Facts About Carbon Capture and Storage
By Carolyn Raffensperger, Executive Director, and Peter Montague, Board Member and Fellow
Introduction
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an experimental technology to capture carbon dioxide gas (CO2) from the smokestacks of power plants, pressurize it until it turns into a liquid, send it somewhere through a long high-pressure pipeline, then pump it about a mile below ground, hoping it will stay there forever. The U.S. Department of Energy is currently examining 19 sites in the midwestern U.S. as possible storage sites for hazardous waste CO2. The American public knows almost nothing about any of this.
Here we present a set of verifiable facts and “talking points” for citizens who want to reveal the truth about carbon capture and storage (CCS). These facts reveal that CCS is dangerous, expensive, wasteful, unhealthy, unnecessary, and a distraction from the urgent need to eliminate fossil fuels and replace them with clean, renewable energy as soon as humanly possible.
The purpose of CCS is to Keep the Fossil Fuel Corporations Afloat
As Professor Howard Herzog of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) has written, “The rationale for CCS is to allow the continued use of fossil fuels while reducing the emission of CO2 [carbon dioxide] into the atmosphere, thereby mitigating global climate change.”
CCS will increase the exploration, acquisition, shipment, processing, storage, and burning of fossil fuels [coal, oil, and natural gas] at a time when 13,000 scientists from 158 countries have already declared that we are facing a “climate emergency,” which is caused mainly by fossil fuels.
We Need to End the Use of Fossil Fuels, Not Extend the Use of Fossil Fuels.
Every dollar spent on CCS is a dollar that cannot be spent reducing the need for fossil-fueled energy through efficiency, conservation, and renewable-energy power plants with storage. Renewable energy can do it all and create 3.1 million net new jobs. (On job creation, see https://bit.ly/3Bxzll3 Table S28 and related text. On the total replacement of fossil fuels with renewables, see Mark Jacobson, 100% Clean, Renewable Energy with Storage for Everything [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020]; https://bit.ly/3yBTR1W)
CCS Worsens Deadly Fossil-Fuel Pollution
CCS equipment to capture CO2 from the smokestack of a power plant requires energy to operate. To produce this energy, the power plant must burn 10% to 40% more fuel than a similar plant without CCS. (Scientists call this the “energy penalty” for using CCS.) Depending on the specific power plant, burning this additional fuel can release even more deadly toxic pollution – sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and ultra-fine particles (PM2.5). These toxicants are associated with many different illnesses, including heart attacks, cancer, asthma, low birth weight, birth defects, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and brain damage in children, among others. As Devra Davis and others have said, “reductions in burning of fossil fuels can yield powerful, immediate benefits to public health by reducing the adverse effects of local air pollution.” CCS is just plain bad for public health.
CCS is Straight-Up Environmental Racism
Power plants and fossil-fuel emissions are already a health menace, particularly in communities Of Color or of low income. Increasing pollution from fossil-fueled power plants is environmental racism, plain and simple. Paradoxically, you can get information on existing power plants polluting your community from EDF, a Big Green “environmental” group that favors CCS to extend the life of fossil-fueled power plants in communities Of Color and/or of low income.
CCS Will Increase the Cost of Electricity to Families by 25% to 50%
According to Howard Herzog at M.I.T., CCS will increase the cost of electricity to consumers by 25% to 50%. In many locations, alternative sources of energy (solar and wind) are already cheaper (and far cleaner) than fossil-fueled energy with or without CCS. Adding the cost of CCS to fossil-fueled power plants will only make them less competitive in the marketplace – not a sensible investment.
Why should taxpayers support a technology that already cannot compete in the marketplace? Why should electricity consumers have to pay for a dirty, expensive source of electricity when cheaper, cleaner alternatives already exist? CCS is obviously a foolish investment of taxpayer dollars and an unnecessary burden on families, consumers and rate-payers.
Renewable Energy Will Create More Jobs and Better Jobs than Fossil Fuels
In 2019, Stanford University scientist Mark Jacobson showed that modernizing the entire U.S. energy infrastructure (eliminating fossil fuels) would cost only $7.1 trillion and would create 3.1 million net new jobs. (See https://bit.ly/3Bxzll3 Table S28 and related text.)
CCS Can Deplete Fresh-Water Supplies
According to the Global CCS Institute (an Australian organization with offices in Washington, D.C., which lobbies for CCS) CCS can increase the water requirements of a power plant by anywhere from 56 percent to 90 percent. At a time when much of the U.S. is (and will continue to be) subject to extended drought conditions, devoting water to CCS so we can burn more fossil fuels seems worse than stupid.
