It still does in India and China who are trying to make the economic leaps that the US and the West made years ago. Over its history, coal drove industrial expansion and helped raise millions out of poverty because it provided cheap and reliable energy. They have also proposed a $100 billion plan to deploy CCS in a joint venture with a wide swath of Gulf Coast business enterprises.Ĭoal’s “phase down” replaced “phase out” at the behest of India and China at COP26. Starting in 2022, the company plans to invest $3 billion on 20 new carbon capture and storage facilities, and $15 billion over 6 years on low-carbon plans including hydrogen and biofuels as well as CCS. The LaBarge CCS operation in Wyoming captures nearly 20% of all human-made CO 2 captured in the world each year. CCS is viewed as an escape hatch as it allows big-oil to continue their production of oil and gas, with all its benefits of energy security, jobs, and cheap gasoline – especially justifiable with Russia’s war on Ukraine.ĮxxonMobil is storing 9 million tons of CO2 each year, equivalent to 11 million car exhaust emissions each year.

ExxonMobil XOM was top at $59 billion ranging down to Equinor at $23 billion.Īs with most big business, the main goal is to make a profit, and profits go up when the world demands more oil and gas. $220 billion is a Fort-Knox bankful of money that could partly be invested in renewables. The oil and gas industry alone provides 57% of the world’s energy and 50% of the world’s greenhouse gases.īut profits by big-oil have just been reported for all of 2022, and they are way over the top in a year when oil prices averaged about $100/bbl and gas prices were higher than in the previous decade.Īll the super-majors made record profits in 2022, with the top six earning roughly $220 billion in total and more than doubling profits over the next biggest year, 2018. The enhanced oil production, when burned, leads to enhanced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which counteract the emissions saved from burning the coal.Īlthough the oil and gas industry are not focused on coal, they have deep interests in preserving their oil and gas production, which means addressing the GHG caused by burning oil and gas. The climate benefits of a CCS project such as Petra Nova in its first lifetime are undermined if the CO2 injection is used to extend the life of an oil field. Despite varying successes, 8 of 11 projects failed, and most of these were focused on coal power plants. The US DOE has spent more than $1 billion to study carbon capture projects since 2009, according to the GAO (Government Accountability Office) in 2021. Fourth, the CO2 needs a guarantee it will not leak through the caprock and contaminate aquifers. Third, the CO2 needs to be injected more-or-less continuously by wells that are deeper than 3000 feet. Second, CO2 gases have to be cleaned, compressed and transported, hopefully by pipeline, to a suitable old oilfield (there are plenty of them in the US and the world). First, you have to separate the CO2 from other gases in the exhaust from the burning coal. Obstacle 3: The CCS process is complicated and expensive. Fossil fuel production and a CCS industry together will be too cumbersome and expensive and therefore impractical for energy firms to manage compared to developing renewable energies. This would require 20% year-over-year growth for decades to expand from current injections.Īn enormous new industry for CCS will have to be created - at least as large as the present oil and gas industry and possibly twice as large. But, according to Rystad Energy, the world will need to inject ~9 billion tons of CO2 eq per year by 2050. Obstacle 2: The US and the world have storage capacity for CCS that could last thousands of years. COP26 in Glasgow ended when 197 nations out of 200 attendees agreed on wording to “phase down” coal.Ĭhina and India, both users of vast amounts of coal, and three other nations had pushed back on the wording “phase out” of coal within just the last hour of the conference, because they want to provide cheap power to new industries and to move huge populations to a higher quality of living – just like the west had done decades ago. Obstacle 1: Phasing out coal is preferred by many, because it’s such a dirty-burning fuel leading to pollution for both the lower (smog) and upper (greenhouse gases) atmosphere. In the larger picture of CCS there are four obstacles to saving coal and coal-fired power plants, such as the relaunch of Petra Nova.

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