False Solutions

CARBON CAPTURE

A NEW INSULT AND A NEW SCAM

Industrial carbon capture is an attempt to reduce emissions by trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) before it is emitted from smokestacks or by later sucking it out of the air. As climate anxiety rises, it has gained magical-thinking status as a way to abate the carbon pollution crisis. And the fossil fuel industry has latched onto carbon capture to legitimize the continued use of its product.

CARBON CAPTURE IS A DANGEROUS DISTRACTION:

• It is hazardous. In Satartia, Mississippi, a CO2 pipeline exploded and caused an episode of mass asphyxiation. 

• Carbon capture reduces efficiency in plants where it is installed–which means more drilling, mining, and transport emissions to produce the same power. 

• Even once it has been improved, it will never get us to zero emissions, and it is wildly expensive. We have far better, cheaper options–renewables–and carbon capture pulls focus from the urgency of implementing them.

Carbon capture should be a gallows humor punchline, but instead it is a new barrier to ending fossil fuel use.

Occidental Petroleum is one of the worst greenhouse gas polluters in the US. In 2022, they spent more money lobbying the government than all but one other fossil fuel company. In March 2023, at an energy trade conference, its CEO said “Direct capture technology is going to be the technology that helps to preserve our industry over time. This gives our industry a license to continue to operate...” 

Several months later, Occidental Petroleum received a $1.2 billion grant from the federal government to build a carbon capture plant in Cancer Alley, Louisiana—a dangerous insult to residents, who are already preparing to fight it.

We all want to see solutions. But those in which the fossil fuel industry invests industrial scale capital (not just advertising fees) can be assumed to be false unless proven otherwise.

“THESE PROJECTS ARE PUTTING MORE POLLUTION IN COMMUNITIES THAT ARE ALREADY OVERBURDENED. IT’S A NEW INSULT.”
–JADE WOODS, THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

• Sources

  What is carbon capture and storage?
  International Energy Agency: Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage

  Industry using it to legitimize their product
  The Guardian: The world’s biggest carbon capture facility is being built in Texas. Will it work?

  Mississippi incident
  NPR: The U.S. is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story

  Reduced efficiency
  Journal of Energy and Environmental Science: The health and climate impacts of carbon capture and direct air capture

  Occidental Petroleum lobbying
  Open Secrets: Oil and gas industry spent $124.4 million on federal lobbying amid record profits in 2022

  “License to continue to operate”
  The Guardian: The world’s biggest carbon capture facility is being built in Texas. Will it work?
  New Scientist: Most major carbon capture and storage projects haven't met targets

• Further Reading

  Stanford: Stanford study casts doubt on carbon capture

  10 of the biggest projects - “the world’s largest carbon capture facilities are dominated by those that use CO2 to produce more oil and gas”)

  Ends report: Carbon capture and storage plants: What are they and where are they?

  Open letter in the Washington post funded by CIEL and signed by hundreds of orgs

  Center for International Environmental Law: It’s Time to End Carbon Capture of Climate Policy An Open Letter to US and Canadian Leaders