Offshore carbon capture is industry of future
The Biden administration approved Conoco Phillips’ Willow Project to extract 576 million barrels of oil over 30 years, both a legally and economically correct decision to replace energy produced from other Alaska wells that are running dry.
Scientifically, the project and its products will release 239 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, the Interior Department reported. To keep the planet from warming further, we will need to remove 239 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent from the atmosphere.
During the debate over hydraulic fracturing, oil and gas companies demanded that regulators and the public respect the science, which showed fracking was safe when done correctly. Now the energy industry must face the science of climate change, which says to support life on earth, we need to remove more carbon than we release over the next 30 years.
Carbon dioxide traps solar heat in the atmosphere. More CO2 means more warming. In 1960, carbon dioxide was 280 parts per million; today, it is 420, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Based on the fossil record, that’s the fastest rise in 800,000 years.
The fossil record also shows that exceeding 450 parts per million can trigger mass extinctions and severe disruptions in weather patterns. To restore the climate to patterns seen for most of human existence, we need to get at least down to 385 ppm, studies show.
The Paris Agreement and other climate plans only limit CO2 concentrations below 450. Based on current trends, we will quickly exceed that level, both the Energy Information Administration and International Energy Agency report. Humans pumped 36.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere in 2022, and that’s expected to rise.
Companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell and BP have promised to decrease emissions while producing oil and natural gas. Occidental Petroleum has pledged to capture more carbon in its oil and gas wells than it produces. It will not be enough.
We need to pull massive amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. Luckily, entrepreneurs and activists are creating plans to do so if they get paid for it.
At CERAWeek in Houston, dozens of companies pitched their business plans for capturing carbon from fossil fuel facilities. But in Austin, entrepreneurs pitched ideas at the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals for decreasing carbon concentrations.
Tree planting is an obvious and popular method, but forests can take decades. Planting a trillion trees is not enough.
Oceans absorb 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, and they cover 70 percent of the earth. Since the industrial revolution, they’ve worked overtime, becoming more acidic and damaging sea life. Yet the ocean can do more.
Marty Odlin grew up in a Maine fishing family and watched the fishery collapse. He founded Running Tide to fight climate change and bring jobs to his community by growing carbonabsorbing kelp on buoys made from limestone, which counteracts acidification.
After three months, the weight of the algae sinks the dissolving buoy and the carbon, sequestering it, Odlin explained.
“Carbon removal is about moving mass … and we’re talking about moving more mass than has been moved in the history of the world,” he told a SXSW panel. “The ocean is a great place to do it; you can get some leverage from nature.”
Other companies are experimenting with spreading iron dust in the ocean to boost phytoplankton
growth.
Some believe applying lime will help the ocean absorb carbon more quickly.
Some technologies closely resemble those used by the oil and gas industry, explained Kate Moran, an ocean engineer who is CEO of Ocean Networks Canada at the University of Victoria.
Options include pumping cold water from the bottom of the ocean to the surface, which would boost carbon absorption, and pumping seawater through an electrochemical process that strips out the carbon for storage underground.
Another proposal would replace offshore drilling rigs with direct air carbon capture devices powered by wind energy. Workers would inject the carbon into old
oil and gas reservoirs. Moran dismisses worries about such tinkering.
“What do you think we are doing right now? We’re doing the largest geoengineering experiment ever,” she said.
Responsible corporations are financing these experiments. But the few billion dollars invested in carbon capture pales next to the $4.6 trillion spent on fossil fuels since 2015.