Shell’s massive carbon capture facility in Canada emits far more than it captures, study says

One of the one amenities in the world that makes use of carbon capture and storage know-how (CCS) to scale back the emissions of hydrogen manufacturing has been discovered to emit far more greenhouse gasoline emissions than it captures.

The Quest plant in Alberta, Canada, owned by oil large Shell and designed to capture carbon emissions from oil sands operations and safely retailer them underground, has beforehand been touted as a “thriving example” of how CCS is working to considerably cut back carbon emissions.

However, an investigation by watchdog group Global Witness, published last week, confirmed that whereas 5 million tons of carbon dioxide had been prevented from escaping into the ambiance on the plant since 2015, it additionally launched 7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over the identical interval.

The investigation famous that, per 12 months, that is the equal carbon footprint of 1.2 million gasoline vehicles.

It means simply 48% of the plant’s carbon emissions have been captured, in accordance with the report. That’s far in need of the 90% carbon capture charge promised by the trade for most of these initiatives in basic.

In response to the report, a spokesperson for Shell advised CNBC through electronic mail that Global Witness’ evaluation was “merely flawed” and confused that the Quest facility was designed to capture round a 3rd of carbon dioxide emissions.

Proponents of CCS imagine these applied sciences will play an vital function in assembly world power and local weather objectives. And utilizing CCS alongside hydrogen production, which is typically known as “blue hydrogen” or “fossil hydrogen,” has been pushed by the oil and gasoline trade as a possible resolution to the power transition.

Climate researchers, campaigners and environmental advocacy teams have repeatedly admonished CCS as a local weather resolution, nonetheless, arguing that not solely do these applied sciences have a historical past of failure, however backing these initiatives prolongs our reliance on the fossil gas trade and distracts from a much-needed pivot to renewable alternate options.

“Oil and gasoline firms’ promotion of fossil hydrogen is a fig leaf for them to hold on with their poisonous practices – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels,” Dominic Eagleton, senior gasoline campaigner at Global Witness, stated in an announcement.

“The single greatest approach for firms like Shell to assist deal with the local weather disaster is to section out all fossil gas operations, relatively than discover methods to cover their climate-wrecking exercise behind false options.”

The burning of fossil fuels resembling oil and gasoline is the chief driver of the local weather emergency and researchers have repeatedly stressed that one of the best weapon to deal with rising world temperatures is to chop greenhouse gasoline emissions as shortly as attainable.

Yet, at the same time as politicians and enterprise leaders publicly acknowledge the need of transitioning to renewable alternate options, current policy trends present that our reliance on fossil fuels will not be prone to go away — or even decline — any time quickly.

Shell announced plans in July final 12 months to construct a large-scale CCS mission referred to as Polaris at its Scotford refinery and chemical compounds plant. The preliminary section is predicted to start out operations in the center of the last decade topic to an funding choice by the corporate subsequent 12 months.