The Viability of Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technology


To many, climate change is a largely invisible problem and has little effect on the day-to-day lives of first world citizens. As such, it is easy for corporate magnates and conspiracy theorists to dismiss science in the name of whatever misplaced beliefs that they hold. Thankfully, however, outreach in climate change has taken greater hold over the years, and many more now understand the truth: climate change will have disastrous environmental and geopolitical consequences, and, unless we adopt a serious plan of action now, we are collectively screwed,

    Unfortunately, however, there is no magic bullet solution, and reducing fossil fuel emissions won’t be sufficient on its own in the fight against climate change. Even in the most ideal case in which we immediately eliminate all carbon emissions, humanity will likely experience severe climate impact until 2040. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that climate change will jeopardize food security throughout the world and push an estimated 30-130 million people into poverty. The timescale of reducing our greenhouse emissions is simply too long, and so to avert such catastrophe in the near future we must go beyond emission regulations and look to other means of sustainability. 

Carbon sequestration is one promising avenue of research that can potentially remove vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This process already occurs on a natural basis; living ecosystems, such as forests, naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and underground caves and geological formations are also capable of trapping carbon dioxide–these mechanisms are known as biologic and geologic carbon sequestration, respectively. Due to this, considerable effort has been directed into preserving various marshes and wetlands across the world. Whereas forests tend to become saturated and carbon neutral after several decades, wetlands can serve as permanent, more efficient carbon sinks due to how plants decompose and sink to the bottom of marshes, carrying their carbon dioxide reserves deep into the soil–in this way, wetlands carry out additional geologic carbon sequestration. It is imperative that we protect these ecosystems and maintain efficient carbon sinks throughout the globe; to this end, various environmental regulations have been proposed, such as restricting wetland drainage, managing fires and draughts, and prohibiting agriculture and farming of carbon dioxide rich plants. 

Various chemical and geological engineering schemes have also been proposed for capturing carbon within the atmosphere. Direct air capture (DAC) is one such method which has gained significant traction. Specifically, DAC technology selectively reacts with carbon dioxide, essentially filtering it out of the air. Once the air has been purified of carbon dioxide, it can then be redistributed back into the atmosphere. In theory, this sounds like an excellent means of combating climate change–in practice, however, direct air capture on its own is laughably inefficient. For instance, the world's largest DAC facility in Iceland is set to open in 2023, and, after years of construction and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, the facility is expected to lower our carbon dioxide levels by a whopping 0.0001%. This inefficiency is compounded by the fact that these facilities do not necessarily run on clean energy, and thus they are simultaneously contributing to our carbon footprint while attempting to clean the atmosphere. 

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is another popular method. Rather than pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, CCS technology aims to capture carbon emissions on site, and then transport it to some other storage area where it can be sequestered. Unlike DAC, however, CCS is purely a preventative measure, and it will not assist in cleaning the already polluted atmosphere. And, like most potential solutions, it also has a plethora of issues: CCS technology is extraordinarily expensive to maintain, and presents many risks in the transport and storage of carbon dioxide. Additionally, captured carbon can actually be used in advanced oil recovery, a process in which businesses inject carbon dioxide into oil reserves to make them more efficient and free up more oil, thus defeating the entire purpose. 

Man-made carbon sequestration is a vast undertaking with little to no return on investment. A study from the University of Utah estimated that we would need to see a 50%-80% increase in the cost of electricity in order to fund such carbon capture technologies. Also, without government subsidization, corporations will undoubtedly shy away from implementing such costly technology. Carbon and direct air capture will only be implemented on a large scale when we figure out how to make fossilized carbon more profitable for other industrial processes, while at the same time ensuring that the captured carbon does not contribute to our carbon footprint in any way. 

While the state of our technology isn’t ideal, we must go forward with what we have and pursue every possible measure in the fight against climate change. As mentioned before, we are long past the point where reducing carbon emissions alone could solve our problems, but, still, legislation is being passed to prohibit our emissions. Likewise, we should continue to maintain our forestry, invest in sustainable products, and conduct research in all of the aforementioned sequestration technologies. Most of these tactics seem trivial on their own, but the fight against climate change will ultimately come down to throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, and so for the time being we should pursue everything that results in net carbon reduction or else we run the risk of waiting too long for some miracle technology and arriving at a point of no return.


Sources

Douglas W. Duncan and Eric A. Morrissey. “The Concept of Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Fact Sheet 2010-3122.” USGS Publications Warehouse, https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3122/.

Levin, Kelly, et al. “6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report on Climate Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.” World Resources Institute, 27 Feb. 2022, https://www.wri.org/insights/ipcc-report-2022-climate-impacts-adaptation-vulnerability.

Rhode, Emily. “Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Pros and Cons.” Treehugger, Treehugger, 13 Aug. 2021, https://www.treehugger.com/carbon-capture-and-storage-ccs-pros-and-cons-5120005.


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