this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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Shell’s Massive Carbon Capture Plant Is Emitting More Than It’s Capturing (www.vice.com)
submitted 9 months ago by toaster to c/climate
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[–] Ranvier@sopuli.xyz 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That's a slight misreading of the article (though they horribly phrased the headline, don't know if that was deliberate or if the author themselves is confused). It's not saying the that the carbon capture machinery emitted more emissions than it captured. It's saying the hydrogen refining plant as a whole released more emissions than was captured by the carbon capture machinery in the process of refining hydrogen. So the hydrogen produced had less co2 emissions associated with it than was typical, but some co2 was still released. This makes sense because it would be basically impossible from a chemistry standpoint to make a machine that captured 100% of the carbon emitted.

Fta:

At best, it prevents some carbon dioxide from polluting facilities from reaching the atmosphere, but it is not a negative emissions technology

I think the best use of these technologies for the time being is to lessen the harms of already running sources of emissions where co2 is highly concentrated and some of it can be captured, if it's some kind of situation where a greener technology can't just replace it outright for some reason, which obviously should be the preferred route.

Shell is misrepresenting this as removing co2 already in the atmosphere, when in reality it's just lessening new emissions somewhat. And they're trying to use this to argue for the creation of even more fossil fuel facilities, when this technology is only reducing the harms, not taking it away, so creating more polluting sources than already exist is the last thing we need. And I totally agree using taxpayer money to help fossil fuel companies greenwash is asinine.

This is also different than those projects where they're just trying to pull it out of the air, which are totally ridiculous with any current technology but theoretically would result in negative emissions (and which Shell is hoping people think of when they say "carbon capture").