Twenty years ago, on this day, January 8, 2003, the US business press reports on what we now call “carbon capture and storage”
“A potential solution to global warming could lie two miles deep, both underground and in the ocean.”
Global warming has been linked to emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the by-product of burning fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal. So, some scientists are examining ways to curb the gaseous emissions: burying them underground or injecting them into the ocean.
The technology, known as carbon sequestration, is used by energy firms as an oil-recovery tool.
But in recent years, the Department of Energy has broadened its research into sequestration as a way to reduce emissions. And the energy industry has taken early steps toward using sequestration to capture emissions from power plants.
Even some environmentalists support carbon sequestration, although they generally object to the ocean-storage method. Partly because of environmental concerns about the ocean, government researchers are leaning toward underground storage as a preferred procedure.
Loftus, P. 2003. Energy Firms Bury Carbon Emissions. Wall Street Journal, 8 January.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was that US President Bush, shortly after being awarded the Presidency by his dad’s mates on the Supreme Court, had reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions and then pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol process (not that the US had ever been likely to ratify!). Therefore he had need of technofixes so that people who wanted/needed to believe him but who also needed to pretend (including to themselves) that they cared about climate action, could sleep at night.
The whole CCS caravan was beginning to move – there had been a meeting in Regina, Canada in November 2002, and the IPCC was about to start ball rolling on its CCS special report.
What I think we can learn from this
Stories of techno-salvation are very very important. They will have a lot of friends, a lot of inertia. Turning those stories into reality, or exposing those stories is trickier, however.
What happened next
Dumping carbon dioxide in the deep oceans is now legally a no-no. London Protocol etc. Actual working CCS that doesn’t involve enhanced oil recovery? Still waiting…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.