As the Trump administration seeks to wipe away environmental rules covering the oil, gas, and coal industries, fossil fuel producers and sellers are reassuring buyers that carbon capture and storage (CCS) could slash climate-altering emissions from a growing range of fossil-fuel projects \u2014 like blue hydrogen, LNG export terminals, and data centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s right: data centers,\u201d fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil wrote<\/a> in December, adding that the need for more\u00a0data centers for AI could represent a fifth of the world\u2019s demand for carbon capture by 2050.<\/p>\n Carbon capture already faces significant skepticism from environmentalists who note that the industry\u2019s past is littered with failed carbon capture projects<\/a>, missed targets, and an overall net increase in emissions.<\/p>\n Now, a study published in the journal Nature<\/a> calls attention to another issue that could loom in the future if CCS were to really take off \u2014 a lack of easy-to-develop locations where captured carbon can be buried underground.<\/p>\n The vast majority of places where you can find the kinds of sedimentary rocks that allow carbon dioxide to be stored underground\u00a0sit in higher risk zones or in areas like the Arctic that are potentially off-limits for practical or political reasons, the study found.<\/p>\n That has big implications for the energy transition, since once carbon dioxide is put into storage, it\u2019s supposed to stay there for as long as possible. Any storage sites we use today can\u2019t be expected to be available for future generations \u2014 not just the children and grandchildren of people alive today but \u201cmore than ten generations into the future,\u201d the study notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis study should be a gamechanger for carbon storage,\u201d coauthor Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said<\/a>\u00a0in a statement when the study was announced. \u201cIt can no longer be considered an unlimited solution to bring our climate back to a safe level. Instead, geological storage space needs to be thought of as a scarce resource that should be managed responsibly to allow a safe climate future for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, there may be only enough practical storage to potentially reverse between 0.4 and 0.7 degrees Celsius of warming \u2014 a tiny fraction of the five or six degrees experts previously estimated, the researchers said.<\/p>\n The carbon storage that is available \u201cshould be used to halt and reverse global warming,\u201d Rogelj added, \u201cand not be wasted on offsetting on-going and avoidable CO2 pollution from fossil electricity production or outdated combustion engines.\u201d<\/p>\n On Track to \u2018Overshoot\u2019<\/p>\n International plans to limit climate change tend to assume that we can \u201covershoot\u201d on climate pollution, pushing the Earth\u2019s climate into dangerous territory past 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of warming. That\u2019s because, the argument goes, carbon capture and storage could come to the rescue if we go too far, letting us draw carbon dioxide levels back down.<\/p>\n The new study calls that assumption into question, highlighting uncertainty about how effective carbon removal will be at curbing climate change, in addition to concerns over difficulties in accessing underground carbon storage.<\/p>\n \u201cWith current trends suggesting warming up to 3\u00b0C this century, using all of the safe geological storage wouldn\u2019t even get us back to 2\u00b0C,\u201d said lead author Matthew Gidden, research professor at the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.<\/p>\n Industry estimates, like those from the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative<\/a> (OGCI), suggest the world has plenty of storage potential to keep 14,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide buried below ground and out of the atmosphere.<\/p>\n That would be \u201cmore than enough to meet projected needs for CCUS [carbon capture, use and sequestration] over the coming century,\u201d the OGCI wrote in a 2023 report<\/a> it called a \u201cplaybook for regulators, industrial emitters and hub developers.\u201d<\/p>\n The new study, however, takes a closer look at where that storage is located \u2014 and in particular whether it\u2019s in regions at higher risk of earthquakes or groundwater contamination like\u00a0locations deep in the ocean, or in the Arctic and Antarctic circles.\u00a0The study concludes that nearly 90 percent of that storage capacity is in less-than-desirable locations.<\/p>\n The researchers estimate there\u2019s just 1,460 gigatons worth of \u201cprudent\u201d storage available worldwide \u2014 a tenth of the industry estimates.<\/p>\n Some earlier\u00a0estimates stretch even higher, suggesting there\u2019s around 40,000 gigatons of CO2 storage capacity worldwide.<\/p>\n \u201cThese estimates are also important as they remove all the technical constraints from assessment and assume that cost and engineering challenges will pose no issue in the future,\u201d coauthor Siddharth Joshi, a research scholar at the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group, told DeSmog, adding that \u201cthe shock value of technical potentials is enough to sometimes drive an industry forward.