7 ms·

Oil Companies Know Carbon Capture Is Not a Climate Solution

16 points by greenie_beans 2y ago

downrightmike 2y ago
Just like plastic recycling and personal carbon footprint, its all marketing to get people to ignore the real problems with fossil fuels
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Passing off corporate responsibility as "personal responsibility" (of consumers) is a very old tried-and-true industry tactic. Annie Leonard's "Moving from Individual Change to Societal Change", published as part of the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2013 is an excellent introduction to that topic. Her iconic example is the "crying Indian" anti-littering PSA of the early 1970s, created by the fizzy drinks and disposable containers industries: <https://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-from-Individual-Change-to-Societal-Change-Annie-Leonard-2013.pdf https://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-fr...> (PDF). Something of a personal favourite: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20annie%20leonard&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>
  - SR2Z 2y ago
    I hate this take. Corporations don't pollute for fun; they pollute to provide goods and services for their customers. The responsibility sits with the end consumer who wants affordable quality, not the company that provided the good. We need a carbon tax. Nothing else will align peoples' incentives. Pointing at big companies and saying it's their fault certainly won't.
    - Log_out_ 2y ago
      Saved expenses and protected investments is the closest thing a cooperate process amoeba can get to fun.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      That argument would have far greater credibility if firms did not: - Manipulate public impressions, through advertising and propaganda (pretty much every commercial concern ever). - Manipulate legal contexts, particularly of regulation (existence of, aspects of, capture of regulatory bodies) and liability, and seeking preferable competitive - Engage in extensive and decades-long disinformation campaigns (lead, asbestos, CFCs, tobacco, auto safety, coal, oil, opioids, global warming, ...). - Engage in direct attacks, surveillance, harassment, and in cases violence and assassination against whistleblowers and public advocates (Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Chico Mendez, Berta Cáceres, Isidro Baldenegro López, Jairo Mora Sandoval, Greta Thunberg, Vandana Shiva, Winona LaDuke, Erin Brockovich, Judi Bari, Wangari Maathai, Siwon Tangnoi, Dilma Ferreira Silva, Dilma Ferreira Silva, Kimberly Wasserman, Marielle Franco, Gustavo Castro Soto, Hilda Lini, Paul Watson, and many, many, many more). - Engage in monopolistic actions to eliminate competition (Standard Oil, Railroad industry, US Steel, Du Pont, American Tobacco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, ...). Quite often aimed at removing more environmentally-benign alternatives. - Direct conspiracy to eliminate lower-impact solutions (General Motors streetcar conspiracy). - Directly subverting emissions controls or tests (Volkswagen, many, many manufacturing and chemical concerns). - Lied, lied, lied, and lied again in countless investigations, court cases, inquisitions, scientific studies, public statements, and far more, over what the truth and actual internal understanding of circumstances surrounding goods, services, processes, and impacts are. What you're saying in effect is that market processes alone are not sufficient to ensure good-citizen behaviour from commercial institutions, which is what the general economic concept of externalities (both positive and negative) would strongly support. This means that markets alone won't work. Your own suggested approach of a carbon tax has numerous opponents, including most especially the fossil fuels and heavy industries sectors, much of the transportation sector, and others. There is also considerable resistance from the public and less-developed countries both of which fear that impacts of such taxes would disproportionately disadvantage them. There's the further challenge that a carbon tax would have to be substantially global in scope, which is challenging without an effective global governance structure, meaning that implementation would likely have to rely on treaties between major carbon emitters. The current process toward such a goal, the COP (conference of parties) which is going on 30 years without effective progress. I'll also note that in virtually all cases where negative externalities have been successfully addressed, it has not been through market