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...air and point source carbon extraction and sequestration. A friend is dating a fellow who has just accepted a job at Shell Oil in carbon storage https://www

...air and point source carbon extraction and sequestration. A friend is dating a fellow who has just accepted a job at Shell Oil in carbon storage https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/carbon-capture-and-storage-projects.html https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/carbon-capture-a... https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/7/13/shell-sees-a-profitable-future-for-carbon-capture-and-storage-as-a-service https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/7/13/shell-sees-a-profita...

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TremendousJudge 5y ago
Carbon capture is just marketing for oil companies; it doesn't make sense energetically. And just looking at the numbers provided in their marketing page, it's clear that it's absolutely useless. In 2018 Shell extracted more than 4 million barrels of oil a day [0] -- with 430kg of CO2 per barrel [1], that's 1.591 billion (with a B, a thousand million) kg of CO2 extracted from the ground per day. Meanwhile, on that page that you are quoting, all of those projects are on the ballpark of a million tons (a billion kg) per year. With luck, all of those projects put together (by the most ""climate responsible"" oil company nonetheless), each year would cover 15 days of Shell's carbon extraction. And that's without taking into account the fact that these projects have emissions of their own, which are definitely not taken into account for these totals. Carbon sequestration is an interesting effort for sure, but the only use it has is give oil companies excuses for their existence. [0] http://priceofoil.org/2019/05/20/shell-emissions-still-going-up-despite-accounting-trick/ http://priceofoil.org/2019/05/20/shell-emissions-still-going... [1] https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...
- Frost1x 5y ago
  I mostly agree with this assessment although I think it's still good for such efforts to continue. I wouldn't say carbon sequestration ventures only use is marketing (it's definitely the largest use and definitely the primary disingenuous monetary driver though). There are groups that assume fossil fuels will still continue in some capacity regardless for some time, so if technology can be developed (without generating vast amounts of emissions in the process) to reduce undesired side effects of fossil fuels continued use, it's worth exploring. It may also become useful on the global stage where certain states don't seem to care at all about developing clean energy (e.g. China). If you do develop an effective cheap way to sequester carbon emissions for fossil fuels, you have a much better chance at persuading China to use and adopt it than telling them to shutdown all their coal fire power plants.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - TremendousJudge 5y ago
    While I agree with the fact that China has a lot of coal power plants, afaik they are the ones investing the most into new nuclear tech. And also it's not like their emissions happen on a vacuum; first the world outsources all of their factories to China, and then they complain that they pollute a lot, as though the demand for consumer goods was China's fault. For a practical example, the government of the UK likes to claim that they are on track to be "zero emissions"[0] -- great effort on their part. However, here all the imported manufactured products that definitely are not "zero emissions" aren't counted. All these emissions were exported to China, and then they have the gall to complain that China's emissions are too high. [0] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-is-now-halfway-to-meeting-its-net-zero-emissions-target https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-is-now-halfway-to-me...
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2021/7/30/the-struggles-to-make-ccs-work https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2021/7/30/the-struggle... Carbon sequestration is probably going to be important, but if it in any way enables more fossil fuels to be burnt, then it's probably a net negative. We need it to take stuff back out of the atmosphere, not extract and then store yet more fossil Carbon.
miltondts 5y ago
> and point source carbon extraction and sequestration. CCS at the extraction point is just propaganda to keep extracting more CO2. This is not a solution it's just an excuse to keep pumping CO2 out of the ground and into the air. The end result of CCS is just more emissions. Both because they don't capture every CO2 released during extraction and because they can't address the usage of the extracted material that will release more CO2. We know what the solution is: renewables + storage and/or nuclear. The solution is not to get more CO2 out of the ground.

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TremendousJudge 5y ago

Carbon capture is just marketing for oil companies; it doesn't make sense energetically. And just looking at the numbers provided in their marketing page, it's clear that it's absolutely useless. In 2018 Shell extracted more than 4 million barrels of oil a day [0] -- with 430kg of CO2 per barrel [1], that's 1.591 billion (with a B, a thousand million) kg of CO2 extracted from the ground per day. Meanwhile, on that page that you are quoting, all of those projects are on the ballpark of a million tons (a billion kg) per year. With luck, all of those projects put together (by the most ""climate responsible"" oil company nonetheless), each year would cover 15 days of Shell's carbon extraction. And that's without taking into account the fact that these projects have emissions of their own, which are definitely not taken into account for these totals. Carbon sequestration is an interesting effort for sure, but the only use it has is give oil companies excuses for their existence. [0] http://priceofoil.org/2019/05/20/shell-emissions-still-going-up-despite-accounting-trick/ http://priceofoil.org/2019/05/20/shell-emissions-still-going... [1] https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...

Frost1x 5y ago
I mostly agree with this assessment although I think it's still good for such efforts to continue. I wouldn't say carbon sequestration ventures only use is marketing (it's definitely the largest use and definitely the primary disingenuous monetary driver though). There are groups that assume fossil fuels will still continue in some capacity regardless for some time, so if technology can be developed (without generating vast amounts of emissions in the process) to reduce undesired side effects of fossil fuels continued use, it's worth exploring. It may also become useful on the global stage where certain states don't seem to care at all about developing clean energy (e.g. China). If you do develop an effective cheap way to sequester carbon emissions for fossil fuels, you have a much better chance at persuading China to use and adopt it than telling them to shutdown all their coal fire power plants.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- TremendousJudge 5y ago
  While I agree with the fact that China has a lot of coal power plants, afaik they are the ones investing the most into new nuclear tech. And also it's not like their emissions happen on a vacuum; first the world outsources all of their factories to China, and then they complain that they pollute a lot, as though the demand for consumer goods was China's fault. For a practical example, the government of the UK likes to claim that they are on track to be "zero emissions"[0] -- great effort on their part. However, here all the imported manufactured products that definitely are not "zero emissions" aren't counted. All these emissions were exported to China, and then they have the gall to complain that China's emissions are too high. [0] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-is-now-halfway-to-meeting-its-net-zero-emissions-target https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-is-now-halfway-to-me...

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2021/7/30/the-struggles-to-make-ccs-work https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2021/7/30/the-struggle... Carbon sequestration is probably going to be important, but if it in any way enables more fossil fuels to be burnt, then it's probably a net negative. We need it to take stuff back out of the atmosphere, not extract and then store yet more fossil Carbon.

miltondts 5y ago

> and point source carbon extraction and sequestration. CCS at the extraction point is just propaganda to keep extracting more CO2. This is not a solution it's just an excuse to keep pumping CO2 out of the ground and into the air. The end result of CCS is just more emissions. Both because they don't capture every CO2 released during extraction and because they can't address the usage of the extracted material that will release more CO2. We know what the solution is: renewables + storage and/or nuclear. The solution is not to get more CO2 out of the ground.