Can Carbon Capture Be Part of the Climate Solution?

This is the remaining installment in the Visionaries series, which appears to be like at figures who’re making an attempt to rework the means we stay.

Every yr, people pump round 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide and different greenhouse gases into the environment. According to quite a few successive and more and more forceful studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to keep away from the worst results of a warming planet, that quantity must fall to zero by 2050.

But after many years of inaction in the face of this scientific consensus, emissions have grown so excessive that reductions from issues like rising vitality effectivity and transitioning to renewable electrical energy will solely get us thus far. “We know how to do 40 gigatons,” mentioned Julio Friedmann of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. “That means you need 10 gigatons of removal.”

He was referring to carbon seize and storage, generally known as C.C.S. — primarily sucking the carbon dioxide again out of the environment, or from its emissions supply, and locking it away someplace.

Nearly 20 years in the past, Jennifer Wilcox realized that removing can be key to attending to net-zero emissions. As a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University, Dr. Wilcox acknowledged that nature-based options — planting bushes and rehabilitating wetlands, both of that are really good at absorbing carbon dioxide — may solely achieve this a lot: Carbon would additionally should be captured from the air. So, in 2012, she wrote the textbook on the way it’s finished. The National Academies of Science got here round to Dr. Wilcox’s level of view in 2018, reporting that applied sciences would should be developed and superior to take away the quantity wanted.

Ms. Wilcox, 45, now has a number one function in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, the place she is charged with doing simply that. But directing $10 billion to investments in carbon seize and storage is simply half of the job. Proven applied sciences should be made cheaply and at scale, and in some circumstances built-in with different methods. They should be deployed each at sources of carbon dioxide, similar to energy vegetation and factories, and in the wild, by methods generally known as direct air seize. And locations should be discovered the place the captured gasoline might be saved for hundreds of years, which might get tough. Dr. Wilcox “has described every aspect of this work path,” mentioned Dr. Friedmann, who has identified her for many years. “She wakes up every day thinking how do we deploy clean energy technology.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

What’s holding again carbon seize and storage right this moment? Is it the expertise?

Types of carbon seize are sometimes conflated with one another. There’s level supply carbon seize, which is retrofitting an present facility and avoiding emissions from getting into the environment. Then there’s carbon dioxide removing — direct air seize. Technology for each approaches exists.

But then there’s the query of, what do you do with all the CO2? The one method that scales is the depleted oil and gasoline reservoirs: injecting it deep underground. So to me, it’s completely not the expertise.

Is underground storage secure, achievable and cost-effective in the long run?

Deep underground storage of CO2 isn’t new — the oil business has been doing it for practically 40 years by enhanced oil manufacturing, which is a commercial-scale exercise right this moment. Through this business, we’ve gained experience in secure and safe storage, and the similar abilities, work pressure, and experience will apply for devoted CO2 storage tasks. Similar trapping mechanisms that allowed oil and gasoline to be fashioned over tens of millions of years deep underground will finally lure CO2 as we work towards reversing the circulate of carbon again underground, and we’re working to construct out the infrastructure.

Where do you suppose carbon seize and storage might be in 10 years? Do you see level supply methods being in place by then?

I see C.C.S. in a decade being deployed on industrial level sources which are arduous to decarbonize right this moment — cement, primarily, and in some circumstances, metal. Carbon seize on a cement plant actually helps to drive down the carbon depth of that product. And we’re taking a look at pulp and paper as nicely.

Do prospects wish to buy low-carbon paper?

Yes. Apple, Amazon — anyone that makes use of loads of paper. They’re keen to pay for low-carbon provide chains, however these don’t exist right this moment. So they need to pay for very high-priced carbon removing.

And my level is: How about financing the low-carbon cement, low-carbon metal, low-carbon paper by including C.C.S. to their manufacturing? It’s loads cheaper to keep away from the emissions than taking it again out afterward. I don’t suppose these sectors are arduous to decarbonize right this moment.

I completely don’t see carbon seize as the device to offset emissions that we all know find out how to decarbonize. But asking the query of who’s keen to pay for these tasks can assist drive some of them, and the bipartisan infrastructure law that President Biden signed in November will help no less than two demonstrations.

When we spoke a yr and a half in the past, you mentioned, “There needs to be government spending and incentives and investments associated with putting an economic benefit to putting more carbon in the earth than products produced when we use them.” Now, that’s truly your job description.

Can you consider it? Thank you for reminding me of that. Because truthfully, this can be a arduous job. But each day, I’m so grateful that I bought to be chosen to be on this place. My work beforehand has offered simply mannequin extrapolations of what prices could possibly be, however the actuality is we’d like the funding to really construct them. And it must be clear in order that the insurance policies are priced proper for the personal sector to then take it the relaxation of the means. The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s work can construct the extra pricey first-of-its-kind demonstrations.

How do you execute your imaginative and prescient by authorities forms?

We flipped the mission the other way up. The Office of Fossil Energy’s earlier mission was to extend the manufacturing of fossil fuels domestically. Now it’s centered round investing in approaches and applied sciences that reduce local weather and environmental impacts of our continued dependence on fossil fuels.

What do you see as the challenges that carbon seize and storage faces for widespread deployment on the scale obligatory to attain 10 gigatons of removing a yr?

The lack of training and efficient communication. An instance that I’ve in my textbook is that the similar chemistry that captures CO2 additionally captures the acid rain gases, sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides, which additionally have an effect on human well being. The first stage of carbon seize is definitely cleansing up the particulate matter. In some communities the place this expertise could possibly be deployed, there are air air pollution considerations, so it’s actually essential to grasp these points. And half of what we’re doing on this administration is being very considerate about citing tasks and ensuring that we make it very clear that there are advantages that the communities will see.

One potential use for the CO2 that’s captured by C.C.S. is to inject it into oil wells to facilitate fossil gasoline extraction. What do you say to critics who argue that carbon seize and storage could be a license for oil and gasoline firms to pollute and that it’s a harmful technique given the have to concentrate on emissions discount?

I say they’re proper. It could possibly be that. But this administration is about placing guardrails in place, is about valuing different metrics like advantages to well being, advantages to communities, decreasing air air pollution. But if we’re distracted in the close to time period, and pondering that utilization for fossil gasoline extraction is the solely consequence of these investments, then we’re frozen, we’re paralyzed, and we aren’t appearing, and that’s extra dangerous.

You increase chickens, you develop greens, you might have photo voltaic panels on your private home. Are particular person efforts to cut back one’s carbon footprint going to be sufficient? Do you suppose possibly that point can be higher spent pressuring governments and corporations to hasten the vitality transition and to cease deforestation, since these are a lot larger drivers of local weather change?

I believe all of the above. But I believe that individuals’s particular person selections are a mode of communication. If your neighbor sees you place photo voltaic panels up, you speak about it. And I believe that sending a message by instance is a extremely crucial component. So efforts that begin with individuals’s particular person selections finally have an effect.