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, focusing only on larger capacity estimates can create a \u201cfalse sense of abundance,\u201d Gidden noted<\/a>, if policy-makers think the world has more room for overshoot than carbon storage can really offer.<\/p>\n The Nature study raises big questions about how the world\u2019s carbon storage should be used long term.<\/p>\n \u201cAs [the study authors] point out, if we act to reduce emissions now, we probably have enough storage, but that ceases to be true really, really soon,\u201d Rob Anex, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches carbon capture technology,\u00a0told Canada\u2019s CBC News<\/a>. \u201cGlobal emission rates are so high that the window of time in which geologic storage is practical is shutting really, really fast.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump Backs Carbon Capture Subsidies<\/p>\n Despite the federal government\u2019s retreat from climate action, including Trump\u2019s January executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the Trump administration has moved to protect and expand some federal subsidies for CCS.<\/p>\n Lucrative tax credits for using captured carbon for enhanced oil recovery were expanded<\/a> this summer as part of Trump\u2019s \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act.\u201d<\/p>\n Given this political climate, experts didn\u2019t expect to see a major direct impact from the study for blue hydrogen projects and other proposals aiming to use carbon storage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pragmatist in me says it\u2019s unlikely,\u201d Anika Juhn, energy data analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told DeSmog. \u201cI don\u2019t see government taking those kinds of steps.\u201d<\/p>\n The Nature study follows a precautionary approach to carbon storage, she noted. \u201cThe precautionary principle says if we don\u2019t really know about it, then maybe we shouldn\u2019t be rushing headlong into just applying this technology everywhere as fast as possible,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that\u2019s really where the strength of it is, saying if you are interested in doing it safely, here are some key aspects that you should really focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause their estimate is so prudent, it really doesn\u2019t reflect at all current industry practice,\u201d Juhn noted.<\/p>\n So far, there\u2019s not a lot of carbon storage operating worldwide, with the Nature study pointing out existing projects currently store just 49 megatons per year, with 416 megatons worth \u201ceither planned or in construction.\u201d Meanwhile, annual global emissions from fossil fuels topped 37,400 megatons last year, according to the World Meteorological Organization, another record high.<\/p>\n But that small CCS industry has already caused significant safety incidents<\/a> \u2014 including well blowouts and a major 2020 CO2 pipeline leak that hospitalized dozens of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n Concerns over the potential for groundwater contamination \u2014 one of the factors highlighted in the Nature study \u2014 have already begun curbing real-world carbon storage availability at the state and local level.<\/p>\n Take, for example, Illinois, home to the nation\u2019s first dedicated carbon storage project<\/a>, the Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) carbon storage site in Decatur, Illinois.<\/p>\n Carbon injections were\u00a0halted at ADM\u2019s site<\/a> a year ago, after the company discovered leaks below ground. \u201cGiven the extreme depth and the multiple layers of shale and other confining rock up to the surface, at no time was there an impact to the surface or groundwater sources, nor any threat to public health,\u201d ADM said<\/a>\u00a0at the end of August, announcing the restart of operations at its Decatur site.<\/p>\n But the incident appears to have hit a nerve in the state, where nearly a million people rely on the Mahomet Aquifer in Champaign, Illinois, as their sole source of drinking water.<\/p>\n This summer, Illinois passed<\/a> a law<\/a> banning carbon storage below that aquifer, making roughly 15 percent of the state\u2019s counties off limits for carbon storage. ADM\u2019s leak had reached within about six miles\u00a0of the Mahomet Aquifer, Taxpayers for Common Sense notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Nature study\u00a0notes that most of the carbon storage in operation today doesn\u2019t actually offer any net climate benefit \u2014 because it\u2019s used for enhanced oil recovery, which, the researchers wrote,\u00a0\u201coverall results in net-positive CO2 emissions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAfter decades of bold projections, only around 10 million tons of CO\u2082 are captured and permanently stored each year (excluding enhanced oil recovery), representing less than 0.03% of annual global fossil fuel emissions,\u201d Kevin Anderson, professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester, said in a statement<\/a> responding to the study. \u201cRather than serving as a credible mitigation technology, CCS has largely functioned as a rhetorical device to delay robust fossil fuel regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Trump administration seeks to wipe away environmental rules covering the oil, gas, and coal industries, fossil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-46761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}