CCS Can Contaminate Water, Making it Dangerous for Humans and Animals
Together, CO2 and water form carbonic acid, which can leach toxic metals out of rocks. CO2 seeping into water supplies from deep underground has been shown to make water dangerous to drink. Water that has been in contact with CO2 can leach arsenic, uranium, radium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury and selenium into the water at levels that exceed federal drinking water standards. In short, CO2 seeping into water can make it dangerous to drink for humans and animals.
Oil Companies Lied to Us for 40 Years and Now They Want a Taxpayer Bailout
Ever since the late 1970s, the oil companies have known their products would create serious climate change, but they lied about it for nearly 40 years. Now they want taxpayers to bail them out so they can continue profiting at the expense of future generations. Just say No.
CCS is Used Almost Exclusively to Extract More Oil from the Ground
There are 14 existing CCS operations in the U.S. today. Thirteen of the 14 (93 percent) are using CO2 for “Enhanced Oil Recovery” (EOR for short). EOR was never intended to store CO2 permanently, though some proponents claim it has done so. This claim is not supported by standardized methods for long-term monitoring, verification, and reporting because standardized methods have never been established for the long term. EOR sites are monitored (by the oil companies doing the EOR) for 50 years or less. Then they are “closed,” and the oil company walks away. But the danger of contaminating water supplies, or leakage into the atmosphere, remains for hundreds or even thousands of years. [See http://bit.ly/3kXpKhD pgs. 88-89.] Furthermore, oil companies using CO2 for “enhanced oil recovery” have no incentive to store CO2 permanently below ground – they buy their CO2, which gives them an incentive to hold onto it and keep using it, not bury it permanently underground.
Government Subsidies Create an Incentive for CCS Operators to Cheat
Because it can’t compete in the marketplace, CCS is subsidized by taxpayer dollars, offering operators anywhere from $10 to $50 per ton of CO2 pumped below ground. According to Harvard earth-sciences professor Daniel Schrag, this subsidy creates an incentive for operators to cheat on storage, record-keeping and verification. How can cheating be prevented or discovered?
Site Characterization for a Storage Site is Extremely Expensive & a Risky Bet
When liquid CO2 is pumped underground as a pressurized liquid, it is buoyant, meaning it continually tries to rise upward toward the surface. The underground geology must be chosen to prevent that from ever happening.
For a CO2 storage site to be considered suitable, it must have (a) adequate total capacity for the intended load of CO2; (b) must allow the injection of CO2 at the desired pressure and rate without cracking the underground geology; and (c) must provide evidence that it will not leak CO2 in the future -- the existence of fissures, cracks, fractures and faults must be completely ruled out, and ideally the site would have two layers of impermeable “cap rock” above the pressurized CO2, to stop the upward flow of dangerous hazardous-waste CO2 [http://bit.ly/3kXpKhD pg. 92]. In addition, any old exploratory boreholes and abandoned oil or gas wells must be located and permanently sealed. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are 2.6 million abandoned oil or gas wells in 28 states in the U.S., so this is not a rare or trivial problem.
As liquid CO2 is pumped into the site under high pressure, it tends to move upward; if the upward path is blocked, the CO2 will tend to migrate sideways, horizontally. To make sure the CO2 is not moving into water supplies or into fissures, faults, or fracture that lead back to the atmosphere, mathematical models must be used to try to “map” the movement of the CO2. To represent what is likely happening deep in the Earth, these models must first be fed a great deal of physical and chemical information about actual conditions underground. Gathering this information is called “site characterization.” Peter Haugan, a geoscientist and modeler with many years of experience modeling CO2 sequestration in Norway says the data-requirements of such models are “immense.” He says it requires 3 to 10 years of extensive (and expensive) effort to gather the needed data – and at the end of that time, the decision may be “No. The site is not suitable.” Again, cost creates an incentive to cut corners.
Furthermore, every site is unique. As a geologist would say, the underground is very heterogeneous. To learn whether a site is suitable for storing CO2, it must be penetrated by boreholes to learn about the existence of fissures, cracks, fractures, faults or high-permeability formations that could provide pathways for future leakage. These boreholes themselves provide pathways for future leakage unless they are perfectly and permanently sealed.
Do seals ever fail? Recall the events of April 20, 2010 when the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico ruptured explosively, engulfing the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling platform in flames, killing 12 people. The cause was determined to be failure of a cement seal (or “plug”) in a borehole. The cement plug that was supposed to seal that borehole (but didn’t) had been installed by highly-qualified and experienced engineers, whose work was tightly-regulated by the U.S. government.
