Carbon capture and storage

Billions of federal tax dollars will soon be pouring into Louisiana to fight climate change, yet the projects they’re supporting may actually boost fossil fuels – the very products warming the planet. At issue are plans to build dozens of federally subsidized projects to capture and bury carbon dioxide from industries. On the surface, these projects seem beneficial. Keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere prevents the greenhouse gas from fueling climate change. In practice, however, this may lead to a net increase in fossil fuel production and more emissions. That’s because many of these carbon capture projects will be handling emissions from facilities that rely on oil and natural gas – in fact, many of the projects are tied to major oil and gas companies through subsidiaries. Under new federal rules, the projects can receive generous tax subsidies. The more carbon dioxide the factories produce and capture, the more federal money the projects can r...

Capturing carbon dioxide from the air or industries and recycling it can sound like a win-win climate solution. The greenhouse gas stays out of the atmosphere where it can warm the planet, and it avoids the use of more fossil fuels. But not all carbon-capture projects offer the same economic and environmental benefits. In fact, some can actually worsen climate change. I lead the Global CO₂ Initiative at the University of Michigan, where my colleagues and I study how to put captured carbon dioxide (CO₂) to use in ways that help protect the climate. To help figure out which projects will pay off and make these choices easier, we mapped out the pros and cons of the most common carbon sources and uses. Replacing fossil fuels with captured carbon Carbon plays a crucial role in many parts of our lives. Materials such as fertilizer, aviation fuel, textiles, detergents and much more depend on it. But years of research and the climate changes the world is already experienci...

When soaring temperatures, extreme weather and catastrophic wildfires hit the headlines, people start asking for quick fixes to climate change. The U.S. government just announced the first awards from a US$3.5 billion fund for projects that promise to pull carbon dioxide out of the air. Policymakers are also exploring more invasive types of geoengineering − the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of Earth’s natural systems. The underlying problem has been known for decades: Fossil-fuel vehicles and power plants, deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices have been putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the Earth’s systems can naturally remove, and that’s heating up the planet. Geoengineering, theoretically, aims to restore that balance, either by removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflecting solar energy away from Earth. But changing Earth’s complex and interconnected climate system may have unintended...

The U.S. government is planning to crack down on power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions, and, as a result, a lot of money is about to pour into technology that can capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks and lock it away. That raises an important question: Once carbon dioxide is captured and stored, how do we ensure it stays put? Power plants that burn fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, release a lot of carbon dioxide. As that CO₂ accumulates in the atmosphere, it traps heat near the Earth’s surface, driving global warming. But if CO₂ emissions can be captured instead and locked away for thousands of years, existing fossil fuel power plants could meet the proposed new federal standards and reduce their impact on climate change. We work on carbon capture and storage technologies and policies as a scientist and an engineer. One of us, Klaus Lackner, proposed a tenet more than two decades ago that is echoed in the proposed standards: For all car...

The Biden administration proposed new power plant rules on May 11, 2023, that have the potential to be among the most stringent federal policy measures on coal, oil and gas power plants the United States has ever introduced. The proposal would set new carbon pollution standards for existing power plants, effectively restricting their emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Operators of fossil fuel power plants would need to find feasible and innovative ways to avoid excessive carbon dioxide releases. That’s drawing attention to a relatively mature, but expensive technology: carbon capture and storage, or CCS. Most CCS chemically separates carbon dioxide generated during fossil fuel combustion, compresses it and transports it through pipelines for storage, typically in geological formations deep underground. While CCS can be effective, it has some high hurdles on its path to widespread use. I follow U.S. policies on CCS as a clim...