our response—arguably the largest— ought to be in the form of mitigation (Stern 2007; Garnaut 2011). It is in this context of mitigating emissions that CCS comes into play.

The Role of CCS in the Mitigation Portfolio Without climate mitigation there is little argument for the development and implementation of CCS. If we accept the broad definition of mitigation as any action taken to reduce or offset the effects of climate change, then sequestration of CO2 is clearly aligned with the goal of mitigation. However, some question the legitimacy of CCS, arguing that it merely serves to provide us with a way of justifying our ongoing use and reliance on fossil fuelled energy sources (Littlecott 2008; Rochon et al. 2008). That is, it promotes a ‘business as usual’ attitude towards our dependence on fossil fuelled energy sources. Such a view implies that our moral duty might be more appropriately met by ceasing to use these GHG producing energy sources in the first place. Further, claims have been made that our duty is in fact to adapt our lifestyles away from the use of fossil fuelled energy so as to more effectively reduce the production of GHG (Wuebbles and Jain 2001). We suggest this argument oversimplifies the reality and complexity of the situation at hand. Undoubtedly, with the passage of time and the non-renewable nature of fossil fuels, the world will ultimately cease to use fossil fuels. However, with large numbers of the population currently facing energy poverty, combined with projected global population growth and the associated infrastructure and energy demands of this growth, simply ‘switching off’ our fossil fuel usage is likely to have significant and far reaching impacts on human well-being (Hughes 2009). It moves us beyond the ethical discussion of mitigation, to question whether our primary responsibility is to ensure the steady continuity of well-being for humans (through ongoing energy supply) or to redress our poor energy practices. The nature of this challenge is exacerbated when we consider the increased fossil fuel use in developing economies such as China, India, Brazil and others, which is helping to address widespread poverty. Here the challenge becomes about weighing up poverty reduction through the provision of low cost reliable energy with the application of more costly climate change mitigation technologies. Due to the extent of current energy infrastructure and sources around fossil fuels, CCS provides a way of responding to climate change within the current limitations imposed by the GHG emitting technologies on which we currently rely so heavily. While there is an argument to be made against using CCS to mask the problems associated with fossil fuel use, such a concern should not be perceived as a barrier to use and implementation of CCS, but rather as reminder of our responsibility towards mitigation. The question now becomes not whether CCS is a legitimate mitigation option but rather what alternative options are currently available for addressing the scale of anthropogenic GHG emissions and what the implications of each these

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options are. If we choose not to pursue CCS, then the reasons for our choices must be made very clear. One concern is that CCS technology incurs an energy penalty which might lead to an increase in production of GHGs. Each stage of the CCS process (separation, transport and storage) requires energy, and that energy must be deducted from the output of the plants whose CO2 is being captured. Current best estimates assess the energy penalty of CCS to amount to a ‘‘15–20 % reduction in overall electricity use (House et al. 2009). The fact that CCS incurs an energy penalty has been a cause for concern, particularly in developing countries such as China, due to the ensuing reduction in available energy. However, this argument has been waning as experts and opinion leaders gravitate towards the consensus position that CCS ought to be considered in any energy mix aimed at combating climate change (Liang et al. 2011). A further criticism of CCS is that investment in this technology diverts valuable resources away from cleaner, more desirable renewable energy sources that will have a longer term future (Rochon et al. 2008). However, this argument oversimplifies the situation by implying that CCS technology and renewable energy technologies exist as mutually exclusive choices in responding to climate change. It is true that for any amount of resources that are devoted to one technology, those very same resources cannot be allocated to other projects. But, it does not follow that because there is an opportunity cost involved with pursuing CCS technology, that cost automatically makes investment in other technologies prohibitive (IEA 2013). Most climate mitigation models demonstrate there are multiple options to be explored in responding to anthropogenic climate change. For example, the earlier research from Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative (Pacala and Socolow 2004) suggests that a ‘‘stabilisation wedge’’ approach to reducing carbon emissions using a combination of available technologies—some of which involve reducing emissions and some of which involve reducing production of emissions— will be necessary to meet emissions reduction targets. The choice therefore, is not a case of one technology or the other but rather utilising a variety of existing technology options to take action (IEA 2009; IPCC 2011). Therefore, we can assume that CCS should be considered one potential mitigation strategy which leads us to examine the ethical implications of the technology itself.