Are you willing to bet your life and the lives of your family and neighbors that CCS technology will always operate perfectly?
What Happens if Leakage Develops and a CCS Site has to be Abandoned?
This has already happened, so it is not just theoretical. The In Salah CCS project began in 2004 but had to be abandoned in 2011 when it started to leak CO2. Power plants dependent on a failed CCS storage site will have to stop capturing CO2, which may put them in violation of federal and/or state laws or regulations, subjecting them to fines and other penalties. Power plants in violation might have to shut down. When a CCS site is proposed, is anyone required to consider the system-wide effects of a storage site failure? No.
Impurities in CO2 Create Pipeline Hazards
CCS requires construction of a new network of pipelines specially designed to carry corrosive CO2. Corrosion is a major cause of pipeline failures. Early estimates of the new CCS pipeline network topped out at 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers). The current craze for expanding CCS to expand the use of fossil fuels would require an ever-larger addition to the nation’s pipeline network.
Contaminants in CO2 (e.g., for example, water or sulfur) can corrode pipelines, risking catastrophic failures and leaks. Purifying CO2 to eliminate contaminants adds to the cost of operations, so CCS operators (who are different from the pipeline operators) will have a continuing incentive to cut corners to cut costs. (Plus, of course, there’s always the possibility that CO2 purification systems can malfunction.)
Regulators are supposed to pay close attention to such matters, but can we trust regulatory personnel to keep us safe? U.S. Senate hearings on pipeline safety indicate that natural gas pipeline safety is already inadequately regulated and a 2020 study of CCS pipelines said, “Especially in terms of management, the specifications and standards for carbon dioxide pipelines are still minimal, the techno-economic framework and integrity management system are still immature.”
In a study by Gale and Davison, Table 2 (pg. 1322), we learn that during an 11-year period [1990-2001], the U.S. EOR CO2 pipeline network experienced 0.32 “incidents” per 1000 km of pipeline. At that rate a 37,000 km pipeline network would experience 37 * 0.32 = 11.8 “incidents” per year, or about one per month on average. In a quantitative risk assessment of pipeline failures in 2010, Joris Koornneef reported on 11 different assessments of the failure rate of CO2 pipelines; the average (mean) rate was 4.4 per 10,000 km of pipeline per year. At that rate, a 37,000 km pipeline system would experience an average of 16 failures each year, or one failure every 3 weeks for the entire lifetime of the pipeline network.
CO2 is Dangerous
CO2 pipelines operate under high pressure (a little over 1000 pounds per square inch). Therefore, when there is a pipeline leak or a rupture, a great deal of CO2 can be emitted into the air in very short period of time (8.5 to 22 metric tonnes of CO2 per second. [Koornneef (2012) pg. 73].
Initially CO2 escaping from a pipeline will appear similar to steam, but as it quickly warms up to the outdoor temperature it becomes invisible. It is heavier than air, so it lies close to the ground, forming a huge invisible puddle of deadly gas. The CO2 puddle is odorless and colorless, so humans cannot sense it. The puddle excludes oxygen, suffocating anything within the puddle – plants, animals, and humans.
Workers are killed almost every year by CO2 leaks from faulty soda vending machines, fire suppression systems, and leaky tanks of CO2 carried on trucks.
1. U.S. EPA has cataloged dozens of deaths from carbon dioxide fire suppression systems.
2. In Florida, 2 McDonald’s employees were asphyxiated by CO2 (Jan., 2005)
3. A brewery worker was killed by CO2 at a Heineken brewery (April, 2007)
4. In Minnesota, a delivery driver was killed by CO2 (Nov., 2018)
5. Ten Chinese workers on a docked cargo ship were kill by CO2 (May, 2019)
6. Four building maintenance workers killed by CO2 in a garage. (April 2021)
The dangers from CO2 are real and they are serious. Here is a sign approved by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to protect workers from CO2:
Further reading:
Drugmand, Dana and Carroll Muffett. Confronting the Myth of Carbon-Free Fossil Fuels; Why Carbon Capture is Not a Climate Solution. Washington, D.C.: The Center for International Environmental Law, undated [April 2021]. 13 pages. Freely available at https://bit.ly/2WemAvv.
Rowell, Andy, and Lorne Stockman. “Carbon Capture: Five Decades of False Hope, Hype and Hot Air” [online blog posting].Washington, D.C.: Oil Change International, June 17, 2021. https://bit.ly/3fI6Esm Also available as an 11-page PDF file here: https://bit.ly/3g9Jiw7.