mechanisms but through regulation, civil action, litigation, and in cases direct violent action. Firms have shown repeatedly that they won't respond to anything else. Shifting burden from the point sources (manufacturers, retailers, producers, service providers) to the general public also inherently increases overall costs and decreases effectiveness. Having a single point or fewer points of control is inherently advantageous in any attempt to influence outcomes, whether mechanical, technical, political, or economic, simply on an effort / impacts basis. I deny you the high ground here. Sources are various, but Oreskes and Conway's Merchants of Doubt is a good recent overview of the general dynamic with sources to many more references. Annie Leonard's other writing also makes the case strongly. Ralph Nader gives an excellent contemporary (1967) account of abuses by US auto manufacturers as well as the harassment, smear, and surveillance campaign against him by GM in this Studs Terkel interview: <https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-his-book-unsafe-any-speed https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-...>. Direct audio: <https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.mp3 https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.m...> (MP3).
tocs3 2y ago
Worked for a company in the first decade of the century that did a little work for an oil company in Europe that had gotten a grant to study using CO2 to pressure wells to increase production and calling it carbon capture (touch on in TFA). These days when I hear a big company or industry doing something good for the world I start to wonder what is in it for them and who is paying.
- daftodyssey 2y ago
  I do not remember anyone that would call it carbon capture lol. Not sure in Europe, but in the states there is a legal distinction between a well developed for CO2 EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) and a well developed for carbon capture. Class 2 vs. Class 6.
credit_guy 2y ago
But why not? Here's the damning sentence from the House report [1]: > publicly celebrate carbon capture technologies to help reduce harmful emissions while privately acknowledging that the technology is expensive and claiming that it cannot be scaled without federal government investment Why is it a bad idea to have federal government investment in this technology? The report does not even bother to quote how much that federal investment would be needed. Imagine that to make something viable you need the federal government to pay for 10% of the capital costs, vs 90%. Neither is viable right now, but the first one has a chance, while the second doesn't. According to the US Energy Information Administration [2], the capital cost to build a new natural gas power plant is $921/kW. If you add 95% carbon capture, it goes to $2365/kW. So, you would need someone to pay 60% of that to make it equally competitive with a plant without CC. That does make it sound like CC is hopeless, but there are some things to consider. First: it is reasonable to expect the fossil fuel companies to absorb some of the capital cost difference. Let's say half/half. So the government assistance needs only be 30%. Second: it is likely that as the CC technologies mature, the capital expenditure difference can become lower. Let's say it goes to 20%. Third: the government can actually assist in a financially efficient form, via loan and bond guarantees, so that the financing cost is significantly reduced for the private entity, but at a very low cost for the government. In other words, the government assistance is not a zero-sum game. It actually happens in 90% of the government programs: actual government cash subsidies are rare, most often there are tax deductions, loan guarantees, etc. [1] https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fossil_fuel_report1.pdf https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fossil_fuel_repo... [2] https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2025.pdf https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  The article is written from an American point of view and is hard to understand if you don't take such a view point of view too. It's trying to bust the idea that carbon capture can be a solution to the climate issue by itself and therefore no other action is required, which is a position basically no oil company is taking except Exxon and Chevron (and maybe Shell but I don't think they are in as much denial). Sometimes, when making this point, activists go a bit too far but this doesn't seem to be the case here (the article is mostly attacking Exxon actually).

