Carbon Capture: Green Grift & Taxpayer's Gift
Part 2 of 2: IRS Section 45Q and Inflation Reduction Act provides almost unlimited tax credits for CO₂ used in enhanced oil recovery
Carbon capture and storage technology seeks to “mitigate greenhouse gas emissions” by trapping CO₂ from smokestacks and by direct air capture, followed by pumping the CO₂ deep underground. CO₂ enhances oil recovery as a solvent, reducing hydrocarbon viscocity, and by displacement of gas and fluids. Source: USA DOE
CO₂ Green Giant: “Of the 32 commercial carbon capture and storage technology facilities operating worldwide, 22 use most, or all, of their captured CO₂ to push more oil out of already tapped reservoirs.” Source: DeSmog.
Above: the Legendary and Iconic.
Tuco's Child Preface
Why would anyone in their right mind use an equivalent amount of energy (via fossil fuels) to capture CO₂ from air or industrial smokestacks and then inject it underground? The same question can be asked about EVs: why destroy the environment and produce EVs that are actually less efficient than ICE powered vehicles? To slow “global warming” ?? So solly! Not gonna happen.
The reason for Green Grifter’s scams such as solar, wind, EVs and carbon capture is to leverage your tax dollars and to propagate false flag technologies for the profit of the few. There is no way in a million lifetimes that grossly inefficient “renewables” can touch the energy density and/or energy return on investment of nuclear energy or fossil fuels.
Keying off the above, with the focus on carbon capture and sequesterization (CCS), we briefly review the key points from a previous article Direct Air Capture of CO₂ is Less than Net-Zero, and then present a Reader’s Digest version of why “Carbon Capture is a Green Grift & Taxpayer's Gift.”
Caveat: I am pro-oil and gas resources for best use and efficiency, and do not blame the industry for taking advantage of the absurd carbon credit system and tax advantages laid at their doorstep.
Quick Review: Direct Air Capture of CO₂ is Less than Net-Zero
Large amounts of CO₂ removed by Direct Air Capture (DAC) could be replaced by CO₂ outgassed from terrestrial and oceanic sources. Nobody really knows what effect the “large-scale” removal of CO₂ will have on the planetary CO₂/carbon cycle. We do note that vast repositories for CO₂ include the land, plant biomass, ocean and plankton, in all their various forms. CO₂ travels back and forth from the sea, land and the air; either in equilibrium or seeking equilibrium, or in constant flux or change (ref. Thomas Troszak).
Above: planetary CO₂ movement, exchange and equilibria are shown with arrows. CO₂ is shuttled back and forth from the sea, land and the air.
DAC is a highly inefficient process: separating the very dilute from the plenty. Keying off the concept of entropy of mixing, most of us have an intuitive feel that one has to do alot of work to find a needle in a haystack and isolate it. CO₂ molecules in air are the same, in that they are highly mixed and dilute at 400 ppm (400 mg CO₂ per 1 Kg of air), and difficult to separate from air.
Above: CO₂ (red) in air, well mixed and bouncing around with thermal energy and vibrating. CO₂ is a very dilute gas and naturally well mixed.
Above: to separate red CO₂ molecules from other air molecules it requires large inputs of energy. Work has to be done on the mixture to lower it’s entropy or tendency to disorder and mix.
Separating the dilute from the plenty is inefficient and plenty costly. Thomas K. Sherwood, a legendary chemical engineer, developed the concept that the cost to separate a given substance from a mixture scales inversely with the initial concentration of that substance. It is expensive to find and separate a needle from a haystack.
Everyday examples of refining and isolation of materials include:
Mining industry: isolating 5 ppm gold (Au) from a pile of dirt and rocks and refining metals.
Chemical and pharmaceutical industries: refine a mixture to isolate a desired substance or drug.
DAC efficiency is generally less than 10 %, requiring approximately 2000 kWh to remove 1 tonne of CO₂.
Above: graph illustrates the energy costs and differences between capturing CO₂ from more concentrated CO₂ streams vs. DAC (400 ppm CO₂). From Ben James.
Distilled Direct Air Capture Conclusion
Capturing CO2 using DAC requires almost as much energy as that contained in the fossil fuels that produced the carbon dioxide in the first place, per Keynumbers:
In 2020, the world used 462 exajoules (EJ) of energy from fossil fuels, which resulted in 32 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. Capturing that carbon dioxide through DAC — which sucks the greenhouse gas out of the air — would require 448EJ !
