Can carbon capture ACTUALLY work?

We know we’re currently pumping too  much carbon dioxide into the air. But wouldn’t it be amazing if we  could find a way to suck it all up   and send it back deep underground? Effectively it’s a solution that works. I think, things are moving much more  quickly than people expected. Climate scientists are now saying that without  such technology, we won’t hit our climate targets. Can this actually work?! And why is the money for this coming from  the most unlikely source - big oil companies? So where did this crazy idea come from? Turns out, this seemingly cutting edge idea  to capture carbon is actually decades old!   The US Navy used capture as a way to clear the air inside submarines and space shuttles,   that filled up with CO2 from the  breath of soldiers and astronauts. "You may remember that scene from the movie Apollo 13, where suddenly they had to build a CO2 scrubbing system." "Those CO2 levels are gonna be getting toxic. Well, I suggest you, gentlemen, invent a way to put a square peg in a round hole." "And they dumped all  this stuff out on the table and said, guys,   we have three hours to figure out how to make  a CO2 scrubber. They had the technology   already on the spacecraft. We know how to do these things." Modern carbon capture technology is basically this   CO2 scrubber on a bigger scale -  like this plant in South India. First, the polluted air is sucked into the  industrial system through internal fans. After being cleaned for impurities, it is  transported towards the absorption plant. Where it is   cooled and then sent through a liquid solvent that  absorbs CO2, which is then moved further into the   plant for processing, while the clean air, which  is mostly only water vapour is now released. The CO2 is later stripped out of  the solvent and can be used to make other   products – like soda ash. Or it is used to  heat greenhouses or even as a fuel. You can capture CO2 right at the source of the  pollution – like the Indian factory – where they   burn coal, and strip the CO2 out of the emitted  smoke, and divert it to the adjoining soda ash factory. This is called point source capture. Hundreds of pilots and small-scale facilities, and over 50 large-scale plants around the world are currently doing this. Then there is direct air capture, where big fans suck large amounts of polluted air directly out of the atmosphere. 15 plants are currently doing this  worldwide - but experts say the potential is huge. Even if the CO2 is emitted again, like when the  fuel is burned, it is considered 'carbon neutral',   as it hasn’t added to the CO2 that  would have entered the air anyway. The better thing to do for the environment,  of course, is to prevent emissions from ever   entering the air – so companies are now working  to inject carbon deep into the ground – in a process called sequestration – that can preserve it there indefinitely. This is considered "carbon negative", as it  actively removes carbon from the atmosphere. And this also has pretty ironic  consequences. But more on that later. "We know from the arithmetic of climate that  we need all of these things and we need as   much of them all as we can get. In the next  30 years, we have to start removing about 10   billion tons of CO2 every year." Julio Friedmann is one of the  foremost experts on carbon capture,   who served in the US Department of Energy. He  says massive CO2 removal needs to start now. And the leading climate body, the IPCC agrees.  In their latest report, they declare that the   world will not meet its climate target without active carbon capture and removal. The original carbon suckers, aka trees,   can play a role. But considering the space and  water needed – and the fact that they are always   at the risk of being cut down anyway – experts  believe they can only play a fractional role. So with the focus is now on the tech  version of trees – Direct Air Capture   machines – that are springing up around  the developed world. Canadian Company Carbon Engineering plans to launch the  biggest commercial capture plant in 2022. "We're building a plant capable of removing   one million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. Currently direct air capture companies worldwide capture 9000 tons of CO2 per year, so  Carbon Engineering’s goals are massive. Effectively, it's a solution that works  with different technologies available,   but it's a question of can we scale the market  right now? And I think that brings me back to what   Carbon Engineering's focus is at the moment,  which is making it possible to have policy incentives." And that’s the reason not everybody is already  sucking carbon out of the air all over the world. Estimates vary, but at the moment it costs over  $200 to remove a ton of CO2 through Direct Air Capture. To scale up the industry, companies say  there need to be better financial incentives. These can come either in the form  of credits offered by the   government in exchange for removing  the harmful substance from the air. Or when captured CO2 can be traded  at a good price on the market. Plus: it could also come from taxing companies  that allow their carbon dioxide fumes to escape. And there is place where a combination  of these measures has worked. Norway introduced a tax on  pollution almost 30 years ago,   which has now incentivized a number of large  companies to capture their carbon,   setting them on a quick path  towards carbon neutrality. Sequestration has also been carried out  and monitored in Iceland for over 20 years, allowing experts to conclude that  the process is safe for all practical purposes. And the space available  underground is virtually limitless. Other companies in Europe, as well  as Canada and the US are catching up. But it’s early days. And this brings us to the not so  climate-friendly consequences of sequestration. In the absence of large incentives from  governments, all capture and sequestration   companies are collaborating with – paradoxically –   big oil companies. "What do you need for sequestration, you need  somewhere that you can store the carbon dioxide,   and one of the best places to store that, is old oil  fields and where the owners of those assets   can be oil and gas companies. Well, that's a  very strategic route for them to go down to use their existing assets." At the same time: putting the captured CO2  into the ground builds up pressure and makes   it easier for even more oil to be extracted  – in a process called enhanced oil recovery. Up to 88% of carbon captured and sequestered  at the moment, is used to extract   more oil. And this makes investing in carbon capture  financially viable for these oil companies. "I certainly worry about the big  oil role in carbon capture." Dan Kammen is an expert on clean energy,   who has spoken out about the big  problems with this kind of model. Fossil fuel companies can continue to emit, and  we just suck up some of their pollution and waste.   There are many other problems with the fossil fuel  industry. In addition to greenhouse gases, there   is local air pollution, there's water pollution,  there's environmental injustice. So finding a way   to extend the life of fossil fuel is essentially  finding a way to continue poisoning the planet. The science is clear in that we need to actively remove carbon from the air. But, without broad public support or government incentives, these technologies remain in the hands of private investors – who will only go where the profits are. To keep the technology going, we need to  ensure a clever combination of incentives   for non-oil companies, taxing  polluters, and pricing CO2 higher. "I am optimistic. I think that in 2030  we will see something in the order of 10   to 50 million tons a year of removal and the  cost will be below a hundred dollars a ton. I know that we can get there, and I hope we will." So carbon capture does work, and we  will need it to slow down the rate of climate change. But it’s not the silver bullet. Our priority still needs to  be polluting much less in the first place. For more videos like this on the state of  our planet, subscribe to our channel, and tune in every Friday!

