economics
Can Carbon Capture and Storage Save Us?
Co-founder, Glenrock Energy
Schlissel Technical Consulting
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Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale
September 7th, 2020
There are two things to understand about energy.
The first comes from environmental science: We must reduce greenhouse gasses. It’s not enough to lower the emissions we spew in an already overburdened world. We need a negative carbon rate, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
And the second comes from economics: The best way to extend lifespan and improve social conditions is with cheap, reliable energy. Inexpensive heat in the winter has saved more lives than penicillin. Electricity has done more to improve the quality of life than anything since the discovery of fire.
In short, if you don’t work to remove carbon from the atmosphere, you are not serious about the environment. If you don’t seek reliable low-cost electricity, you are not serious about the poor.
Only one feasible technology does both: carbon capture and storage. If saving us means reducing carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels, preserving rural communities, and keeping the poor from suffering through blackouts, then yes—absolutely yes—carbon capture can save us.
China’s new coal mines and electrical plants demonstrate that fossil fuels are not going away soon. From 1973 to 2018, the world began turning against pollution—and nonetheless annual energy production rose by the equivalent of 58 billion barrels of oil, as once-excluded populations sought the benefits of the modern age. The International Energy Agency sees no real decline in oil before 2040 at the unlikely earliest. We should support wind and solar. But they are expensive and intermittent even for highly developed countries, and don’t provide underdeveloped countries with the consistent electricity they need. Meanwhile, only carbon capture can void the nearly one-third of global emissions that come from manufacturing.
Carbon dioxide has industrial uses, increasing the food supply with greenhouses and yeast vats. And in a neat symmetry, captured carbon dioxide can recover stranded oil, reducing net costs of retrofitting carbon-capture technology. Long after the world transitions from fossil fuels, these machines will store carbon underground, returning it to the earth from which we took it. All the while, the cost of carbon capture will decline, making it economical to scrub atmospheric carbon dioxide, the legacy of the industrial revolution, from our air.
Wyoming (where Glenrock Energy operates) is a well-studied example. The DOE has concluded that carbon capture would reduce emissions by 37 percent more than the planned replacement with renewables. It would eliminate emissions at a cost $24 per ton less than the current plan. Charges to ratepayers would be down, with tax and royalty revenues up. And employment benefits would be up to five times higher, as carbon capture keeps intact the old communities that relied on fossil fuels.
To allow the planet to grow ever more injured is to deny science. To tell the poor they have to suffer is to refuse economics. It might seem we are forced to choose: Either we don’t care for the planet, or we don’t care for humanity.
Let’s reject that choice. Can carbon capture and storage save us? Yes, both environmentally and economically.
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