Part 2 of 2 - Carbon Capture of CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery: Green Grift and Taxpayer's Gift
Above: CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery overview video
CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) : from an Oilman’s Dream to a “Climate Solution”
The process of using carbon dioxide to produce more oil, now known industry-wide as enhanced oil recovery, or “CO2-EOR”, was born in the oil fields of Texas in the early 1970s. Petroleum engineers from leading oil producers such as Shell, Exxon, and Chevron had discovered that injecting CO2 at high pressure into “mature” or “previously developed” oil reservoirs helped increase the flow of otherwise stubborn hydrocarbons — in essence squeezing more volume out of aging wells. CO₂ enhances oil recovery by solvation, reducing oil and hydrocarbon viscocity and by displacement of gas and fluids.
Though initial tests found that each ton of injected CO2 could push out an additional two or more barrels of oil, the lack of readily available CO2 made the technique expensive. That changed when companies began siphoning off CO2 emitted from several Texas gas processing plants, and piping it to an oil field to boost productivity. To ensure a steady supply, industry agents scoured the region and purchased the rights to mine naturally occurring CO2 deposits in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona — eventually building hundreds of miles of dedicated pipelines to transport the gas to oil-field injection points.
By the late 1970s, amid growing concerns over what was then known as the “greenhouse effect,” industry executives began to propose that capturing CO2 and burying it underground could allow the world to continue generating power from fossil fuels far into the future. In 1992, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) and other energy organizations established a research program to support developers seeking to prove CCS at scale.
By the time of the first U.N. climate conferences in the mid-1990s, the oil industry had begun marketing carbon capture as a technological “silver bullet” capable of making coal “clean,” and rendering oil and gas as “low carbon” — a strategy employed by oil majors to this day.
However, capturing CO2 is not the same as avoiding its climate impacts. If that CO2 is then used to directly produce more oil, or if CCS “abatement” is used to suggest that additional oil and gas production is climate-friendly — or in some cases both — then those CCS projects are invariably acting as a net harm to the climate, by actually increasing overall CO2 pollution. From: DeSmog
Carbon capture and storage technology seeks to “mitigate greenhouse gas emissions” by collecting CO₂ and pumping it deep underground. CO₂ enhances oil recovery by reducing oil and hydrocarbon viscocity and by displacement of gas and fluids. Source: USA DOE.
Above: approximately 80 % of commercial carbon dioxide is used for enhanced oil recovery. Source: USA DOE NETL
Want electricity, gas for your stove and to stay warm?
Kinder Morgan CO₂ SACROC Unit located in West Texas Source: Kinder Morgan
Kinder Morgan CO₂ Company is the largest transporter of carbon dioxide in North America, transporting approximately 1.2 billion cubic feet per day of CO2 from our source fields in Southwest Colorado to New Mexico and West Texas for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. The CO2 helps unlock and recover crude oil from mature oil fields and residual oil zones. We use a good portion of this CO2 in our own EOR projects, and we sell CO2 to third-party customers. On the production side, we produce over 50,000 barrels of oil per day, much of which comes from our large SACROC Unit in the Permian Basin of West Texas. We use a long-term hedging strategy to mitigate risk and generate more stable prices from our oil production.A key asset, the SACROC Unit located in West Texas, is one of the largest oilfields and one of the oldest operating Carbon Capture and injection projects in the U.S. At the time of this project the SACROC Unit processed over 620 MMSCF/d of gas for CO2 capture and injection while recovering over 30,000 bbl/d of oil and 15,000 bbl/d of NGL liquids. Currently the SACROC Unit processes nearly 1 BSCF/d of gas for CO2 capture and injection. Source: Kinder Morgan
A Bonanza of Tax Dollars and Credits for America’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Industry
Tax Credits under Section 45Q and the Inflation Reduction Act Unleashed for CO2-EOR “Climate Solution”
Above: need to add CO2-EOR “Climate Solution” to the above cartoon.
