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Tim Daiss

Carbon capture and storage made a splash in the headlines again last month when China’s Dalian Shipbuilding Industry began building its third specialist vessel for the European joint venture Northern Lights, to transport liquefied carbon dioxide from emitters to storage facilities.
Northern Lights, a venture between three natural gas industry giants – Norway’s state-run Equinor, British multinational Shell and France’s TotalEnergies – has ordered at least four such vessels from Dalian Shipbuilding, a unit of Shanghai-listed China Shipbuilding Industry.
Northern Lights is building the world’s first cross-border carbon dioxide transport and storage facility; it aims to offer carbon storage services to countries. Media groups have largely applauded these moves as a way to help Europe reach its arguably ambitious decarbonisation goals.
But Europe isn’t the only region banking on the development of carbon capture and storage.
There are nearly 400 CCS projects in the pipeline globally, representing a 102 per cent year-on-year increase from 2022 to 2023, according to the Global CCS Institute. The US tops the list, followed by Britain, Canada, China and Norway. The US, for its part, has launched a US$2.5 billion programme to fund carbon capture and storage projects. But depending on the November presidential election, funding for this and other climate change mitigation policies could be in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, Japan has ambitions of becoming a powerhouse in carbon capture and storage. It led the way in launching the Asia Carbon Capture Utilisation Storage (CCUS) Network in 2021, and counts among its members the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – better known as Asean – Australia and the US.


Australia, the world’s second-largest exporter of both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal, has a carbon credit scheme that it updated a few years ago to also cover carbon capture and storage projects.
But the stakes are highest for China, it seems, given its population density, insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and corresponding emissions. The country is the world’s largest importer of both oil and LNG, and is its biggest coal user. China also has the world’s largest carbon emissions by far, more than double that of the second-placed US.
Energy planners in Beijing see carbon capture and storage as a major pathway to help rein in China’s emissions, reach peak carbon by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
The government has issued around 80 policies related to carbon capture, use and storage, including such plans for the first time in its current five-year plan. By the end of last year, China had around 100 such projects in operation or production with a combined carbon capture capacity of 4 million tonnes and an injection capacity of 2 million tonnes per year.
At first blush, carbon capture and storage technology looks promising. Its proponents see it as a valuable tool to not only trap and store harmful emissions, but also help countries reach their decarbonisation goals.


But despite the enthusiasm for the technology, its claims demand careful examination. Growing research supports the view that the technology, which is costly and even unreliable, is not the best way forward in global decarbonisation. Moreover, when fossil fuel plants are paired with carbon capture and storage facilities, such infrastructure can still become stranded assets in decades.
Carbon capture and storage is also an extremely energy-intensive activity, and can consume 30-50 per cent of a power plant’s output. Often, a new power plant must be built to run the system, creating another source of harmful emissions.
The aim is to reduce emissions by capturing carbon dioxide and either burying it underground or using it in other industrial processes. But when compressed carbon dioxide is stored in underground reservoirs, it runs a risk of leaking – either abruptly or gradually – with potentially catastrophic effects on the environment.
Many carbon capture and storage projects worldwide have been cancelled or postponed, and most that are operational are not living up to expectations.
Australia, for example, has been under immense pressure to lower its emissions and for good reason – its emissions rate per capita is among the highest in the world. But its trademark carbon capture and storage project, Chevron’s Gorgon facility off Western Australia, the world’s largest such plant, has consistently underperformed in sequestering emissions.

Last year, despite having begun operations in 2019, it was still running at only a third of its capacity, creating a political and environmental group backlash in the country and casting even more doubt over the efficacy of the technology.
Admittedly, carbon capture and storage technology has a role to play, if mostly to help decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors like for cement and steel. But make no mistake. Much of the time, use of the technology in the fossil fuels sector gives oil and gas multinationals a way to justify continuing their capital-intensive energy projects in the name of decarbonisation – a textbook case of “greenwashing”.
A better way forward would be to redirect the vast amounts of capital being invested in carbon capture and storage infrastructure into renewable energy instead – namely solar power and onshore, near shore and offshore wind power, in addition to green hydrogen, particularly in the transport sector. If nothing changes, there is a chance that the countries banking on carbon capture and storage technology could fail to reach their net zero emissions pledges – an unacceptable possibility.
Tim Daiss has been an energy markets and geopolitical journalist and analyst in the Asia-Pacific region for the past 15 years


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Opinion

Asia Opinion

China Opinion

World Opinion

Knowledge

Topics

China and climate change

Much of the time, it simply lets oil and gas multinationals justify continuing capital-intensive energy projects in the name of decarbonisation


Much of the time, it simply lets oil and gas multinationals justify continuing capital-intensive energy projects in the name of decarbonisation.


Carbon capture and storage

Energy storage

Climate change science and technology

Business of climate change

China’s carbon neutral goal

Energy

Commodities

Renewable energy

Environment

Sustainability

Royal Dutch Shell

Technology

Australia

Japan

Asean

France

Norway

Western Australia

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Let’s get real, carbon capture is not the next big net-zero hope

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Much of the time, it simply lets oil and gas multinationals justify continuing capital-intensive energy projects in the name of decarbonisation

Much of the time, it simply lets oil and gas multinationals justify continuing capital-intensive energy projects in the name of decarbonisation