Carbon Capture

Elon Musk, who became the richest man at the beginning of the year, has announced $100 million towards a prize for the best carbon capture technology.

CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm at the start of the industrial revolution in 1760 to 417 ppm in 2020, a 49% jump. This is believed to be the highest since 3 million years ago, when the earth was significantly warmer and the sea levels were 15-25 meters higher than today. In the last few years, we have been adding 2.5 ppm each year.

With CO2 continually building up in the atmosphere, more carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects are necessary. Without CCS, net-zero emission is practically impossible to be achieved. Currently about 40 million tonnes of CO2 are captured and stored annually. This has to increase more than 100 times to 5.6 giga tonnes by 2050 if we have to meet the IPCC guidelines on limiting the global warming to 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels.

CCS capacity increased by 33% last year and currently there are 26 CCS facilities in operation. 65 projects are under various stages of development. The slew of projects currently in pipeline will take the CCS capacity to 110 million tonnes by 2026, a pitifully low value. ExxonMobil recently announced the formation of a new business unit to build as many as 20 CCS projects across the world. 

CCS projects are highly capital intensive and are not presently viable without fiscal support and incentives from governments. CCS technology is rapidly evolving and larger capture volumes will drive down costs and spur the much needed competition and innovation.

Many environmentalists are not too happy with CCS projects, because as much as 80% of CO2 captured so far has been used to pump out more oil in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) projects. The irony of this is all too evident.