Detailed PDFs below re. IRS 45q and IRA
Section 45Q of the Internal Revenue Code provides for a tax credit for the sequestration of carbon dioxide. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) enhanced and expanded the Section 45Q tax credit by increasing the tax credit value, extending the construction deadline, and lowering the qualification threshold.
Specifically, the IRA increased the tax credits available under Section 45Q to $85 per metric ton for captured carbon that is stored in geologic formations, $60 per metric ton for the use of captured carbon to produce low and zero carbon fuels, chemicals, building materials, and other products, and $60 per metric ton for captured carbon that is stored in oil and gas fields, all assuming the wage and apprenticeship requirements are met.
In addition to extending the date by which construction must begin by seven years to Jan. 1, 2033, the IRA significantly reduced the amount of carbon oxide (generally, carbon dioxide) that a facility must capture to be eligible for the tax credit under Section 45Q.
Previously, electricity generating facilities were required to capture at least 500,000 metric tons per year, and industrial facilities were required to capture at least 100,000 metric tons per year. The IRA reduced those thresholds to 18,750 metric tons per year and 12,500 metric tons per year, respectively. These lower thresholds may open up new opportunities for entities that were previously scaled out. Source: Reuters
Taxpayer Subsidies and Government Credits for for CO2-EOR Gone Wild
Above: Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have legislated or announced policies that could spend up to $200 billion more – of public money on CCS, providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.
Key facts
Ten governments have already spent at least $21 billion on CCS and Fossil-Hydrogen.
This number is likely very conservative due to a shocking lack of transparency on government subsidies and tax credits.
Twelve governments have approved policies that could funnel up to $200 billion more toward CCS and Hydrogen.
Source: Oil Change Intl
More CO2 - EOR Clickable Tidbits
The Inflation Reduction Act Includes a Bonanza for the Carbon Capture Industry
Carbon Capture Will Extend Oil Production by 84 Years, Industry Study Finds
How Carbon Capture and Storage Projects Are Driving New Oil and Gas Extraction Globally
Companies capture a lot of CO2. Most of it is going into new oil.
California hopes to fight global warming by pumping CO2 underground. Some call it a ruse
Carbon Capture Contribution from Monetary Skeptic, Pablo Hill
“Carbon Capture is paraded as a climate solution to solve two problems for the oil companies-which I don't blame them. First is water resources, I won't get into the number here but it show be common knowledge that resource extraction using a lot of water, now the industry has influence government policy to pay for a "waste" product to replace water usage. 2) CCS will help the industry deal with associated gas. Associate gas-basically free energy-is abandoned because of the lack of infrastructure. Now we will see gathering infrastructure build out to gather and treat CH4 for CO2 removal-as technology to treat CH4 is well-no pun intended-developed and easier giving that it's a gas. So we can envision a step up where the more drilling is done the getter the yield, carbon credits are issued & are either used are sold, and natural gas infrastructure cost will be subsided. The only way that for CCS really reduce emission would be a national long term strategy of using CCS produce more oil and natural gas, replacing domestic coal consumption with natural gas, export our higher quality coal to countries that burn lower quality coal-like Germany, export our LNG, and build out light water reactors over as ten year period for electrical generation and industrial heating. Over time CCS then will be able to claim it's net negative.”
Fun Bonus Section
CO2 ‘instant ice cream’ gains patent
A newly patented process using pressurized carbon dioxide can create instant ice cream.
Thank you from Tuco’s Child
Thank you for stopping by and the thoughtful comment.
Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle 📐 of Carbon Capture.
"However, capturing CO2 is not the same as avoiding its climate impacts. If that CO2 is then used to directly produce more oil, or if CCS “abatement” is used to suggest that additional oil and gas production is climate-friendly — or in some cases both — then those CCS projects are invariably acting as a net harm to the climate, by actually increasing overall CO2 pollution. From: DeSmog"
I'm having trouble with this. It would be one thing if CO2 were produced specifically for this purpose. But it's CO2 that was headed to the atmosphere anyway, and petroleum will be pumped, one way or another. Some of the CO2 will remain in the ground, making for a net minus in atmospheric CO2, as relates to this process.
It's not unlike turning on the heater in your ICE car. That heat costs nothing EXTRA. The fuel has already been burned. Now, you can send the heat out the radiator, and send some of it into the car.
I have no doubt that the green energy movement is 110% a scam. But that's a topic for another day.