The world’s on the verge of a carbon storage boom
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Welcome to M I, T technology review narrated money is mat honan. I'm our editor in chief. Every week, we will bring you a fascinating new in depth story for the leading edge of science and technology, covering topics like A I, biotech, climate, energy, robotics and Moore. Here's this week story I hope you enjoy IT. Hello ARM James temple.

see your climate editor at M I T technology review. Earlier this year, I wrote that we are about to see a development boom for a new classroom injection als designed to permanent store millions of of carbon oxide deep underground in just the U. S.

A, but hundreds of applications to develop these search of the walls, highlighting the growing interest in capturing the Greenhouse gas from power plants or industrial facilities. War by pulling IT straight out the air. That trend is important because all of those things can potentially help to slow down sima change or theoretically even reverse IT if they're done properly, carefully and on a massive scale.

But you can't proceed with such projects unless you've got somebody put this carbon oxide, which means drilling deep polls in areas with just the right geology to ensure that IT stays trap there forever. As I rode the peace, proponents hope that this surge of projects Marks the beginning in the sort of oil women reverse kick learning, a process through which the world will venture, start bearing more great house gas and adds to the atmosphere. But these projects are also stirred up controversy, the communities where they're been proposed and beyon.

Some critics fear that these projects will simply extend the life of ballon gas Operations and much of the pollution that comes with them. Others worry they could create entirely new dangers from the carbon access, at least out of wells or the parkland ines that transport the captured gas. Please listen to a read the full story to learn more and decide for yourself what this carbon surge benezet may mean for the climate and the communities where these projects have been proposed.

Narrated by nower. Listen to more of the best articles from the world's biggest publishers on the lower APP, or a news over radio dot com. Pump Jackson pipelines clutter the l kells oil fields of california, a scrubbed stretch of land in the southern central valley that rests above one of the nation's richest deposits of fossil fuels.

Oil change has been steadily declining in the state for decades as tech jobs of boomed, legislators of enacted rigorous environmental and climate rules, companies, towns and residents across corn county with the poverty rate hovers around eighteen percent of growing increasingly desperate for new economic opportunities. Late in two thousand and twenty three, california resources CoOperation C R C, one of the state's largest oil and gas, produces secure drought permits from the U. S.

Environmental protection agency to develop a new type of well in the oil field, which is assets would provide just that if the company gets final approval from regulators. IT intends to drill a series of bohle down to a sprawling seti's tary formation roughly six thousand feet below the surface, where will inject tens of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide de to store IT away forever. They are likely to become california's first set of waterloo as class six wells designed specifically if, as a questioning, the planet warming Greenhouse gas.

But many, many similar carbon storage projects are on the way across the state, the U. S. And the world, a trends driven by growing government subsidizes, looming national climate targets and declining revenue and growth in traditional oil and gas activities since the start of two thousand and twenty two, companies like C, R, C have submitted nearly two hundred applications in the U.

S. Alone to develop wells of this new type that offers one of the clear ist signs yet that capturing the carbon dioxide pollution from industrial and energy Operations, instead of releasing IT into the atmosphere, is about to become a much bigger business. Proponents hope it's the start of a sort of oil boom in reverse kick starting, a process through which the world will eventually vary more Greenhouse gas than the adds to the atmosphere.

They argue that embracing carbon capture and storage ccs is essential to any plan to rapidly slash emissions. This is in parts because retrofitting the world's masses of existing infrastructure with carbon dioxide scribing equipment could be faster and easier than rebuilding every pipeline in factory C, C, S. Can be a particularly helpful way to cut emissions in certain heavy industries like some fertilizer and paper and pull production.

But we don't have stable, affordable ways of reducing crucial goods without releasing carbon oxide in the right context. C, C, S, saves time. It's saves money. And at lowest risk says, who do you, freeman, chief scientist, that carbon direct, and previously the principal deputy assistance secret to department office of fossil energy.

But opponents insist these efforts will prolong the life of fossil fuel plants, allow air and water pollution to continue, and create new health and environmental risks that could proportionally harm disadvantaged communities surrounding the project, including those near the alkyls oil field. It's the oil majors that are proposing and funding a lot of these projects, says katerine group, executive director of the central valley air quality coalition, which is track to surge of applications for carbon storage projects throughout the district. We see IT as a way of extending businesses usual and allowing them to be carbon neutral on paper.

While still doing the same old dirty practices, the U. S. Federal governments began overseeing injection wells in the thousand nine hundred and seventies. A growing number of companies had begun injecting waste underground banking, a trent of water pollution lawsuits and the passage of several major laws designed to ensure clean drinking autumn.

