Carbon Capture: Oil Giants Continue to Suck More Money From Governments Than They Do Actual Carbon
How is your money being spent? This question will be answered in the new Canadian federal budget for 2023. Throughout the coming weeks I imagine you will see countless articles detailing, debating, and lambasting what is in, out, or missing for this newest budget, and that is EXACTLY what I will be doing here!
Actually no, I won’t be doing that, but the newest budget did remind me of a pet peeve of mine. When I was going over the budget today I saw that a tax incentive is being introduced for companies that invest in clean electricity, clean-tech manufacturing, and hydrogen. A tax exemption that is expected to cost 55 billion dollars through 2034-35. For anyone who hasn’t fallen for the climate denialism propaganda this is some good news. But my skeptical mind couldn’t help but think of the wide array of tech that may fall under “clean-tech manufacturing”. Last year when they announced a tax exemption for clean tech, they also announced a 12 billion dollar fund for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in Canada. A tech that Canada plans to have as a staple of their transition to a net-zero economy.
Now what is CCS? Many have heard the name or at the very least seen it printed on an article head before, but is it the savior we have all hoped for? Well, for oil companies and those who don’t want to make any real changes in response to climate change this is the dream technology. The idea behind CCS is pretty straight forward. Essentially you just capture carbon that is produced during the oil making process (or any other emission heavy industry) and store it somewhere or use it for something else. This is obviously oversimplified, but this is essentially how The Pathway Alliance (a conglomerate of Canada’s six biggest oil companies) describes CCS on their website.
If you were to look up how much carbon is currently being stored by CCS technology you would be met with an answer by google stating that CCS can capture up to 90% of CO2 emissions from power plants and industrial facilities. Well that about does it, my as well spend all the money on this technology because it is the answer to climate change. On the surface this is a godsend, instead of pumping C02 into the atmosphere we can simply store it somewhere else. In reality, this technology amounts to little more than a science fair project for oil companies.
Would you like to know how much CO2 is actually being captured and stored globally? As of 2020, CCS technology only has the capacity to capture 0.1% of global CO2 emissions. Capacity is a very important distinction here. For instance, Project Gorgon, the world’s largest CCS project, has a “capacity” of 4 million tonnes annually, in reality Gorgon only sequestered 2.26 million tonnes in 2021. Needless to say, capacity doesn’t equal captured.
The Gorgon project has cost approximately 54 billion dollars over its lifetime and has captured approximately 0.2% of its total emissions. When this natural gas/carbon storage project was being pitched to the people of Australia, Chevron said it would capture 90% of its emissions, and in response Australia gave the project 60 million dollars to get this up and going. Despite the Gorgon’s shortcomings in storing carbon it has produced, the Gorgon project has been very successful in capturing and storing 100% of the money that has gone into it.
(The Gorgon Project in Australia)
Canada clearly saw the 60 million in taxpayer money Chevron received from Australia for a project that overhyped itself more than a contractor over-shoots their completion date, and said hold my beer, we can definitely waste more money than Australia. Not only can we waste more money than Australia, but we can make this chronically underperforming technology a key part of our plan to fight climate change. Trudeau is truly undefeated at “fulfilling” his election promises with the least effective means possible.
As mentioned before Canada has committed to spending 1.5-2 billion dollars (of taxpayers money) annually, and that is just federally. The Alberta government itself has committed 1.24 billion dollars annually for the next 15 years to CCS technology. To date CCS in Alberta has captured 10.5 million tonnes of CO2 since 2015, since 2015 Alberta oil operations have produced approximately 554 million tonnes of just CO2, and to be clear that estimate is on the low end of emissions. So, with emissions productions on the low end, CCS technology has captured a grand total of 1.9% of Albertan oil emissions since 2015. Clearly an outstanding success.
Quest, the largest CCS project in Canada, in which over 600 million dollars worth of government subsidies has been used is just as much a failure as the others. Quest (a plant that makes hydrogen to use to upgrade crude oil to synthetic oil) was built and funded with the goal of proving the ability of CCS technology and its role in fighting climate change. Thus far, the plant has produced more emissions than it has captured, by a wide margin. To be exact the plant has only captured 48% of the emissions it has produced, and only 38% if you are including all emissions produced throughout the process (i.e energy used to operate the plant, and emission costs to get the fuel to the plant). So, the CCS project that was built to prove CCS’s potential has fallen well short of its benchmarks. On top of the absolute failure that Quest has been, there is also the fact that a majority of the CO2 actually captured by Quest is used to extract more oil. Do I have to explain the irony?
This reality is not exclusive to former British colonies, 80% of government backed, large-scale CCS projects initiated in the last three decades have failed or been canceled, and a majority of the projects still operating are well below the intended levels. Despite this obvious failure of the technology oil companies still insist it is the only path to a net-zero future. Sure, we will need some carbon capture in the future, especially if we want to eventually reverse some of the damage we have already caused, but that is in the distant future, like a hundred years from now. Do you know what will help bring us fight climate change much faster, and with much less cost per unit of CO2 reduction, solar panels. A technology that has been proven to pay back their initial carbon costs in 2-3 years and costs a fraction of the cost of failing CCS projects. Of course that technology doesn't allow oil companies to keep on raping the land for oil, so not an option.
In Canada CCS is simply a tool for large oil companies to act as if they are committed to reducing their emissions so they can continue to get even more government money than they already have, while avoiding government regulation. CCS is the centerpiece in the Pathway Alliance’s plan for net zero by 2050, hmm wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the 16.5 billion dollars they spend in that time will be 50% subsidized by our money? Instead of seeing what these oil companies are doing, Trudeau and the Canadian government are simply smiling and nodding while handing out tax payers money for a technology with a success rate that resembles the hit rate of stormtrooper shots.
We know what we have to do to reduce our emissions and prevent the worst of climate change from occurring. Oil companies also know what we have to do, in fact they knew before almost everybody else. Instead of actually doing what is needed they have spent the last three decades trying to convince everyone that actually no we don’t have to cut our reliance on oil whilst moving to renewable energy. Instead we can spend billions of dollars trying to suck carbon out of the oil making process and shove it in the ground to get more oil.
Canada just continues to subsidize oil companies that spend their record high profits on stock buybacks rather then oh, I don’t know maybe their own fucking CCS projects. CCS is just another way for big oil to socialize its losses and privatize its profits. I guess we can just add CCS to the long line of wasted taxpayer money that could be spent on social programs that actually help people.
The lesson of the CCS story is the lengths in which government, corporations and everyday people will go to avoid admitting that our society is fundamentally flawed. Constant exploitation, extraction, and destruction of the planet that has and continues to provide us life is obviously not sustainable. Changes must be made, big changes that require an altering of life as we know it. Does this mean we have to all eat lentils everyday and peddle our way around? Of course not, and anyone who says that’s the case is a fucking grifter. What we need is a society in which corporations are not the most powerful, protected, and important entities, but rather everyday peoples lives are. Of course these people will say I am being ridiculous or I am just naïve, but they are also the same people who think creating a technology that requires billions of dollars to suck carbon out of the air and store it in the earth is more practical than just using the sun for power.