What Is Carbon Capture and Why Do We Care?

What is Carbon Capture?

Carbon capture is the process of capturing carbon dioxide emitted during the combustion of fossil fuels (or other industrial processes). Carbon dioxide can be injected underground and stored in geologic formations, like depleted oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers (and is called carbon capture and storage or CCS). More often, the carbon is injected underground as a tool to extract more oil, negating its pollution reduction benefits. Only a negligible amount of the carbon dioxide captured is used for any process other than oil production and demand for carbon dioxide is miniscule relative to current production levels. Nonetheless, CCS is sometimes called carbon capture and utilization or CCUS. 

How Does Carbon Capture Work?

As a facility burns fossil fuels, the mixed gasses coming out the combustion are bubbled through liquid solvents that absorb the carbon dioxide, while allowing nitrogen, often the largest component, to safely escape to the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is then released from the solvent by shifting its pressure and temperature. The released carbon dioxide is captured and then compressed and pumped through pipelines to a geologic storage site, where it is further compressed and then injected down a well to be stored deep underground, isolated from the atmosphere. Even if the carbon dioxide can be injected underground, however, there is no guarantee that it will stay there and not leak back into the atmosphere. 

What Are the Costs of Carbon Capture? 

Carbon capture and storage has both enormous operating and enormous capital costs that have been the downfall of many projects. For example, construction of the Kemper project in Mississippi consumed more than a billion dollars in capital before it was demolished because operating it would consume too much power. Providing energy to carbon capture systems imposes a huge operating cost. While systems powered by clean energy would be far more effective in reducing emissions, existing systems are powered by burning more fossil fuels, and producing those fuels is the primary operating cost. Capital costs fall in three main categories: The costs of building the capture system that separates carbon dioxide from other gasses and compresses the carbon dioxide, the cost of building pipelines to transport the carbon dioxide to injection wells, and the cost of building new power plants to power the system.

Carbon Capture is Used to Produce More Oil and Gas. 

The fossil fuel industry first commercialized carbon capture and storage in the 1970s, using the captured carbon for “enhanced oil recovery” to produce more oil and gas. The industry uses the process in oil reservoirs that are no longer productive using traditional recovery methods, which typically leave two-thirds of the original oil in place. Thus, using carbon dioxide leads to the production and consumption of even more climate-polluting fossil fuels that would otherwise be left in the ground. In the face of climate change, the oil and gas industry “wisely rebranded enhanced oil recovery as a ‘climate-friendly’ process with a new name.” 

Today, the U.S. hosts nearly half of all carbon capture facilities operating globally. As of 2022, more than “70 percent of carbon capture projects are, in fact, enhanced oil recovery projects used to produce more oil and/or gas, resulting in yet more greenhouse gas emissions.” In the U.S., “[a]ll but one major [carbon capture] project built . . . to date is geared toward fossil fuel companies taking the trapped carbon and injecting it into underground wells to extract crude.”

Carbon Dioxide Pipelines Lack Sufficient Regulatory Oversight. 

There are roughly 5,300 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines in the U.S., but in the next few decades,U.S. plans for carbon capture and storage would require a massive buildout of CO2 pipeline infrastructure to move carbon pollution from capture sites to storage locations – enough pipelines to encircle the Earth four times (approximately 96,000 miles). 

According to the Pipeline Safety Trust, there are significant safety concerns associated with CO2 pipelines, including pipeline ruptures, explosions, and carbon dioxide poisoning. Despite these risks, current regulations do not apply to all CO2 pipelines. The Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Administration (PHMSA) has initiated the process to develop stronger CO2 pipeline safety regulations. However, PHMSA does not regulate the siting of CO2 pipelines which can result in differing levels of risks to communities depending on local laws. 

Scientists Agree that Carbon Capture is an Expensive and Ineffective Climate Solution.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group III examined climate mitigation strategies and ranked carbon capture “as one of the highest cost, lowest potential options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” In an earlier report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, the IPCC cautioned “storage is not necessarily permanent” due to gradual leaks or sudden releases of the stored carbon.

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) updated report, Net Zero Roadmap: A Global Pathway to Keep the 1.5 °C Goal in Reach, “forecasts a future with more electrification and less fossil fuels and carbon capture and storage than its predecessor.” The IEA notes that the history of carbon capture “has largely been one of underperformance” and carbon capture demonstrates “slower cost declines” than other technologies. 

The Institute of Energy Economics and and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) reviewed 13 flagship carbon capture projects and found that 10 of the 13 failed or underperformed against their designed capacities. 

A report from the University of Oxford found that net-zero pathways that are heavily dependent on carbon capture and storage will cost at least $1 trillion more per year than scenarios involving renewables. It characterized these pathways as “‘highly economically damaging.”

Federal Spending on Carbon Capture Lacks Accountability and Transparency.

The federal government is on the verge of pouring more than $10 billion into carbon capture technology through a combination of grants and loans, with billions more available through tax credits, according to analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) greatly expanded and extended the tax credits (known as the 45Q credit), which is expected to cost taxpayers $4.8 billion over the next five years and $30.3 billion between 2022 and 2032.

Additionally, the federal government provides these subsidies with no corporate accountability - despite CCS projects track record of failures. Companies can claim the subsidies without any requirement that they successfully capture and keep the carbon dioxide stored and out of the atmosphere. 

For all of these reasons, federal subsidies should not support carbon capture. Climate goals are better met by using funds on proven technologies that can quickly eliminate the use of fossil fuels.