A comparatively lengthy piece on Carbon Seize by Vox. It does contact on each subject regarding seize and storage.
Oil firms bought the general public on a pretend local weather resolution — and swindled taxpayers out of billions
by Amy Westervelt
This spring, Democrats wrapped up an almost three-year investigation into the fossil gas {industry}’s function in local weather disinformation and requested the Division of Justice to choose up the place they left off. In Home and Senate Democrats’ remaining report and listening to, investigators concluded that main oil firms had not solely misled the general public on local weather change for many years, but additionally had been persevering with to misinform them concerning the {industry}’s most popular local weather “solutions”— notably biofuels and carbon seize.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who spearheaded the investigation, additionally accused oil firms of “obstructing” the investigation, submitting few paperwork, and redacting a lot of what they did ship. One ExxonMobil worker who spoke with Drilled and Vox underneath situation of anonymity for worry of retaliation described what the corporate despatched as “a truly random assortment of unimportant documents.”
However there was no less than one notable exception within the type of a report detailing the corporate’s projections for the way forward for carbon seize know-how.
Should you’ve learn the New York Instances not too long ago, or seen this advert on Politico’s web site or heard it on one among its podcasts, or listened to the Planet Cash podcast, you could have seen the {industry}’s relentlessly constructive advertising and marketing of carbon seize, which goals to gather and retailer CO2 emissions from energy crops and industrial and fossil gas extraction services, in order that they don’t add to world warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC) has stated carbon seize is perhaps obligatory to cut back the emissions of sure “hard to abate” sectors like metal, concrete, and a few chemical manufacturing, however famous that within the best-case state of affairs, with carbon seize know-how working flawlessly and deployed at giant scale, it might solely account for somewhat over 2 p.c of world carbon emissions reductions by 2030.
That hasn’t stopped main oil firms from claiming that carbon seize and storage “will be essential for helping society achieve net-zero emissions,” that they’re delivering “carbon capture for American industry,” engaged on lowering emissions in their very own companies (additionally known as “carbon intensity”), and delivering “heavy industry with low emissions.” However inner paperwork obtained throughout the federal investigation, in addition to info that {industry} whistleblowers shared with Drilled and Vox, reveal an {industry} that’s decidedly extra real looking concerning the emissions-reduction potential of carbon seize and storage know-how, or CCS, than it presents publicly.
Firms touted the potential of CCS publicly, as they downplayed the know-how internally
In 2018, the oil and gasoline firm Shell launched an up to date power state of affairs, a forecast that served as a normal for the remainder of the oil {industry}, during which it laid out what the Washington Publish referred to as a “radical” new strategy on local weather. Starting in 1965, Shell pioneered the now-common apply of “scenario planning” for oil firms: mapping out what the {industry} and the world are more likely to appear to be sooner or later; different oil firms will nonetheless typically evaluate their situations to Shell’s.
Exxon’s personal inner 2018 state of affairs comparability was included in the latest batch of paperwork handed over to Senate and Home investigators. In it, ExxonMobil in contrast its future projections with Shell’s rosiest forecast for the power transition. Buried in a chart in that projection is ExxonMobil’s perception concerning the world potential for CCS.
Even with out the huge stamp on this web page marking it as a part of a set of paperwork obtained by congressional subpoena, these graphs can be troublesome to learn. The one above compares the projected variety of CCS items in Shell’s state of affairs versus the quantity projected by ExxonMobil, whereas the graph on the proper compares the 2 firms’ forecasts for future CO2 emissions.
Whereas Shell’s optimistic projection envisions 10,000 large-scale CCS services operational by 2070, with greater than 2,500 services by 2050, Exxon predicts someplace between 250 and 500 services by 2050. Elsewhere within the state of affairs, Exxon additionally envisions that “global scale is limited” for CCS and hydrogen tech by 2050.
Exxon’s previous projections had been far more consistent with what critics of CCS have been saying for years. The IPCC, for instance, has stated that even when realized at its full introduced potential, CCS would solely account for about 2.4 p.c of the world’s carbon mitigation by 2030. In its reality sheet on CCS, the Institute for Power Economics and Monetary Evaluation (IEEFA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan assume tank in Ohio that produces market-based analysis on the power transition, states: “It’s worth noting that not one single CCS project has ever reached its target CO2 capture rate.”
Stanford College researcher Mark Jacobson stated that as a result of it additionally requires power and supplies to operate, CCS hooked up to a fossil-fueled energy plant continues to be worse for the local weather than changing fossil power with renewables. “They actually increase carbon dioxide emissions by doing this, in addition to increasing air pollution,” he stated, referencing a examine he performed in 2019 quantifying the lifecycle CO2 emissions of assorted carbon seize situations. Even when CCS is powered by wind, Jacobson stated it’s not price doing, from a local weather perspective. “If you just used wind to replace coal in the first place, you’d get a higher reduction in CO2 emissions,” he stated.
