A Hard Look at Carbon Capture

We’ve put vast amounts of excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. But even as efforts to address climate change have shifted into higher gear, we continue to struggle to meaningfully cut carbon emissions. That means there is naturally an initial appeal to proposals to capture carbon and remove it from the atmosphere or from industrial processes. In fact, many of my favorite movies have this plot – an amazing technological fix for an existential threat?  Yes!  Scientific breakthrough to the rescue!  

But there are significant reasons for concern about carbon capture and sequestration, known as CCS. Let’s set aside, for a moment, the dubious feasibility of CCS and its potential harms. Even ignoring these causes for concern, the main effect of CCS is to support continued emissions from fossil fuel power plants. CCS is expensive, so pursuing CCS means investing precious climate funding in the toxic status quo, rather than putting that money into a just transition to a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable world. CCS-equipped fossil fuel power plants would continue all the immediate health and safety harms and environmental injustices of the current system.  Those harms include the devastating effects of oil and gas drilling on communities in this country and abroad; risks from transporting crude oil; air and water pollution from toxic refineries; and power plant emissions that expose people and animals to cancer and lung-damage causing chemicals. The upshot: the best case scenario for CCS is that it provides a buffer from climate change, while continuing the cancer, air quality, and water quality devastation of fossil fuel reliance. 

But even that best case is deeply uncertain. CCS is a dubious investment even on its own terms.  Particularly as the price of renewables has dropped significantly, investments in renewable energy reduce carbon faster and more meaningfully than carbon sequestration at fossil fuel energy plants. That means that if our goal is to reduce climate impact, we should put our money towards renewables.

Moreover, bringing CCS to a meaningful scale requires the construction of an expensive and dangerous network of pipelines to transport CO2 around the country and world.  As residents of Satartia, Mississippi, learned in 2020, living near a CO2 pipeline can be hazardous or fatal. 

To make matters worse, one of the key methods of building CCS capacity involves using CCS to extract more oil, through a process called enhanced oil recovery.  Why would we invest in oil extraction if our goal is CO2 reduction?  CCS proponents want to use enhanced oil recovery to fund the development of the technology and infrastructure that would be needed – but this approach would use scarce and valuable climate funding to put one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake at the same time.  

Finally, there are the many dangers and uncertainties of attempting to permanently store carbon in underground caverns.  These include the danger of leaks from abandoned wells, uncertainties regarding long term capping, and unknowns related to long term geopolitical events and our ability to maintain or regulate sites.  

CCS may ultimately be capable of playing some beneficial role in mitigating climate change, particularly related to capturing some of the carbon released through industrial processes that yield cement, steel, and iron.  However, its role in offsetting fossil fuel-based energy production currently functions primarily as a “costly distraction.”

The primary advocates for CCS are oil and gas companies, who see this as a lifeline that will allow continued business almost as usual. Unfortunately, they have successfully gotten billions allocated for CCS in the recent federal infrastructure bill and budget. Public awareness of CCS is low, and CCS presents a complicated picture. But behind the public’s back, changes are underway that may affect climate investments, underlying laws, property rights, liability, and the infrastructure that runs past our homes and communities. It’s time to start taking notice. 

So, what should we fight for? Industrial CCS technologies stand in marked contrast to natural carbon sequestration practices – approaches that support sustainable agricultural practices and protect natural places that draw carbon out of the atmosphere into the soil and plants in forests and grasslands. Related agricultural approaches include compost application, agroforestry, habitat restoration, and urban tree-planting. Instead of false solutions like CCS, we can focus on supporting renewable energy with high road jobs, protecting natural areas, and promoting nature-based sequestration – approaches that make all of our communities safer, cleaner, and healthier.