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Occidental Petroleum is investing in billion-dollar projects to suck carbon dioxide out of the sky. The effort is raising hopes — and eyebrows

By Daniel Estrin, Camila Domonoske

3-Minute Listen / Transcript available

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/08/1198373683/sucking-carbon-dioxide-out-of-the-sky-is-moving-from-science-fiction-to-reality

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[-] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 67 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Quote:

So Occidental Petroleum, a big American oil company, they are really good at a kind of oil production that involves injecting CO2 underground to squeeze more oil out of old wells. So when they heard about this technology to pull carbon out of the sky, they thought, wait; this could work for us. They plan to put some carbon underground just to store it.

This is worse than a zero sum game. Every litre of oil produces multiple litres of CO2 gas.

Sorry, but not that uplifting at all.

[-] burgersc12@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don't forget this gem

But they also plan to use some of that carbon to make more oil

This shit is just an excuse for more oil, they ain't even tryna hide it

[-] nul@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago

Technically, it's uplifting if you are a deposit of oil.

[-] Illegal_Prime@dmv.social 2 points 1 year ago

Doesn’t that mean that the oil produced here emits less net CO2? Since CO2 was used to extract it, taking it out of the atmosphere, that mean that the entire process of extraction and consumption emits less net CO2 than more traditional methods.

Hardly carbon neutral, but an improvement.

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[-] Francisco@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago

This is greenwashing at its crudest.

Like open/closed source, if they don't provide the source and data very likely they are lying to you.

[-] cubedsteaks@lemmy.today 3 points 1 year ago

damn.. can't even trust NPR anymore.

[-] Zoidberg@lemm.ee 42 points 1 year ago

Good news everyone! It's time to present my newest invention: a solar powered CO2 scrubber! To activate it, just throw a few of these small seeds on the ground and wait a few years.

What do you do after the lifespan of the tree? Or rather after the growth phase?

[-] eskimofry@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Tree drops seeds on its own.

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[-] redballooon@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Let the tree become part of earth.

[-] Serinus@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 year ago

No, it's not. But now that everyone is realizing carbon credits are bullshit, they need some other excuse to prevent them from doing what needs done.

I can't believe we're still burning fucking coal. It's incredible.

[-] Lojcs@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago

Unless your grid is running on 100% renewables and has excess capacity carbon capture causes net positive emissions.

[-] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 31 points 1 year ago

This is just another attempt at greenwashing. They're presenting carbon capture as a way to keep burning fossil fuels. Until our energy generation is fully decarbonised, there's no point even thinking about carbon capture.

[-] Lojcs@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago

I mean, someone needs to be thinking about it and perhaps even building infrastructure so it can be used once the grid is clean but it's not something that should be in use

[-] Scrof@sopuli.xyz 26 points 1 year ago

Nope, still bullshit technology.

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In what sense?

NPR is a reputable news source, so I'm curious..

Edit: I just read the article. Because it would justify continuing using oil as an energy source for longer. And one specific oil company could profit from both extracting carbon from the ground, and putting it back in.

[-] ekZepp@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[-] Drudge@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I've always held high hopes (albeit uninformed hopes) for carbon capture... Thanks for the links, looking forward to reading them.

[-] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

If you’re going to capture any of it, you should build your capture factory right next to the source such as a blast furnace. In normal air the concentration is so low that you end up playing that game in hard mode.

[-] Foggyfroggy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

How about make the polluting company purchase this and plop it on top of their emissions tube?

The rules will only say “no carbon emission”, and however a company wants to make that happen is up to them.

[-] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

This is the way I would want to see it happen. If pollution tax is high enough, it will incentivize companies to act more reasonably. Hopefully coal power plants will shut down permanently while blast furnaces will be modified to meet the new requirements. Processing all of that CO2 won’t be cheap, but steel production has to continue so the company doesn’t really have that many options. The government could also support the transition so that production won’t disappear into other countries.

[-] elouboub@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

They make the disease to sell you the cure that makes the disease.

It's just a ploy to make more money for big oiland gas. Then they don't have to invest in alternative technologies as that's expensive. All they have to do is invest in a tech that allows them to continue polluting as before and claim that they actually aren't polluting.

And people fall for it.

[-] wagoner@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago

And likely get government funding and tax credits to do it. Again.

i thought i read somewhere its still more efficient to just plant trees or some biomass.

[-] Chivera@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I think algae is more efficient than trees. Not sure tho.

