Why carbon sequestration is a key part of Biden’s climate plans

Of President Biden initial climate efforts they prioritized public actions: joining the Paris agreement, buying clean energy and vehicles, and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. But strategies to encourage the administration to transport the nation to zero emissions also rely heavily, albeit clearly, on a more tangible area: capturing or removing large amounts of carbon dioxide that causes global warming.

In July, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy put “and Carbon Management” in its name. signage a significant change in an agency traditionally focused on developing more efficient ways to extract fossil fuels and convert them into energy. Now, the office’s main goal, with about 750 federal employees and a budget of nearly $ 1 billion, is to develop better and cheaper ways to clean up climate-polluting industries.

New priorities include escaping CO2 plants and power plants, removing them from the atmosphere, converting them into new products, and advancing technologies and techniques that prevent their permanent storage.

Office put several researchers he focused on these issues in leadership roles, including the appointment of Shuchi Talati as head of staff. He will oversee many changes to the agency Jennifer Wilcox, Deputy Secretary General. Talati Carbon was previously the deputy director of policy at 180, a supporter of carbon removal and recycling, and a union of concerned scientists.

The agenda of President Biden is also at play $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill, Which was already approved by the Senate. It it gives billions of dollars developed plants that capture air directly this can absorb air from the CO2, move sites and allow sites to be buried in underground geological formations.

Many in the climate movement say carbon sequestration is about moving away from the basic task of eliminating fossil fuels as quickly as possible. And the area is riddled with failures, including a number of energy protection departments boondoggles like almost $ 2 trillion FutureGen clean coal project.

Studies show that it will be much more difficult and expensive to eliminate emissions and avoid dangerous levels of warming without trapping and removing carbon, especially in heavy industries with few other options. And the number successful commercial projects it is growing worldwide, reducing emissions of steel, hydrogen and fertilizer plants.

In the following interview, I asked Talati what role carbon capture should play in responding to climate change and how the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management works to accelerate progress in the area.

The following interview has been lightly edited for its length and clarity.

Why was it important to change or extend your term of office?

With climate goals, especially clean zero, carbon management plays an increasingly important role. This means recognizing that in addition to dealing with continuous emissions, we need to manage the carbon that comes with each type of fossil fuel that is burned.

It is important to make sure that the two are connected on behalf of the office as to how this office does its job and how it is perceived. Because we don’t want to do any work on fossil fuels that have nothing to do with mitigating the environmental impacts associated with it.

How does the Department of Energy view carbon capture and storage in particular in a comprehensive effort to accelerate carbonization and combat climate change?

Instead of switching to renewable energy, we want to make those choices. Where we can’t, CCS [carbon capture and storage] plays an important role. With industries like cement, we know that CCS is absolute to capture these emissions.

In addition to the actual energy emissions required, we can take into account the emissions emitted during the production process, where there is no other mechanism to prevent this CO2. CCS is just a very versatile way to capture emissions from many of these sectors that are difficult to decarbonize.

In terms of the energy industry, especially with regard to natural gas, there are many natural gas power plants that will not be retired until 2035, which is after us. 100% goal of electric cleanliness. This means more than 200 gigawatts that will continue to run on natural gas. So to make that clear, CCS is the only option.

I also want to say that, in terms of natural gas, we have never proven this technology. So if we want to understand the real costs and what marketing will be like, we need to invest in demonstration first. That’s what our office can do.

Support for many climate activists is similar to granting a social license to continue operating the fossil fuel industry. How do people respond when you raise these concerns?

I understand where many of these criticisms come from. This has not necessarily been an industry that has been correct. And I think being connected to the fossil fuel industry is very challenging, and we’re working on that.

But I think in terms of the committed infrastructure that we have, and especially in terms of the industrial sector — where it’s not necessarily about the fossil fuel industry, but rather that we need to continue to create products like concrete. we need to think about what that means for the spill and get to zero. There really is no other choice.

The role of our office and the federal government is to ensure that we are doing this properly and to create a responsible industry and build environmental protections around this technology that may not have existed in the past.

You mentioned the role that carbon sequestration can play in natural gas plants that will continue to operate for decades. But do you expect carbon sequestration to play a role in the construction of new energy in the future?

Honestly, I think that’s really dependent on the market and how private companies see their investments.

We only support reduced fossil fuels, so when it comes to building new natural gas, our support is highly dependent on whether that CCS infrastructure exists. And I think the really important component of that is reliable storage, too. Right now, a lot of CO2 is being used to improve oil recovery [freeing up remaining oil from wells] and we want to make sure that we are helping to build sustainable storage infrastructure around geological reservoirs and around CO2 products with long-term storage, such as building materials.

While it can be an effective tool for cement plants or some elements of existing natural gas plants, there is still a fear that there may be lies here. Emissions could be emitted more than companies say, either from the plants themselves or from the extraction sites, or because the carbon storage sites are operating as efficiently as expected. How do you make sure the industry does these things reliably?

I think that’s the role of our office, and I think that’s the role of this administration. I totally agree. I think we need to make sure that reliable storage really works. We have experience in the storage of CO2 in oil and gas storage facilities, but we do not have much experience with salt aquifers [permeable rocks filled with salt water].

We need to do demonstration projects. We have to be [monitoring, reporting, and verification] skills that are reliable, robust, and scalable. And that takes the government’s investment and the capacity it really offers.

I also believe that our infrastructure has leaks throughout the natural gas supply chain. That is, in fact, one of the priorities we have listed in the coming budgets: reducing methane.

This means changing the work that our office has often had in the past. We want to move the conversation from the extraction that is taking place to having the least possible environmental impact.

Ongoing infrastructure bills include funding for direct air capture plants. What role does the Department of Energy see in removing carbon directly from the air in its efforts to address climate change?

It’s incredibly exciting to have the largest carbon removal investment in history. It is the first in the world that we are recognizing the need to channel exhibition funds to capture live air. And so on [the Department of Energy] it plays an important role in helping to invest in these first technologies, to prove them and to really take advantage of the tremendous work that private companies have done in this space.

When it comes to catching live air, these shows are incredibly expensive. And $ 3.5 billion isn’t going as far as most people might think.

We are extremely excited about this technology. But I think there are others that deserve the same focus, for example improved mineralization [developing ways to accelerate the natural process by which certain types of minerals capture carbon dioxide].

When we talk about the removal of engineered carbon, I think that improved mineralization has not yet been the moment of the sun. [Direct-air capture] it’s the first thing that comes to mind — and we want to change that. It has better mineralization tremendous scaling power.

How do you feel about the tension, or if there is tension, when the carbon is removed, but also potential limitations on our ability to do?

That is a very important question.

The elimination of carbon dioxide should not be applied in other ways where we can reduce emissions. For companies, this means reducing emissions through energy efficiency or electrification or in other ways. Avoiding emissions as soon as possible is always a priority. Always. The cheaper it is, the more effective it will be for that. Removing carbon is hard. It’s expensive. And the industry still doesn’t exist on a scale.