The Ethical Landscape for CCS Risk Risk has been understood not only in terms of the technical risks posed by technologies (Möller and Hansson 2008) but also the socio-political uncertainty associated with these technologies (Taylor-Gooby and Zinn 2006). The technical aspects of risk often relate to safety and avoiding risk through engineering management and control systems. However, our understanding of technologies within the broader context of society necessarily reflects the interrelated nature of

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to convene an emergency summit on how the country should prepare for bushfires in a changed climate. Back in April, they had tried to warn Morrison that fire behaviour was changing in Australia, and that a ramped-up and better-coordinated response and more resources were needed. They made a number of practical suggestions, but, said Mullins, “We weren’t listened to.” As prime minister, Morrison does not deny that the climate is changing, nor that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause. This, it must be said, is a major advance on Tony Abbott’s position, which was barely disguised denialism. But Morrison will not admit to the severity of the crisis, nor that his government is failing to respond to its seriousness. In his carefully calibrated statement on 2 January, he balanced two things: cutting emissions and protecting livelihoods “all around the country.” Not everyone lived in these fire-prone areas, he was reminding us, some lived in mining regions, and they had interests too, which the government must look after. Here it was again: economy versus environment, and the misleading search for balance between two supposedly competing goods. As the fires burned, I was in no mood for balance. I was angry. Scientists had been warning of fires like these for decades. Ross Garnaut had predicted fires of this scale in 2008 in the Climate Change Review he authored for state, territory and federal governments. Former fire chiefs had warned of them not twelve months ago, as a persistent drought dried the bush. The government had responded with Dorothea McKellar’s land of drought and flooding rains to claim that fires were business-as-usual for the Australian bush and with a childlike theory of causation where the only cause of a fire is the spark that sets it off, whether it be the arsonist’s match, the unattended camp fire or a lightning bolt. Of course rising temperatures do not produce the spark, but they do create the conditions to make the fires more intense and destructive. Rainforest was burning that had never burned before, as it had in Tasmania in the first months of 2016. Over New Year, my favourite place on earth was burned: the campgrounds at Thurra River and Mueller Inlet near the Point Hicks Lighthouse

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‘Examining the Role of Carbon Capture and Storage Through an Ethical Lens’ by F. Medvecky (et al.) highlights whether or not CDR is a license to continue to use fossil fuels. “A further criticism of CCS is that investment in this technology diverts valuable resources away from cleaner, more desirable renewable energy sources that will have a longer-term future”. This statement certainly has some truth; this can be deduced from Brett, J. B. (2020). The Coal Curse, as Brett mentions, “Morrison does not deny that the climate is changing, nor that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause”, and despite this statement, both Morrison and previous Australian Prime-Ministers have supported coal mining which has undoubtedly had a negative effect on current climates. Furthermore, Morrison has recently spent $263.7 million towards CCS projects and hubs as he attempts to reduce fossil fuel emissions. However, to many, this is merely a facade, as Morrison represents many countries and corporations that implement CCS technologies to prolong the use of Fossil fuels for economic benefit. Additionally, the notion of CDR being an attempt to prolong fossil fuels is supported by Greg Bourne from climate council, who states, “Carbon Capture and storage is not a climate solution, but an expensive attempt to prolong the role of fossil fuel in the energy system”. Therefore, implementing CCS technologies for the sake of prolonging fossil fuel use is certainly unethical.

Moreover, as a result, prioritising transition to clean energy sounds pivotal to avoid corrupt use of mitigation strategy for not fighting against climate change but for economic benefit. However, ‘Examining the Role of Carbon Capture and Storage Through an Ethical Lens’ states, “It moves us beyond the ethical discussion of mitigation, to question whether our primary responsibility is to ensure the steady continuity of well-being for humans (through ongoing energy supply) or to redress our poor energy practices. Here the challenge becomes about weighing up poverty reduction through the provision of low-cost, reliable energy with the application of more costly climate change mitigation technologies”. The text discusses that ethical consideration is not just about the effect of ccs but what needs to be considered is whether or not we continue our way or if we should completely stop and start a new system of energy. Though many may agree that resorting to renewable and ecologically friendly energy systems is the solution, most of the world rely on this current source and stable energy, especially in lower socioeconomic areas and countries that would need to spend more money and resources to switch. Thinking about future years and the goal that’s needed to meet, the symbolic use of multiple strategies, especially CDR technologies, is crucial to meet the 1.5-degree threshold, so long as CCS is used in an ethically forthright manner. Carbon Sequencing

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