Carbon capture, which removes CO2 emissions from high-polluting sources like industrial facilities or power plants, could play an increasingly important role in global efforts to stave off the worst effects of climate change, according to international regulatory bodies.
Globally, we will need to capture about 4 billion to 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually in order to meet climate goals, according to Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
While “carbon removal” refers to pulling out emissions humans have already put in the atmosphere, “carbon capture” refers to containing that pollution at the point it’s being created — like putting a scrubber on a smokestack.
“Sixty percent of the carbon emissions from a cement plant have nothing to do with how the plant is heated up — it’s entirely the chemistry that converts raw materials into cement,” said Friedmann.
Several methods can be used to capture the carbon, including chemical solvents, membranes or even bacteria.
A Kemper, Mississippi, power plant was years behind schedule and billions over budget on its carbon-capture plans before shutting down.
But its operator shut it down in 2020 for economic reasons when the price of oil plummeted and the plant could no longer sell its captured CO2 profitably.
They have to be big projects,” said Holly Krutka, executive director of the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming.
And a tax credit that was expanded in 2018 now pays some industrial producers for storing carbon.
“There is a limited amount of money,” said Shannon Fisk, managing attorney of the coal program at Earthjustice.
On the one hand, carbon capture is touted as a solution as part of a broader move away from fossil fuels — only to be used for those sectors that are hard to decarbonize.
A serious reading of sustainable development plans would lead governments to abandon many of their oil and gas fields, build out electric transportation infrastructure and put more renewable energy on the grid, he said.