Forty five years ago, on this day, November 26th, 1979, a paper was submitted to the academic journal Energy….
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Cesare Marchetti had proposed carbon capture and storage in 1975 – his article had been published in 1977. And here were some Americans at the Department of Energy talking about what that would entail.
What we learn is that CCS has a very long history, longer than its proponents might want you to believe.
What happened next Albanese kept studying it, studying what other people did. CCS really sort of became something that people were vaguely interested in, in about 1988/89 After the explosion of the greenhouse issue. And then CCS lived in the undergrowth, for about 10 years. And then really sort of 2002/3 is the pivot where it starts to get more attention. Still hasn’t been any meaningful amount of CO2 taken out of circulation, especially if you discount the fact that a lot of what has been captured was for enhanced oil recovery.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
November 26, 1996 – Australian climate modelling is ridiculed
November 26, 1998 – “National Greenhouse Strategy” (re)-launched