16 points by greenie_beans 2y ago

Just like plastic recycling and personal carbon footprint, its all marketing to get people to ignore the real problems with fossil fuels

dredmorbius 2y ago
Passing off corporate responsibility as "personal responsibility" (of consumers) is a very old tried-and-true industry tactic. Annie Leonard's "Moving from Individual Change to Societal Change", published as part of the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2013 is an excellent introduction to that topic. Her iconic example is the "crying Indian" anti-littering PSA of the early 1970s, created by the fizzy drinks and disposable containers industries: <https://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-from-Individual-Change-to-Societal-Change-Annie-Leonard-2013.pdf https://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-fr...> (PDF). Something of a personal favourite: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20annie%20leonard&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>
- SR2Z 2y ago
  I hate this take. Corporations don't pollute for fun; they pollute to provide goods and services for their customers. The responsibility sits with the end consumer who wants affordable quality, not the company that provided the good. We need a carbon tax. Nothing else will align peoples' incentives. Pointing at big companies and saying it's their fault certainly won't.
  - Log_out_ 2y ago
    Saved expenses and protected investments is the closest thing a cooperate process amoeba can get to fun.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    That argument would have far greater credibility if firms did not: - Manipulate public impressions, through advertising and propaganda (pretty much every commercial concern ever). - Manipulate legal contexts, particularly of regulation (existence of, aspects of, capture of regulatory bodies) and liability, and seeking preferable competitive - Engage in extensive and decades-long disinformation campaigns (lead, asbestos, CFCs, tobacco, auto safety, coal, oil, opioids, global warming, ...). - Engage in direct attacks, surveillance, harassment, and in cases violence and assassination against whistleblowers and public advocates (Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Chico Mendez, Berta Cáceres, Isidro Baldenegro López, Jairo Mora Sandoval, Greta Thunberg, Vandana Shiva, Winona LaDuke, Erin Brockovich, Judi Bari, Wangari Maathai, Siwon Tangnoi, Dilma Ferreira Silva, Dilma Ferreira Silva, Kimberly Wasserman, Marielle Franco, Gustavo Castro Soto, Hilda Lini, Paul Watson, and many, many, many more). - Engage in monopolistic actions to eliminate competition (Standard Oil, Railroad industry, US Steel, Du Pont, American Tobacco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, ...). Quite often aimed at removing more environmentally-benign alternatives. - Direct conspiracy to eliminate lower-impact solutions (General Motors streetcar conspiracy). - Directly subverting emissions controls or tests (Volkswagen, many, many manufacturing and chemical concerns). - Lied, lied, lied, and lied again in countless investigations, court cases, inquisitions, scientific studies, public statements, and far more, over what the truth and actual internal understanding of circumstances surrounding goods, services, processes, and impacts are. What you're saying in effect is that market processes alone are not sufficient to ensure good-citizen behaviour from commercial institutions, which is what the general economic concept of externalities (both positive and negative) would strongly support. This means that markets alone won't work. Your own suggested approach of a carbon tax has numerous opponents, including most especially the fossil fuels and heavy industries sectors, much of the transportation sector, and others. There is also considerable resistance from the public and less-developed countries both of which fear that impacts of such taxes would disproportionately disadvantage them. There's the further challenge that a carbon tax would have to be substantially global in scope, which is challenging without an effective global governance structure, meaning that implementation would likely have to rely on treaties between major carbon emitters. The current process toward such a goal, the COP (conference of parties) which is going on 30 years without effective progress. I'll also note that in virtually all cases where negative externalities have been successfully addressed, it has not been through market mechanisms but through regulation, civil action, litigation, and in cases direct violent action. Firms have shown repeatedly that they won't respond to anything else. Shifting burden from the point sources (manufacturers, retailers, producers, service providers) to the general public also inherently increases overall costs and decreases effectiveness. Having a single point or fewer points of control is inherently advantageous in any attempt to influence outcomes, whether mechanical, technical, political, or economic, simply on an effort / impacts basis. I deny you the high ground here. Sources are various, but Oreskes and Conway's Merchants of Doubt is a good recent overview of the general dynamic with sources to many more references. Annie Leonard's other writing also makes the case strongly. Ralph Nader gives an excellent contemporary (1967) account of abuses by US auto manufacturers as well as the harassment, smear, and surveillance campaign against him by GM in this Studs Terkel interview: <https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-his-book-unsafe-any-speed https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-...>. Direct audio: <https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.mp3 https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.m...> (MP3).

tocs3 2y ago

Worked for a company in the first decade of the century that did a little work for an oil company in Europe that had gotten a grant to study using CO2 to pressure wells to increase production and calling it carbon capture (touch on in TFA). These days when I hear a big company or industry doing something good for the world I start to wonder what is in it for them and who is paying.

daftodyssey 2y ago
I do not remember anyone that would call it carbon capture lol. Not sure in Europe, but in the states there is a legal distinction between a well developed for CO2 EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) and a well developed for carbon capture. Class 2 vs. Class 6.

credit_guy 2y ago

But why not? Here's the damning sentence from the House report [1]: > publicly celebrate carbon capture technologies to help reduce harmful emissions while privately acknowledging that the technology is expensive and claiming that it cannot be scaled without federal government investment Why is it a bad idea to have federal government investment in this technology? The report does not even bother to quote how much that federal investment would be needed. Imagine that to make something viable you need the federal government to pay for 10% of the capital costs, vs 90%. Neither is viable right now, but the first one has a chance, while the second doesn't. According to the US Energy Information Administration [2], the capital cost to build a new natural gas power plant is $921/kW. If you add 95% carbon capture, it goes to $2365/kW. So, you would need someone to pay 60% of that to make it equally competitive with a plant without CC. That does make it sound like CC is hopeless, but there are some things to consider. First: it is reasonable to expect the fossil fuel companies to absorb some of the capital cost difference. Let's say half/half. So the government assistance needs only be 30%. Second: it is likely that as the CC technologies mature, the capital expenditure difference can become lower. Let's say it goes to 20%. Third: the government can actually assist in a financially efficient form, via loan and bond guarantees, so that the financing cost is significantly reduced for the private entity, but at a very low cost for the government. In other words, the government assistance is not a zero-sum game. It actually happens in 90% of the government programs: actual government cash subsidies are rare, most often there are tax deductions, loan guarantees, etc. [1] https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fossil_fuel_report1.pdf https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fossil_fuel_repo... [2] https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2025.pdf https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...

RandomThoughts3 2y ago
The article is written from an American point of view and is hard to understand if you don't take such a view point of view too. It's trying to bust the idea that carbon capture can be a solution to the climate issue by itself and therefore no other action is required, which is a position basically no oil company is taking except Exxon and Chevron (and maybe Shell but I don't think they are in as much denial). Sometimes, when making this point, activists go a bit too far but this doesn't seem to be the case here (the article is mostly attacking Exxon actually).