Channel: DW Planet A

Views: 103,109

Keywords: DW, Deutsche Welle, yt:cc=on, Carbon capture, climate change, ipcc report, fossil fuels, carbon capture and storage, ccs, sequestration, carbon dioxide, carbon, CO2, global warming, Bill Gates, carbon engineering, carbon neutral, carbon negative, direct air capture, CO2 removal, catching CO2, CO2 Norway, CO2 tax, carbon emissions, carbon capture explained, carbon capture technology, ccs explained, carbon capture documentary, how does carbon capture work

Id: JHs-eWHb16g

Length: 9min 11sec (551 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/hollisterrox]

Oof, lot of nonsense in this video, some typos, script has some logical gaps, it's poorly done. It even claims that it is paradoxical to have CO2 capture working with fossil fuel companies, which is hilarious.

Here's the bottomline for everyone reading this: Direct Air Capture is almost 100% used by fossil fuel companies to justify continuing business as usual. You shouldn't believe anyone involved in this technology without having 2 other sources corroborate whatever they say.

We already have natural Direct Air Capture mechanisms in the form of algae and trees. If we leave fossil fuels in the ground, CO2 will start dropping right away. If we want to safely sequester carbon, we can stop pulling up fossil fuels and start collecting biomass, convert it to liquid or solid form, and drop it back into the spaces it came from.

That's the future I want to see.

[u/KalimarasBronius]

Adam Something's take on this tech is what i found myself agreeing with the most.

CO2 capture only starts making sense in an electrical grid that has no carbon emissions. That is, in a transitional state, whatever green energy is produced is used to offset the production of additional carbon through the use of fossil fuels. Employing the use of CO2 capture technology will only reduce the amount of energy that is offsetting currently active CO2 emitters.

[u/SuckmyBlunt545]

No? Feel free to argue.. maybe when we have more energy than we desperately need

[u/workstudyacc]

The capturer in the thumbnail is surrounded by a an empty field which can be filled with trees.

[u/re_error]

good thing that nature already done it's thing and captured excess carbon for us completely for free in form of coal and oil, if only there was a way to keep it from escaping back to the atmosphere...

But that would affect business as usual for the oil companies so we cant have that.

[u/Laylawhy]

Something else that can remove c02, its called a bike lane.