The E, P, A developed standards and rules for a variety of walls and waste types, including deep class one wells for hazardous or even radioactive reviews and follower class five wells for Normal hazardous fluid in two thousand and ten. Amid federal efforts to create incentives for industries to capture a more carbon dioxide, the agency added class six walls to C O, two secrets ration. To qualify, the proposed wellpoint must have the appropriate geology of rock that can accommodate carbon dioxide molecules sitting below a layer of non boris cap rock like shale.

The reservoir also needs to sit well below any ground water acquisitions so that IT went to contaminate drinking water supplies, and must be far enough from font lines to reduce the john s. The earthquakes might crack open pathways, but the Greenhouse gas to escape the carbon market strategy. Gram got off to a slow start. As of late two thousand and twenty one, there are only two class six injection wells in Operation and twenty two applications pending before regulators.

But this mean a flurry of proposals since both to the E, P, A, enter the three states that have secured permission to authorize such walls themselves, which include north dakota wowing and lousianner, a clean air task force, a boston based e energy policy thinktank keeping track of such projects says there are now more than two hundred pending applications. What change is the federal incentives? The inflation reduction act of two thousand and twenty two dramatically boosted the tax credit available for permanently storing carbon dioxide geological formations, bumping IT up from fifty dollars at ten to eighty five dollars when it's captured from industrial and power plants.

The credit rose from fifty to one hundred eighty dollars a time when the Greenhouse gas is sauced from direct air capture facilities, a different technology that suck screenhouse gas out of the air tax credit allow companies to directly reduce their federal tax obligations, which can cover the added expense of C. C, S. Across a growing number of sectors.

The separate by partisan infrastructure law also provided billions of dollars for carbon capture, demonstration and pilot projects. Crc became an independent company in two thousand and fourteen when oxide al petroleum, um one of the world's largest oil and gas producers, spend IT off along with many of its california. But the new company quickly ran into financial difficulties, filing for bankrupcy protection in two thousand and twenty amid pomp ting energy demand during the early stages of the c nineteen pandemic.

IT emerged several months later after restructuring its dead, converting loans and the equity and raising new lines of credit. The following year, C R C created a carbon management subsidiary, carbon terrible, seizing an emerging opportunity to develop a new business around putting carbon dioxide back underground, whether for itself or for customers. The company says IT was also motivated by the chance to help advances the energy transition and curb rising global temperatures.

At one point five sales, C R C didn't respond to inquiries from M I, T technology review in its E P, A application. The company, based in long beach, california, says that hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon oxide would initially be captured each year from a gas treatment facility in the l hills area, as well as a planned plant designed to produce hydrogen from natural gas. The gas is purified and compressed before its pumped underground.

The company says the four walls, which IT has secured draft permit, could store nearly one point five million tons of carbon, the oxx IDE per year from those and other facilities with a total capacity of thirty eight million tons over twenty six years. C R C says the projects will create local jobs and helped the state meet its expressing climate target. We are committed to supporting the state in reaching carbon neutrality, developing a more sustainable future for all californians from cisco lean, chief executive of C R C, said the draft E P A decision in a statement.

Those wells, however, are just the start of the company's carbon management plans. Carbon terrible t has applied to develop twenty seven additional wealth for carbon storage across the state, including two more at l kills, according to the E P S permit tracker. If those are all approved and developed, IT will transform the subsidiary into a major player in the emerging business of carbon storage and set IT up for a windfall in federal tax credit.

Carbon sequence strap projects can qualify for twelve years of U. S. subsides. If carbon terrible, ult injects half a million tons of carbon oxide into each of the thirty one wells IT is applied for.

Over that time period, the projects could secure tax credits worth more than fifteen point eight billion dollars. That figure doesn't take inflation into account and assumes the company meets the most stringent requirements of the law and sources, all the carbon dioxide from industrial facilities and power plants. The number could rise significantly if the company injects more than that amount into wells or of a significant share of the government.

S is source through direct capture chebron B P X on mobile and archer Daniels midland, a major reducer of Ethanol, have also submitted class six well applications to the E, P A and could be poised to secure significant I R A subsidies as well. To be sure, IT takes years to secure regulatory permits, and not every proposed project will move forward. In the end, the companies involved will still need to raise financing, add carbon capture equipment to polluting facilities, and in many cases, build out carbon dioxide de pipelines that require separate approvals.

But the increased I R A tax credits could drive as much as two hundred and fifty million metric tones of additional annual storage or use of carbon oxide in the U. S. By two thousand and thirty five, according to the latest figures from the prince ant LED repeat project.

