Untitled episode

This is a carbon capture plant. It's the fossil fuel industrys preferred method for tackling climate change. Simply put, it removes damaging CO2 from the atmosphere. Done correctly, It could indeed be essential if the world is going to meet its climate goals. But it's also highly controversial because of its popularity with fossil fuel companies. And the tech is featuring prominently at the annual United Nations Climate Convention,

COP 28, taking place in Dubai. Its significant that it's happening in the UAE because the UAE is one of the world's largest oil producers. So it shouldnt be a surprise that carbon capture is front and center at this years COP summit. It poses the critical question: can we ensure that the technology is deployed in ways that benefit the planet, not just the balance sheets of oil

and gas companies? Carbon capture is central at COP this year because its the oil sector's favorite climate solution as it were, its a technology that's been used in the sector for decades in particular to generate more oil. And in today's context, where carbon capture is seen as a kind of climate solution, the fact that it's being used all over the world to generate more oil and

gas is highly controversial. In Abu Dhabi, about 100 miles from here, is whats known as point-source carbon capture facility. It shows how carbon capture can work well, but also some of its pitfalls. Al Reyadah plant is a carbon capture plant attached to a steel factory. Point-source carbon capture is about attaching a kind of trapper to the end of a gas processing plant or some kind of

pipe that's popping out that's producing CO2. The captured carbon dioxide is compressed and then transported to an oil field where it is used to extract more oil. In these old wells, the oil can be sticky and hard to get out, so they use a lubricant like carbon dioxide to loosen that oil and effectively enhance oil production. Most of the investments in point-source carbon capture over the

past three decades, something like $83 billion, have been to extract more fossil fuels rather than just reduce emissions. In 2022, the technology captured just 0.1% of global emissions. If the world is to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency estimates that we need about 30 times more point-source capture capacity by the end of this decade. But the oil and gas industry

has been slow to commit and act. For now, CCS capacity remains at about 40 million tons. If all announced plans were built, underground CO2 storage could reach 400 million tons by 2030. Carbon capture technologies have really been a tiny drop in the ocean when when it comes to delivering on technologies or processes to cut emissions globally. While its backers say that Al Reyadah plant delivers what

the underperformance of a Texas mega-project built by Occidental Petroleum. Occidental has tried various forms of carbon capture technology over the years, usually as a way to boost its production of oil and gas. Now it's spending big on a new approach. Occidental Petroleum is now spending $1.1 billion to build a direct air capture plant. The US government has made millions of dollars of taxpayer money available to

companies looking to build out this technology in the form of tax credits. And Occidental Petroleum wants to make use of that money. There are only a handful of direct air capture plants operating in the world. In fact, the Stratos plant will have a hundred times the capacity of the largest one operating today. Thats the Climeworks site in Iceland. Direct air capture is ten times more expensive

than point-source air capture. Thats because these are huge machines that are sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, a much more dilute source than point-source streams of for example, gas. If government subsidies can increase the scale of deployment, it could also reduce costs. Scale has helped other green tech reduce costs rapidly. If you look at solar and wind power, where prices have fallen 90, 95% over

the past three decades, what engineers have to do is make hundreds, thousands and millions of the same thing. And by making each of those units, they learn how to make it cheaper. That hasn't happened with carbon capture yet. Most of the carbon capture plants are huge and almost unique. In an ideal world, renewable energy will solve all our problems. But that's not the world we live

in. The world needs infrastructure. We need new bridges, we need roads, we need buildings. We even need wind turbines which are made out of steel and concrete. Those are the sectors that are known as the hard to abate sectors. The very chemistry of making cement produces carbon dioxide, whether you use fossil fuels or not. And thus carbon capture technology is crucial to be able to reduce

emissions from producing cement. Many experts agree that if the world is going to have any chance of reaching the climate goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, more CCS will be essential for some sectors. Time is, however, quickly running out. The world has left the problem of tackling climate change to so late, that now climate scientists have to include more and more carbon capture to be

able to balance out the emissions. The gap between where we are with carbon capture technology and where we need to be in 2030 is massive. Every carbon capture plant takes about 5 to 7 years to be built. That leaves barely two years to massively scale up its deployment. Carbon capture technology has been around for 50 years. They have been talked about as a climate solution for

at least 30 years. But for all the promises that they've made decade over decade, they haven't been able to live up to it. Obviously having carbon capture and storage in oil and gas production is better than not having carbon capture and storage in oil and gas production. But critics are concerned that the oil sector is pushing this technology as a license to continue and even expand

oil and gas production rather than rapidly rein it in. We have to change course to address climate change. At COP 28, the oil industry will bring their favorite climate solution, But it's the very industry that has failed to commit to actually building these projects. The reality is that carbon emitting industries are going to take a long time to phase out. Until that happens, carbon capture may

be the next best option to reduce their impact. But it needs to be deployed effectively and soon.