Global fossil fuel production must start declining immediately and steeply to limit long-term warming to 1.5 C, according to a recent report from the UN Environment Program. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), every scenario that keeps the planet from exceeding 1.5 C requires large-scale removal of carbon from the atmosphere.The transition to cleaner technology won't happen overnight.Carbon capture is necessary to reduce emissions from Canada's oil and gas sector.Supporters of subsidizing carbon capture responded by arguing: Government subsidies to support CCUS will only lock-in the production of fossil fuels in Canada and further delay the transition to decarbonization. It's prohibitively expensive compared to non-polluting renewable energy.Carbon capture doesn't work at the scale required.The letter to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland emphasized three points: If it weren't being used here, this zero-carbon energy could otherwise be used to directly meet our energy needs, making carbon capture technology inefficient and highly expensive. Presently, however, over 80 percent of CCUS is actually used for a process called enhanced oil recovery, where the captured carbon is used to extract additional oil and gas from reserves that are otherwise impossible to mine.įor both types of capture to achieve their stated purpose, the additional energy used must not emit any carbon-it must come from renewable energy sources. The purpose of CCUS is to keep carbon dioxide out of the air to slow global warming. Historically, the "energy penalty" of CCUS-the additional energy required to operate CCUS per unit of energy generated by a power plant for basic consumption-was assumed to be 25 percent, but recent data suggest it could be as high as 49 percent. The second seeks to capture dilute carbon from the air-called direct air capture-after it has been emitted.īoth types bury captured carbon underground, and both types require enormous amounts of additional energy to do so. The first seeks to capture the concentrated carbon dioxide in smokestacks from hard-to-decarbonize industries like oil and gas, steel and concrete before it is emitted to the atmosphere. It's time to clear the air about the reality-and the risks-of carbon capture as a means of climate policy.Ĭarbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) comes in two main types. The credit would divert millions of dollars from cheaper and safer climate solutions, and into fossil fuels. The letter attracted significant media attention, including pointed responses in favor of the tax credit from business journalists as well as industry representatives and lobbyists.Īs a climate policy scholar and one of the many academics opposed to this new tax credit, I'm concerned by the misleading arguments made by the tax credit's supporters. But in January, shortly after the consultation period closed, more than 400 Canadian climate scientists, academics and energy system modelers urged the government to cancel its plan.
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