Nice try, apologists, for using taxpayer dollars to bankroll needless, if not pie-in-the-sky, carbon capture use and sequestration (CCUS) research that already has taken $25 million and more indirectly out of the hide of Louisianans.
Almost as if triggered by a recent post that critiqued this consortium of public and private interests overseen by the Greater New Orleans Development Foundation from sopping up more taxpayer largesse, H2theFuture made a case in a media article as part of a story about its CCUS efforts that would justify such reception. To date it has received part of that state allocation plus $50 million from the federal government designed to attack the nonexistent problem of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
CCUS is considered the middle way between CAGW craziness. that demands near-immediate decarbonization no matter what the cost, and climate realism, backed by research, that human activities have a minor impact on climate and any such spillover that could increase global temperatures can be mitigated at relatively low cost and in a way that actually improves overall global wealth. As CAGW calls for a dramatic reduction, if not total elimination, of fossil fuel extraction and consumption, CCUS argues this approach could be scaled back dramatically if, in extracting and processing fossil fuels and in some instances their use, an apparatus could extract carbon from that. Once removed, the carbon can be stored or used for other purposes; indeed, for decades carbon has been employed in stretching oil recovery.
CCUS has special significance for the group, which advertised for its grant that it would conduct research and coordinate implementation efforts for all renewable forms of energy but singled out hydrogen as its primary focus, since part of the CCUS process can siphon off hydrogen for potential use as a “clean” fuel or fuel component. Thus, one of its first projects to fund joins with Louisiana State University’s Petroleum Engineering Research, Training and Testing Lab in research on wells for carbon injection. This receives enthusiastic backing including financial from the fossil fuel industry, which sees CCUS as a way to keep doing business as usual as part of an energy “transition.”
Another LSU-backed group is of like mind that CCUS can serve as a bridging technology to a future without fossil fuels. Called Future Use of Energy in Louisiana, which won a $160 million federal grant and receives indirect state taxpayer support through affiliation with a number of institutions of higher education, along with other private sector, private university, and interest group support, it seeks to act as a facilitator among these for research and training in the propagation of renewable energy (with a little diversity, equity, and inclusion wokeness thrown in).
This full-throated support of CCUS, particularly in a state where the fossil fuel industry has a huge economic impact, isn’t just as a method to suck in more public dollars. It also tries to fend off criticism from CAGW alarmists, who characterize geological CCUS as a crutch keeping evildoers in business and that not even biological CCUS (such as planting more trees) can have much impact because biological carbon sinks too easily can become disrupted and may displace other efforts. They point to risks of transport and storage to people as well.
But the most trenchant issue facing CCUS is its absolutely outrageous-high expense, which may hit $1,000 per metric ton. All but the least expensive forms require heavy government subsidies to make it economically feasible, in all of capture, use, and storage, and of the ones that make money with subsidies these tend to be the smallest sources. As such, only 0.4 percent of all carbon emitted annually in the U.S. is captured, and even with new projects and increased subsidization it’s estimated that figure over the next several years – subsidies will phase out by 2032 – will rise to only 3 percent.
Which is the calling card of the groups, who say throwing money at them can find a way to reduce these costs, which they allege is mandatory because of the transition mandated by international treaty, if not by climate alarmism about the looming “emergency.” Sentiments which, when scrutinized, are illusory.
First, there will be no transition because economics, domestic and geopolitical, have decided otherwise. Especially with the rise of artificial intelligence and spread of cryptocurrency, forecast energy needs in the U.S. in the near future won’t be met not only without continuance of fossil fuel use, but also an increase in it, if not going so far as to reopen shuttered nuclear power plants. Foreign powers as well, some hostile, show no signs of slowing fossil fuel use especially as in democracies publics balk at the enormous costs to do otherwise. For many years to come the absolute amount of fossil fuels used worldwide will continue to increase regardless of renewable energy use. There is no need for CCUS utilization as a “bridge” because there won’t be one needed.
Second and related, there will be no international obligation. The U.S. has gone in, then out, then in again with the Paris Treaty, and well may go out again by 2026. But in reality, words don’t matter, it’s the money that backs those words that makes the difference, and so far little more has been accomplished in that regard besides amorphous pledges of financing this emerging among a handful of larger economies. Yet suffice to say, if Republicans control any part of government even intermittently over the next few years, there will be nothing close to the amount needed to finance a U.S. transition, and the rest of the world can’t make the U.S. fulfill that. There is no imperative that makes CCUS mandatory and thus no reason to throw dollars at even research activities regarding it.
Third, especially because of its prohibitive expense, with per ton costs not just times higher than benefits, subsidies included, but magnitudes higher, it’s a waste of taxpayer resources. No amount of money spent on research will close this gap in the next few years to where even with subsidies benefits will be close to costs. Let the private sector, which would be the primary beneficiary of fruits of this labor, knock itself on this, and even collaborate with universities in that quest, but not with any taxpayer support. There is no climate emergency to justify it.
So, when we view the gamut of public dollars going into CCUS it’s not like a war against totalitarianism to win that needs a Manhattan Project, nor even a space race in which to get to the Moon that requires high relative costs. There’s next to nothing that the public gains by committing its dollars better used elsewhere to CCUS. Oppose it for that reason, not because it subverts your CAGW fantasy designed to remake society in its own warped image.