Subsidies in the climate bill will actually sustain the use of fossil fuels in the long run.
By Chris Conway Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Passing substantive legislation can be messy, especially in a Congress as narrowly divided as America's is today. As Brad Plumer and Lisa Friedman reported recently in The Times, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has accepted more campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry than any of his colleagues, exerted his influence in return for his pivotal vote in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act. |
One win for Manchin was a significant expansion of tax credits for carbon capture and storage, known as C.C.S. This technology captures carbon dioxide, the main culprit in the warming of the planet, before it leaves industrial smokestacks, then pumps it underground where it remains sequestered. Sounds good, right? |
Except that every dollar spent on this climate technology is a waste, two scientists with long experience in C.C.S. argue in a guest essay this week. |
Charles Harvey and Kurt House write that what the technology also does "is allow for the continued production of oil and natural gas at a time when the world should be ending its dependence on fossil fuels." They argue, moreover, that "every dollar invested in renewable energy — instead of C.C.S. power — will eliminate far more carbon emissions." |
The authors are not casual observers. They were involved in a start-up more than a decade ago to commercialize C.C.S. technology with a vision of creating an industry. They have published widely in science journals about C.C.S. |
But it turned out that the world was changing faster than they anticipated. The cost of renewable energy fell and fell, to the point where renewable power now is cheaper than coal-fired power without C.C.S. When you "add the cost of the energy required to couple C.C.S. with fossil fuel power," they add, "it becomes hopelessly uncompetitive." |
It's a fascinating read about an arcane but important technology as the world struggles to rein in its fossil fuel emissions. Consider one irony of what is widely endorsed as a climate solution: Carbon dioxide captured from natural gas processing facilities — where C.C.S. is now most widely applied — is used to extract hard-to-get oil from fields where it otherwise would remain underground. |
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