CO2 capture systems work much less than the multinationals claimed

Contrary to what is predicted by the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - which predict the global sequestration capacity of between 1 and 30 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year - the technologies currently in use, the availability of storage sites and the commitments made by governments to combat the phenomenon could remove a maximum of 16 gigatons of CO2 per year, even if «realistically» the limit will be 5 or 6 gigatons.This was established by a new study conducted by Imperial College, subjected to peer review and published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, who through new analyzes shows that various estimates on the topic "have been highly speculative".Samuel Krevor, co-author and researcher in Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, said: «Our study is the first to apply growth models from established sectors to CO2 storage.Our new model offers a more realistic and practical approach to predicting how quickly carbon storage can be scaled up, helping us set more achievable targets."

Removing carbon dioxide is one of the measures being considered to limit global warming by 2050.This is an objective that is pursued through a varied typology of methods united by the fact of be able to sequester the CO2 released into the atmosphere and insert it into large underground wells from which, for example, natural gas had been extracted.According to the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by 2050 it would be possible to extract from one to 30 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year but this, according to new research published on Natures, could be the result of overestimates based on models that are anything but impeccable:the study found that, by 2050, we might be able to store a maximum of 16 of them underground, although the realistic limit is between 5 and 6 gigatons.This gap would also be due to the fact that "there are no existing plans by governments or international agreements to support such a large-scale effort."

The researchers have explained That the IPCC inaccuracies would arise from the decision to include the results of the integrated assessment models (IAM) – tools that combine different sources of information to predict how carbon storage methods can impact our climate and our economy – which however “often overestimate the amount of CO2 that can be stored underground”.The new analyses, therefore, suggest that the predictions of the IPCC reports, particularly for certain Asian countries where current development is low, assumed "unrealistic distribution rates", which means that Existing projections are 'unlikely and unreliable'.However, as underlined by Samuel Krevor, co-author and researcher at Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, it is important «to keep in mind that five gigatons of carbon released into the subsoil However, they represent an important contribution to the mitigation of climate change.Our models provide the tools to update current projections with realistic targets for how and where carbon storage should be developed in the coming decades."

This is therefore research that should sound an alarm bell to all those entities and companies which have long promised to reduce and capture emissions without specifying how, as in the case of the Italian multinational oil company ENI.The company, in fact, has reiterated its intention to reduce emissions by 5% by 2030, 80% by 2040 and reach the "zero emissions" objective by 2050, but all without specifying how to implement this strategy and, of course, the research just published on Nature does not wink at this commitment.Furthermore, the study appears intended to provide greater robustness to the Green Claims Directive, the bill which includes a series of rules concerning the greenwashing to protect consumers and based on three fundamental principles:substantiation, communication and verification.It is therefore legitimate to think, in conclusion, that if even the IPCC estimates could be inaccurate, then even those provided by companies to reassure their customers, perhaps, deserve more rigorous evidence-based checks and tangible in order to minimize the risk of deception to the detriment of consumers.

[by Roberto Demaio]