It's a gold rush group has said it's being shut down our throats so it's for climate goals. But if we're not doing IT due dicier sly really trying to achieve these emissions reductions first, he adds, it's mely extraction from the other types of private action needed to prevent dangerous levels of warming. Even if ccs can help drive down emissions in the aggregate, the net climate benefits from any given project will depend on a variety of factors, including how well it's developed and run and all other changes that brings about throughout complex interconnected energy systems over time.

Notably, adding carbon capture equipment to a plant doesn't trap all the climate. Pollution process develops a genie for around ninety percent. So if you build a new project with ccs, you've increased emissions, not cut them relative to the status quote.

In addition, the carbon capture process requires a lot of power to run, which may significantly increase emissions of Greenhouse gas and other pollutants elsewhere by, for example, drawing on additional generation from natural gas plants on the grid, plus the added tax incentives, may make IT profitable for a company to continue Operating a fossil fuel lot with all the wise have shut down or to run the facilities more out of the day to generate more carbon oxide to bury all the uncaptured emissions associated with those changes can reduce, if not wipe out, any carbon benefits from incorporating ccs, says danny Colin wood, a senior fellow with the climate centive of energy policy at the university of pennsylvania. But none of that matters. As far as the carbon storage subsidies are concerned.

Businesses could even use the savings to expand their traditional oil and gas Operations, he says. It's not about the net climate impact. It's about the gross tones you stick on the ground color, ward says of the tax credit, a study in two thousand and twenty three raised a warning about how that could play out in the years to come.

Noting that the I, R A may require the U. S, to provide hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in tax credits, the pipeline that that C, C, S, under the scenarios explored those projects could collectively deliver emissions reductions of as much as twenty four percent or increases as higher eighty two percent. The difference depends largely on how much the incentives alter energy production and the degree to which they extend the life of coal and natural gas plants.

Co author Emily group bert, an associate professor at nutria m, and a former deputy assistance secretary of the department of energy, stressed that regulators must carefull consider these complex cascine emissions impacts when waye whether to approve such proposals. Not taking this seriously risks potentially trillions of dollars and billions of tones of Greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention the trust and goodwill of the american public, which is reasonable, skeptical of these potentially critical important technologies, SHE wrote in an op ed in the industry outlet utility dive. Other nations and regions are also accelerating efforts to capture and store carbon as of their broader efforts to low emissions and combat climate change.

The E, U, which is dedicated tens of billions of euros s. To accelerating the development of ccs, is working to develop the capacity to store fifty million tons of government oxx IDE per year by two thousand and thirty, according to the global ccs institute two thousand and twenty three industry report. Likewise, japan hopes to request two hundred and forty million tones and ally by two thousand and fifty, while saudi abia is aiming for forty four million tons by two thousand and thirty five.

The industry trade group said there were forty one ccs projects in Operation around the world at the time, with another three hundred and fifty one under development. A hand full of U. S.

Facilities have been capturing carbon dioxide for decades for a variety of uses, including processing, producing natural gas, ammonia and soda ash, which is used in soap s, cosmetics, baking soda. Another good. But then grove carbonic, storage manager at the clean air task force, says the increased subsidies in the I, R A made C, C, S economical for many industry segments in the U.

S, including chemicals, petrol, chemicals, hydrogen, en cement, oil, gas and Ethanol refineries and steel, at least on the low end of the estimated cost anges. In many cases, the available subsides still weren't fully cover the added cost of ccs in power pines and certain industrial facilities. But the broader hope is that these federal programs will help companies scale up and optimize these processes over time, driving down the cost of ccs and making IT feasible for more sectors.

Group says in addition to the gas treatment in a hydrogen plant, C R C says another source for the captured carbon dioxide could eventually include its own l kell's power plant, which runs on natural gas extract from the oil field. The company has said he intends to retrofit the facility to point five million tons of emissions a year. Still, other sources could include renewable fuels pants, which may mean bio fuel facilities, steam generators and a proposed direct air catcher plant that will be developed by the carbon removal, according to the E P.

A filing. Carbon terrible t is part of a consortium which includes a north climb works southern california gas company, and that is proposed developing a direct air capture hub in turn county, where the l hills field is located. In two thousand and twenty three, the department of energy awarded the so called california deck hub nearly twelve million dollars to conduct engineering design studies.

Direct air facility ccs may be a helpful tool for heavy industry that are really hard to clean up, but that's largely not what crc has proposed, says italia osi, a legal director, the center on race, poverty and environment, an environmental advocacy organization in delano, california. Initial source will be the l hills oil field itself and the plant that refines gas in the first place, he says that is just going to allow them to extend the life of the oil and gas industry in turn county, which goes against all the evidence in front of us in terms of how we should be addressing the climate crisis. Critics of the project to also fear that some of these facilities will continue producing other types of pollution like volatile organic compounds and find particulate matter in the region that's already heavily polluted.

