Introduction
So here I am, the end of my blogging journey. It is time for me to stop contributing to this blog. I wanted to investigate if carbon capture and storage (CCS) was the key to securing our climate future. So, is it? Well, I started this blog ambivalent on the matter, but with an inertial belief that an economy built on clean fossil fuels was somehow just better than renewables. Now? I'm not so sure.
I feel my biggest error in writing this blog has been my inability to define CCS. The more I have learnt the more I have realised CCS doesn't define a singular - it is an all encompassing term for a range of carbon capture methodologies; each has different environmental and economic impacts. It is not, as I had assumed, simply the process of capturing CO2 from a power station and storing it underground. CO2 can be sequestered in concrete, used to enhance oil production, or in the case of biomass energy - produce negative emissions.
My thoughts now? The CCS I naively perceived - the capture and storage of CO2 from power stations - is not the key to securing our climate future. But do elements of CCS technology have a role to play? Maybe. Here is why.
Big Oil
My early blogs showed that CCS, from a scientific standpoint at least, makes sense. It is safe, as exemplified by the many schemes across the globe that capture, transport and store CO2. I highlighted risks associated with aquifer contamination, but felt that with proper site choice and management that these risks could be easily neutralised.
It was when I began to look at case studies in depth, particularly the Boundary Dam facility, that my mindset changed. At Boundary Dam taxpayers effectively subsided the ballooning profits of Cenovous energy, made possible by enhanced oil recovery utilising captured CO2.
Clearly, CCS has been hijacked by the interests of big oil. As I said in my 'Rex on CCS' post, not only does CCS portray big oil in a pseudo-environmental light, it is a major component of their long term business plans. It is their life support machine to the 22nd century.
And that, for me, is the problem with CCS. It is the malignant, pitiful cry of a dying dinosaur as its withered hand desperately tries to claw its way into the future. It is the mechanism by which we commit ourselves to another 100 years of environmental catastrophe. It is the crushing of indigenous rights in Alberta, negligent, livelihood destroying oil spills in the Niger delta and political lobbying on a scale that makes the pharmaceutical industry look like a poorly organised stag party.
What is our climate future?
Our climate future is not as simple as reducing CO2 emissions. Our climate future incorporates job growth, rights for indigenous people, protection for endangered species and a democratic debate about our planet's future. CCS provides none of these. It is the recycling of 19th century technology. It is power kept in the hands of greedy fossil fuel corporations.
The greatest achievements in human history have not come from the recycling of dated technologies. They have arrived from paradigm shifts in the way that we operate and perceive problems. Concorde did not come from the continuous evolution of the bicycle. An inertial obsession with the very fossil fuel industry whose deplorable negligence of climate change has got us here is not the key to securing our climate future.
CCS is the smoker who cuts down their cigarette intake. It is the token effort to change your ways whilst innately acknowledging that you don't give a damn.
The real solution is staring us all in the face.
The Renewable Future
Renewable energies are largely cheaper than CCS technologies (particularly coal w/CCS, which onshore wind, biomass, hydroelectric and solar photovoltaics are all cheaper than), and the price of renewable energy will likely fall with increasing economies of scale. And what is more - renewables are associated with none of the torrid environmental impacts linked to fossil fuel extraction, or aggresive political lobbying, or the continued extraction of oil via enhanced oil recovery, or the crushing of indigenous land rights across the world, or the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Middle East during (at least partly) resource fuelled wars. You get the picture...
A paradigm shift to renewable energies could change everything. It represents an opportunity to localise our energy production away from centralised powerful corporations - who worry so little about social and environmental matters.
Revolution not evolution.
Bring on the renewables.
So should CCS technologies have any future?
Yes. (Maybe - Bare with me). Thus far this post has solely addressed electricity production. Whilst renewable energy is the answer there, what about other energy intensive sectors? Clearly, it is not possible for all fossil fuel burning industries to convert to renewables overnight. The cement industry is one such case. So where does CCS come in?
Biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the short term answer. Minimal retrofitting of existing plants would be required to burn biomass - and biomass is cheaper than coal w/CCS. Negative emissions would be extremely helpful for global CO2 emissions - cement production is one of the most energy intensive industries in the world.
Conclusion
No, CCS is not the key to securing our climate future. Cheaper, less environmentally destructive renewables are our future. Renewables diverge from the corporate dominance of the fossil fuel companies that have assaulted our planet so aggressively. In industry, BECCS may have a roll to play in the short term - and likely in the long term when policymakers inevitably fail to take action on climate.
In my view, now is the time for change. Inertia is dangerous. Our obsession with fossil fuels, and by extension CCS, is a malicious distraction that inhibits an immediate shift to renewable energies. Only by kicking our fossil fuel addiction can we secure our climate future. It must start now.
