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But why not? Here's the damning sentence from the House report [1]: > publicly celebrate carbon capture technologies to help reduce harmful emissions while

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).
jjk166 2y ago
Yeah, there's absolutely no contradiction between saying "this is a strategy that if properly deployed can reduce harmful emissions and prevent climate change" and "if we continue on our current trajectory relying solely on private entities to roll this out without government incentive then it will not live up to that hype."

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).

jjk166 2y ago

Yeah, there's absolutely no contradiction between saying "this is a strategy that if properly deployed can reduce harmful emissions and prevent climate change" and "if we continue on our current trajectory relying solely on private entities to roll this out without government incentive then it will not live up to that hype."