Science

Climate change: Why carbon capture is not enough to save the planet – Efficiency and cost


Carbon dioxide (CO2) is widely understood to be the leading cause of and . In a bid to curb rising temperatures and CO2 levels, scientists are developing methods to draw the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. There are, however, sceptics who fear carbon capture technology is too costly and too inefficient to address the climate crisis.

A study led by Stanford University and published in Energy and Environmental Science has gone as far as to suggest carbon capture could be harmful to the environment in the long run.

According to environmental engineer and lead author Mark Jacobson, there are better alternatives to the technology that can be implemented.

The climate expert said: “All sorts of scenarios have been developed under the assumption that carbon capture actually reduces substantial amounts of carbon.

“However, this research finds that it reduces only a small fraction of carbon emissions, and it usually increases air pollution.

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“Even if you have 100 percent capture from the capture equipment, it is still worse, from a social cost perspective, than replacing a coal or gas plant with a wind farm because carbon capture never reduces air pollution and always has a capture equipment cost.

“Wind replacing fossil fuels always reduces air pollution and never has a capture equipment cost.”

For the purpose of the study, the researcher looked at data from two power plants that captured their carbon emissions.

One of the power plants trapped and removed carbon directly from the air.

Professor Jacobson looked at the overall CO2 reduction against the cost of running their carbon capture equipment.

He said: “Not only does carbon capture hardly work at existing plants, but there’s no way it can actually improve to be better than replacing coal or gas with wind or solar directly.

“The latter will always be better, no matter what, in terms of the social cost.

“You can’t just ignore health costs or climate costs.”

Some researchers, however, believe in the potential of carbon capture technology to help save the planet.

According to Julio Friedmann of Columbia University, who was not involved in the Stanford study, some facilities have been able to cut their CO2 emissions by 50 to 90 percent.

The researcher further said it can be a cost-effective method because capturing a tonne of CO2 only costs £31 ($40).

Columbia University said: “The good news is that, over the years, the technology has evolved to a level where there are no technical barriers to effectively storing CO2 permanently on a large scale.

“If used more widely, experts claim it could go a long way toward meeting the ambitious climate targets that were set in the Paris Agreement.”



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