And oil giants themselves have been hedging on the know-how for years, regardless of advertising and marketing its potential. When the Environmental Safety Company proposed requiring that energy crops set up CCS in its guidelines for energy crops, for instance, each fossil gas firms and utilities expressed far much less religion within the know-how of their public feedback on the rule than they’ve of their advertisements about carbon seize. In Exxon’s public remark, the corporate inspired the company to cut back its necessities round seize effectivity from 95 p.c to 75 p.c, which is extra consistent with the precise efficiency of present CCS tasks.
“Last year, when the first EPA power plant rule was released, it was going to mandate either using CCS on a power plant in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to take some action that would be equivalent to adding CCS, and the response from industry was ‘Hey, the tech is really not proven,’” stated David Schlissel, director of useful resource planning evaluation for IEEFA. “Many, many comments from oil companies and utilities, in response to both the initial EPA rule and the current one, were saying this tech really doesn’t work.”
Exxon’s low inner projections for CCS again in 2018 map to the corporate’s personal expertise with the know-how, too. To this point, the one “successful” carbon seize undertaking Exxon factors to in its supplies is its LaBarge Shute Creek gasoline facility in Wyoming. The Shute Creek facility is commonly referenced by the {industry} basically as a profitable giant and longstanding CCS undertaking. On paper, LaBarge is liable for round 40 p.c of the full carbon emissions ever captured on the earth. However the particulars inform a unique story.
In keeping with Exxon’s personal disclosures and an evaluation performed by IEEFA in 2022, solely round 3 p.c of the carbon captured there (roughly 6 million tonnes) has been completely sequestered underground. Of the remainder of the 240 million tonnes of carbon emitted over the power’s first 35 years in operation, half has been bought to varied oilfield operators for enhanced oil restoration, or EOR — a course of by which oil firms inject carbon underground to get extra oil out — and roughly 120 million tonnes has been vented into the ambiance.
When requested to remark for this story about its 2018 state of affairs plan and total file on CCS, ExxonMobil despatched the next assertion by electronic mail: “False narratives that downplay our CCS efforts deliberately fail to recognize the strides we’re making in our Low Carbon Solutions business. Referencing one possible scenario from over six years ago does not represent our business outlook. We continuously evaluate our business plan based on market conditions.”
Exxon pointed to its public-facing 2023 International Outlook as its most present pondering on the potential of carbon seize. That report states: “Carbon capture and storage is a proven and safe technology that reduces emissions from manufacturing and power generation.”
However in commenting on its state of affairs plan, Exxon’s spokesperson spoke solely to “market conditions” and its shifting “business outlook,” to not the know-how itself. The enterprise outlook and market circumstances for CCS have modified due to an elevated tax credit score for CCS that oil firms, together with Exxon, lobbied for — and, in keeping with the paperwork subpoenaed by federal investigators, closely influenced — and that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) launched in 2021 as a part of the negotiations that noticed the Biden administration’s proposed “Build Back Better” laws morph into the Inflation Discount Act. That’s because of main adjustments to the CCS tax credit score often called 45Q, which began out in 2008 paying $10 for each metric ton of carbon sequestered and now pays as a lot as $85 per metric ton, and as much as $60 per ton saved after which used for EOR. All of the sudden, EOR is CCS and CCS is worthwhile.
“There is no cap on 45Q and stored emissions are entirely self-reported,” Carolyn Raffensperger, government director of the Science and Environmental Well being Community, stated.
The credit score nominally requires firms to confirm their claims. Other than some particular necessities to make sure condensed CO2 doesn’t wind up in groundwater, the EPA shouldn’t be verifying how a lot carbon is definitely sequestered by these tasks.
When requested about verification of carbon saved underneath the 45Q tax credit score, the EPA advised Drilled and Vox that it “does not implement the Section 45Q tax credit program and is not privy to taxpayer data,” and that questions on how tax claims are verified must be directed to the IRS. The IRS confirmed that it ensures firms claiming the credit score have filed paperwork outlining their claims, together with a lifecycle evaluation, however that it doesn’t have the scientific or technical experience to confirm that the quantity of carbon claimed is definitely being completely sequestered.
“What the IPCC actually said in its mitigation report was that carbon capture might be necessary for hard-to-abate industries, but that it’s one of the most expensive options and it only equates to small emissions reductions,” stated Paul Blackburn, an environmental lawyer and advisor to the Daring Alliance, a nonprofit community of frontline communities targeted on defending land and water. “So we’re doing the most expensive, least applicable thing first rather than cheapest, easiest things first, at great expense to taxpayers and with no analysis of net climate benefit.”
