CHARBONNEAU – The carbon capture myth: we can keep burning fossil fuels

WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT if we could stop worrying about the impending climate disaster? We could carry on dumping CO2 into the atmosphere without a care.

That’s the message that petrostates, such as Alberta, are carrying to the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28). Hundreds of Albertans, many from Big Oil, will accompany Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on her trip to Dubai, the largest city of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

You see, Big Oil is going to save us from a problem of their own creation. They will take the carbon produced from drilling oil and gas and put it back in the ground.

It’s called carbon capture and Big Oil is investing billions in the snake oil show. The investment they make in carbon capture is small compared to profits to be made from business as usual –they will sow the winds of carbon capture and reap whirlwind profits.

Smith made it clear that she is a shill for Big Oil. Before COP28, she said she was looking to see “if we can get some investment in Alberta.” The delegation is focused on selling investment in Alberta’s ambitious plans for carbon capture, utilization and storage technology — a plan where industry will keep burning fossil fuels while pumping carbon dioxide emissions underground, while also using some CO2 to make products like plastics.

While she is at it, she will engage in one of her favourite pastimes: fed-bashing.

At COP28, federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Guilbeault announced that Canada would be cutting climate-warming methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by at least 75 per cent over the next six years.

Premier Smith immediately called the federal target “dangerous and unconstitutional” and threw in a personal attack for good measure, suggesting that Guilbeault wanted to grab international headlines to benefit his “post-office career.”

Confusingly, while calling federal targets “dangerous,” she claims to have hit the methane reduction target already, “Alberta has already reduced methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 45 per cent — hitting our target three years early — and we’re just getting started.”

What Smith fails to mention is that the methane-reduction plan was introduced by Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley when she was premier in 2015.

Smith is all bombast and bluster. Depending on carbon capture is hot air.

A report from a Winnipeg-based institute makes it clear. The report from International Institute for Sustainable Development calls investment in carbon capture and storage “questionable.”

“The track record for CCS thus far just doesn’t line up with the emissions reductions we need to see, particularly between now and 2030,” said a co-author of the report.

And Big Oil is counting on public money to foot a large part of the bill for carbon capture. They also want carbon credits for building their worse-than-useless carbon capture plants.

The report goes on to say that carbon capture retrofits will use 20 per cent more energy than that used to run the refinery. Even if that energy comes from renewable sources, renewable energy could be better used from something other than a shadow show.

The notion that we can carry on dumping carbon into the atmosphere without a worry is a dangerous recipe for inaction.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.