Big Promise, Little Success: The Precarious State of Carbon Capture
“The technologies have been around for around 50 years, but they haven't been around in a climate-oriented way,” professor Emily Grubert says on Zero.
A sign against a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline outside a home in New Liberty, Iowa, on June 4, 2023. The Biden administration is all-in on carbon capture and storage. But the pipelines needed to move the greenhouse gas around face stiff local opposition.
Photographer: Miriam Alarcon Avila/BloombergOn its face, carbon capture and storage (CCS) sounds like a great idea. Using chemicals, carbon dioxide can be separated from the emissions generated by power plants and stored underground forever. The fix is so elegant, and the emissions challenge so huge, that CCS is included in the International Energy Agency’s projections of how humanity will reach net zero by 2050.
CCS has also emerged as the fossil fuel industry’s favorite climate solution, but not for its net-zero potential. The technology can be used — and has historically been used — to boost fossil fuel production at aging power plants.