Some analysis show that adding a carbon capture process reduces those other pollutants in certain cases, but the spinner argues the oil and gas companies can't be trusted to Operate such projects in ways to reduce pollution to the levels necessary to protect neighboring communities. Still, a variety of studies from the state level to the global conclude that ccs may play an essential role in cutting Greenhouse emission fast enough to moderate the global dangers of climate change. California is banking heavily on capturing carbon from plants or removing IT from the air through various means to meet its two thousand and forty five climate uh ity goal, aiming for twenty million metric tones by two thousand and thirty and one hundred million by mid century.

The at resources board, the state's main climate regulator, declared that there is no past to cover neutrality without carbon removal and secretary. Recent reports from the U. N. Climate panel have also stressed that carbon capture could be a critical mitigation option for cutting emissions from cement and chemical production. The body is modeling studies scenarios that limit global warming to one point five cells years.

They were preindustrial levels rely on significant levels of ccs, including tens to hundreds of billions of tons of carbon oxide captured this century from plants that use biometry to reduce heat and electricity, a process known as bex. Meeting global climate targets without carbon capture would require shutting down about a quarter of the world's fossil fuel plants before they reached the typical fifty year lifespan, the international energy agency notes. That's an expensive proposition.

And when the donors, investors, industry, trade groups and even nations will finally resist, everyone keeps coming to the same conclusion, which is that you needed, freeman says. Laura oya directed an county planning and natural resources department declined to express an opinion about crc s elk hills project, while local regulators are reviewing IT, but SHE strongly supports the development of ccs projects in general, describing IT as a way to help her region restore lost tax revenue and jobs. As the state puts the areas oil companies out of business through tighter regulation, county officials are proposed development of a more than four thousand acre carbon management park, which could include hydrogen steel and bio eass facilities with carbon capture components.

An economic analysis in two thousand and twenty three found that the campus and related activities could create more than twenty two thousand jobs and generate more than eighty eight million dollars in sales and property taxes. The economically chAllenged county and cities under a high end scenario, obviate ads that embracing carbon capture may also allow the region to avoid the stranded asset problem in which major employers are forced to shut down expensive power lines, refineries and extraction wealth that could otherwise continue Operating for years to decades. We are the largest producer of oil in california and seventh in the country.

We have trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure, he says. The idea that all of that should just be abandoned does not seem like a thoughtful way to design an economy, but critics fear that preserving IT simply means creating new dangers for the disproportionate to poor, unhealthy and margin zed communities surrounding these projects. In the two thousand and twenty two letter to the E.

P A, the center of a biological diversity raised the possibility this quested carbon dioxide could leak out out of wells or pipelines, contributing to climate change and harming local residents. These concerns are not without foundation. In february, two thousand and twenty denry enterprises delta pipeline, which stretches more than one hundred miles between mississippi and lousianner, ruptured and released more than thirty thousand.

8 impressed liquid co。 Gas near the league forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes and sent dozens to local hospitals, some struggling to breathe, others unconscious and foaming at the mouth. As the habington post detail in an investigative piece, some vehicles stopped running as well the carbon dioxide in air despite oxygen, which is essentially the conversation in combust an engines.

There also been repeated carbon oxx IDE releases over the last two decades, an enhanced oil recovery project of the salt creek oil field in warming, starting in the late eighteen hundreds of variety of Operators of drilled, abandoned, sealed and resealed thousands of wells at the site, with varying degrees of quality, reliability and documentation, according to the natural resources defense council. A sustained league in two thousand and four limited wealth, thousand cubic feet to the gas per day on average, while the two thousand and sixteen release of carbon oxx IDE in mEthane forced to school near the field to relocate its classes for the remaindered of the year. Some fear that similar issues could arise at elk hills, which could become the nation's first carbon sequestering project develop in a depleted oil field.

Companies have drilled and Operated thousands of wells over decades at the site, many of which have SAT idle and unplugged for years, according to a two thousand and twenty two investigation by the los Angeles times in the center of a public integrity osby a argues that C R C and county officials are asking the residents of turn county to act test subjects for unproven, impossibly dangerous C C S use cases, compounding the health risks facing a region that is already exposed to too many, whether the help sills project moves forward or not, the looming ing carbon storage boom will soon force many other areas to wrestle with similar issues. What remains to be seen is whether companies and regulators can adequately address community fears and demonstrate the climate benefits provinces in modeling studies will be delivered. In reality, you are listening to the climate change and energy section of M I T technology review by James temple, right? The worlds on the verge of a carbon storage boom. This article was published on the twelve of june two thousand and twenty four and was read by Martin b. Canon for no.