However even earlier than the creation of a remarkably beneficiant tax credit score, and regardless of their very own inner projections or challenges with the know-how, main oil firms painted a rosy image of CCS. Emails obtained by federal investigators present that Shell pulled collectively an “Alliance of Champions” to advertise CCS, and BP labored with the Oil and Fuel Local weather Initiative to develop what it referred to as “CCS enabling narratives,” whereas Exxon started selling itself as a pacesetter in carbon seize.
Within the final 5 years, Exxon has produced a number of pro-CCS brochures and advertisements, evaluating the carbon seize potential at industrial crops to the carbon sequestration of precise crops and bushes. An NPR sponsorship from 2018, for instance, describes ExxonMobil as “the company that believes that carbon capture technologies are critical for lowering global CO2 emissions.”
The corporate even labored on a collection of youngsters’ movies touting CCS. In a single subpoenaed electronic mail, Exxon executives requested the inventive staff engaged on the children’ collection to steer away from the concept that carbon is dangerous or that carbon seize is troublesome. “De-emphasize concept that catching carbon is difficult or hard,” the suggestions reads.
But that’s exactly the corporate’s expertise with CCS, in keeping with a number of present and former Exxon staffers who agreed to talk with Drilled and Vox on situation of anonymity for worry of retaliation. A few of them had been concerned within the early days of researching CCS as a possible local weather resolution at Exxon, which they stated solely started in earnest in 2018, the identical yr that the 45Q tax credit score first elevated (from $10 for each metric ton of sequestered carbon to about $50 per metric ton).
The corporate’s expertise earlier than then, the sources stated, was fully targeted on enhanced oil restoration — the method of injecting CO2 right into a separate properly to extend sufficient strain in a reservoir to push extra oil out of a manufacturing properly. Whereas enhanced oil restoration, or EOR, does sequester carbon — a few of it stays underground after it’s been injected — consultants say the method might launch 40 p.c of the CO2 again into the air, and the oil it helps to get out of the bottom additionally generates CO2 emissions when it’s burned.
Exxon shouldn’t be the one one which embraced EOR for years earlier than repositioning it as a local weather resolution. The {industry} has recognized for many years that compressed carbon works rather well to hoover up any remaining oil from porous rock, nevertheless it’s costly to retailer and transport carbon. The {industry}’s embrace of pure gasoline helped drive down prices a bit, as a result of whereas the completed product is perhaps “low carbon,” gasoline typically comes out of the bottom bringing fairly a little bit of CO2 with it. That CO2 must be stripped out to make pure gasoline, a course of referred to as “gas sweetening,” leaving firms with extra CO2.
Nonetheless, the method of storing and transporting it remained costly, so it didn’t at all times make monetary sense to do EOR. Now, with investor-owned oil firms like Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell hurtling towards an inevitable decline in manufacturing charges — an inflection level known as “peak oil” — they want EOR greater than ever. By rebranding it as a local weather resolution and tying it to a tax credit score, they’ve not simply made the method cheaper, they’ve created a brand new income stream — referred to as Low Carbon Options at Exxon and Shell, Fuel & Low Carbon Power at BP, and Decrease Carbon at Chevron.
The 45Q tax credit score income can even make it possible for these new enterprise items to produce carbon seize the place it’d genuinely be wanted, on services with hard-to-abate emissions, like concrete, metal, and ammonia crops. However the overwhelming majority of carbon that US taxpayers are paying oil firms to seize will both be going towards producing extra oil, or would have better emissions reductions advantages had the businesses opted to not drill for gasoline within the first place.
Clouded in carbon complexity
In keeping with the Worldwide Power Company, utilizing “naturally occurring” carbon — the CO2 that comes up with methane as a part of pure gasoline, for instance — for EOR versus “anthropogenic CO2,” the emissions captured from a facility like an influence plant or manufacturing unit, “clearly provides no benefit in terms of emissions intensity.” That’s as a result of absent the drilling within the first place, there can be no CO2 or methane emissions in these instances.
In america, greater than 70 p.c of the CO2 injected underground as a part of the EOR course of is from pure sources. That’s true of Exxon’s showcase facility — the Shute Creek facility in LaBarge, Wyoming — as properly. The CO2 supply there may be the gasoline that’s being drilled. ExxonMobil calls this “anthropogenic CO2,” however when pressed, a spokesperson advised Drilled it’s generated by the separation course of, or gasoline sweetening. In different phrases, absent the gasoline drilling, there can be no CO2 emissions on the website within the first place.
Regardless of that, when ExxonMobil talks about itself because the “global leader” in CCS, pointing to its “more than 30 years capturing and storing carbon dioxide,” and the truth that it has captured extra CO2 than some other firm on the earth, it’s referring to LaBarge, which has been in operation since 1986.