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[-] ChapolinColoradoNZ@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Strongly recommend to watch a couple of videos by Thunderf00t on the matter. Easy to find on YouTube.

[-] blargerer@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

He doesn't say its impossible, just more expensive than not extracting the oil.

[-] AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

He says it makes no sense to do it, because not only are you basically using twice the energy to get it back down, often using energy made from fossil fuels to begin with, you then also have to tackle storage and that's nearly impossible at the scale we need to take it out of the atmosphere. Any use case, such as green houses and whatnot don't help, because they put the CO2 straight back into the atmosphere with a bit of a delay, same with trees.

Which makes it a futile exercise. It's basically gold plated HDMI cables. Sure it works, but it makes no sense whatsoever, because it doesn't do what it claims to do.

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[-] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Fuck the naysayers: Any realistic long-term solution to this needs to include removing CO₂ that's already in the atmosphere. The best time to start developing this tech would have been 50 years ago. If we don't do this now, someone else will be saying the same thing 50 years from now.

Climate change doesn't have a single-target solution. This tech may not be very impressive yet but it's important we figure it out eventually.

[-] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

I agree but this is not the way to do it.

Oil companies pumping it underground is just a way for them to justify business as usual.

Removing co2 from the atmosphere requires energy input, If that energy comes from a co2 producing source it will never work.

Developing nuke/wind/solar co2 extraction is possible but this is astroturfing of the highest order.

[-] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I think it's more nuanced than that.

Some people are saying it's bad because they're using it to "produce more oil" - and that I don't buy. Sure, they're directly pumping oil with the CO₂ they inject - but this is oil they'd extract either way, with or without direct air capture. In a strict comparison between the two situations, doing it with direct air capture is less bad than doing it without.

The actual harm that could come from it is mentioned in the article - that they want to use this to justify pumping for longer than they would otherwise. It was actually a bit shocking to see how brazen and open the oil company representative was about that. If they succeed in using this to justify continued pumping, then that's definitely bad. I don't think the politics will work out in their favor though, especially not 10 or 20 years from now.

But in the long-term I still see this as an absolute win. Above all else, what this technology needs to do is exist and be effective. For that it needs to be invested in heavily, and built and tested and run even when it's ineffective and unprofitable. We aren't anywhere near the stage where we have the technological capability to actually do direct air capture on a scale that matters globally. Helping us get to that point, to me, makes this move still a net positive. A pragmatic good.

[-] Darorad@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it needs to be developed and we need to invest in running it off renewables, but our immediate priority needs to be stopping emissions

[-] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

While I don't disagree, I think it's important to note that "our immediate priority needs to be stopping emissions" doesn't mean "we shouldn't be investing in this yet". Technologies take time to develop and reach maturity - sometimes decades. If we wait on developing the tech until removing CO₂ that's already out there out-prioritizes reducing ongoing emissions, then we'll be multiple decades behind where we should be when it matters most.

[-] holycrap@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

I think this is necessary, but we need to stop trying to make it profitable or using it as an excuse to pollute more. This needs to be paid for through taxes. Any other source of money that is enough to actually get the job done will result in the carbon going right back into the air. Using it for extra oil extraction is doubly bullshit.

[-] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I both agree and disagree with this. If it can be made profitable, then all the better - because then economics and policy can combine to bring it about faster than either would alone. But if it can't be made profitable then I agree absolutely that it should be done anyways with tax revenue.

Long-term it's definitely not good to use it as an excuse to pollute more - these won't do an ounce of good if they only exist to offset emissions we still produce. In the short term though, allowing carbon capture to act as an offset for emissions could still be a net long-term positive, in that it would shift the economics more in its favor - allowing faster development and a wider buildout. This assumes that the industries that use it in this fashion do eventually decarbonize anyways - which you could perhaps guarantee by having carbon capture stop counting as offsets at some designated future date.

I think the pragmatic solution is to introduce yearly shrinking carbon caps, and allow them to be offset with carbon capture for a limited time - say, 10 or 15 years after the "net zero carbon" goal date. After that it's all about building up that net negative number.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Any realistic long-term solution to this needs to include removing CO₂ that’s already in the atmosphere.

Let me introduce you to:

PLANTS

[-] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

A great example of something that needs to be done in addition to direct carbon capture and all the other things that need to be done.

[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

done in addition to direct carbon capture

Plants are direct carbon capture.

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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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