In keeping with a case examine from MIT, the place Exxon has lengthy funded analysis on CCS and different industry-friendly “climate solutions,” from 1986 to 2008, LaBarge reinjected about 400,000 tonnes of CO2 a yr again into the reservoir from which it got here and vented 180 million cubic toes of CO2 per day from the power’s smokestacks. In 2008, it was ordered by Wyoming’s Oil and Fuel Conservation Fee to cut back its vented CO2 emissions, which it did by constructing out a carbon seize system that redirected CO2 into pipelines for enhanced oil restoration.
In 2022, a examine from IEEFA discovered that LaBarge was promoting half of its captured carbon for enhanced oil restoration and venting the remaining. Which means thousands and thousands of tonnes of carbon the corporate claimed to have “captured” had been finally emitted.
Local weather scientists say CCS linked to fossil gas use or manufacturing delivers little profit in terms of tackling local weather change, interval.
“It doesn’t make sense to use CCS to prolong our use of fossil fuels, especially to produce electricity,” stated David Ho, professor at College of Hawaii and senior researcher at Columbia College. “The argument in favor of enhanced oil recovery is often that if they weren’t using this captured CO2, they’d be using some other CO2, but I don’t think you can call anything where you’re getting more oil out of the ground to burn a climate solution.”
But, to this point, main oil firms have struggled to deploy CCS know-how in some other capability. “When we talk about the failure of CCS, we generally talk about capturing, not storage, but when you look at capacity and how much has actually been sequestered, it’s very little,” Ho stated.
That’s not simply regarding from a local weather perspective, however from a public well being perspective as properly. Raffensperger notes that the pipelines constructed to move condensed carbon from oil fields to storage services, or to different oil fields for EOR, are surrounded by “kill zones.”
“These are not your grandmother’s pipelines,” Raffensperger stated. “They could be lethal. We talk about the kill zone or a fatality zone around a CO2 pipeline. We don’t talk about that with oil and gas pipelines. These are uniquely dangerous and underregulated.”
Following a 2020 CO2 leak and explosion in Satartia, Mississippi, that abruptly stopped vehicles on roadways, triggered widespread dizziness and nausea, and despatched a number of residents to the hospital, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Supplies Security Administration started trying into guidelines for CO2 pipelines. They had been set to finalize that rule this summer season, pending assessment by the Workplace of Administration and Price range and the Workplace of Data and Regulatory Affairs, however that deadline has been prolonged to fall 2024. The shortage of finalized security laws has not stopped the allowing of CO2 pipelines, although. The Summit pipeline, a large undertaking that might carry carbon throughout 5 states, simply bought the go-ahead in June for step one of its building course of in Iowa: seizing land via eminent area to make method for the pipeline.
Carbon seize and storage is a fantasy — and taxpayers are footing the invoice
In keeping with present and former Exxon workers, the corporate’s efforts to discover the “S” a part of the CCS equation — storage, or sequestration — solely started when it pulled collectively a staff of technical consultants to search for weaknesses in a 2018 US Geological Survey evaluation that confirmed monumental potential for CCS.
“They thought the USGS was overly optimistic [about the potential of CCS] and they wanted us to basically bring industry technical expertise in to tell them their projections were overblown,” one Exxon staffer stated. The staff introduced collectively to review CCS was then tasked with operating an experiment to see if it was even potential to completely retailer captured carbon. When the examine confirmed that it was certainly potential, present and former Exxon staffers advised Vox and Drilled the corporate’s executives had been “surprised.”
To really promote CCS as a local weather resolution, Exxon needed to present that storage at scale was possible. Former workers advised us that on the finish of the final decade, executives got here up with a prioritized record of the corporate’s export and import terminals and refineries the place it is perhaps comparatively simple to connect CCS. As of this yr, none of these tasks have been constructed (although the corporate did publicly announce in late 2023 that it was engaged on a fuel-cell-powered carbon seize and hydrogen undertaking at its Rotterdam refinery, one of many choices on that record).
Whereas it hasn’t managed to construct commercial-scale carbon storage itself, Exxon did purchase enhanced oil restoration firm Denbury in 2023, which introduced 1,300 miles of CO2 pipelines and 15 onshore carbon storage websites underneath Exxon’s management. Once more, this technique is targeted on enhanced oil restoration.
“CCS is a proven and safe technology that experts agree is pivotal to achieving net zero,” an ExxonMobil spokesperson stated in response to a request for remark for this story. “We’re making progress in our Low Carbon Solutions business, with current plans to capture and permanently store more CO2 than any other company.”
Fatih Birol, government director of the Worldwide Power Company, has referred to as the {industry}’s plan to offset its emissions with carbon seize “fantasy.”
However the US authorities is all in on that fantasy now.
“[The carbon capture tax credit] 45Q is not based on net climate benefit or net CO2 reductions, it’s based on gross CO2 capture,” Blackburn, the environmental lawyer, stated. “Why would you think making carbon a commodity would reduce CO2 emissions? It’s like the opposite of carbon tax, we’re actually paying them to produce more of it.”
