7 Reasons Why Artificial Carbon Removal is Overhyped
Artificial carbon removal is largely a sideshow when it comes to climate change. At best, it may eventually grow into a minor solution. At worst, it’s a distraction from reducing emissions — and plays right into the fossil fuel industry’s hands.
If you have been following discussions about climate change, you’ve probably heard about artificial carbon removal.
What is it? In short: Big machines that suck carbon dioxide out of the sky.
The technology isn’t new. It’s been around for decades, and it was a key part of industry’s “Clean Coal” propaganda. We wasted billions of tax dollars, and decades of R&D, on it. But it’s back and getting attention.
In fact, Elon Musk loves it — to the tune of $100 million. Bill Gates loves it too and is a major investor. Companies that want to reach “net-zero” goals understandably like it. And many other tech luminaries, investors, and politicians can’t get enough of the idea.
The fossil fuel industry loves it, of course. They stand to make a huge amount of money from it, while continuing to pump oil and gas out of the ground.
But it’s a distraction to stopping climate change. Potentially a dangerous one.
The basic idea is simple. We can build big machines that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, essentially sucking climate-warming greenhouse gas pollution out of the air.
One variety is called “Direct Air Capture” (or DAC), which removes carbon dioxide from the open air. They can be put anywhere in the world — preferably where electricity and water are cheap and abundant. In most cases, industrial-sized fans push air through filters, where liquid solvents or solid sorbents take carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon dioxide is removed, separated for sequestration or use, and the chemicals are recycled.
It’s related to technology called “Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage” (or CCUS) that removes carbon dioxide from a concentrated source, like a coal power station or an ethanol plant. CCUS was touted as a way of burning fossil fuels without greenhouse gases as part of the ill-fated “Clean Coal” programs.
On the surface, it sounds appealing. We could use the technology to remove some of the pollution we have already emitted (DAC) and some of the pollution still coming from power plants (CCUS).
It sounds like the ultimate techno-solution to climate change. But here are seven reasons why we should be skeptical.
1. It’s Still Tiny, Even After Billions of Tax Dollars
While many people think this is a new technology, it’s not. In fact, the US Department of Energy spent at least $6 billion over two decades on it. Not to mention the tax credits oil and gas companies have received for pilot projects.
And we have very little to show for it. The machines are still insignificantly small when it comes to addressing climate change. In fact, they are still far from even being noticed by the atmosphere.
Even the biggest projects stretch to absorb a few thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, we emit over 50 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases each year. That’s a million-fold gap. So, even if artificial carbon removal scaled 1,000x — which is still years and billions of dollars away at best — it would need to grow by another 1,000-fold even to be a small percentage of the solutions we need.
2. Even If it Scales, Artificial Carbon Removal Will Still be a Small Player
Let’s be generous and assume the technology eventually scales. It will still be a sideshow in addressing climate change for many decades.
Below is an illustration of the “Carbon Law” framework for meeting the Paris Accords, showing the relative impact of emissions reduction and carbon removal (including natural and artificial means).
There is essentially zero carbon removal in the 2020s, the most important decade in our efforts to stop climate change — when we have to stabilize emissions and cut them by fifty percent. This is a Herculean task, and carbon removal is a no-show. Emissions cuts are doing all the work.
Even over the next thirty years, ~94% of the work to stop climate change is being done by emissions cuts. Only ~6% is from all carbon removal — using both natural and artificial approaches. Could machines even do half?
At best, artificial carbon removal will only provide a tiny fraction of the solutions we need until mid-century. Why? Simply put: these machines are tiny and will take a long time to scale. If they scale at all.
There is a lesson here: Stopping climate change depends on time and the cumulative impact of our actions. So solutions that are scaling now are the solutions that matter most. Solutions that don’t scale up for decades are, at best, a minor player.
3. Nature Can Do a Better Job
Let’s say we need significant levels of carbon removal to address climate change after 2050. Why do we need expensive machines to do it? After all, plants, algae, and even some bacteria already do it — by fixing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. And they can fix a lot of it. Plus, there are natural geochemical processes — including rock weathering — that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well.
If we need carbon removal to meet our long-term climate goals, why can’t we use already-proven nature-based carbon removal projects, which rely on trees, grasses, soil, and sand to take carbon out of the atmosphere?
Nature-based carbon absorption is proven. It’s ready now. And it’s cheap. In fact, Microsoft published a white paper that showed that artificial carbon removal was 50 times more expensive than nature’s solutions.
4. The Technology Has a Big Footprint
Artificial carbon removal technology is hardly benign. It uses tremendous amounts of energy (which, ironically, can release more greenhouse gases unless the grid is devoid of fossil fuels). It also can use tremendous amounts of water. That’s why many of the machines are located where water and electricity are cheap.
Also, depending on which materials are used, the chemicals in question (especially sodium hydroxide) can be very caustic.
Most alarmingly, carbon dioxide removed by CCUS is often used to help recover more oil or gas, which is hardly a “climate-friendly” technology.
5. It Perpetuates Injustice
Even if artificial carbon removal can help stop climate change, it does nothing to address the massive air quality and health impact fossil fuels have on disenfranchised communities. This is a massive problem today, where ~8 million people a year die because of fossil fuel air pollution.
Carbon removal technology allows industries to keep extracting and burning coal, gas, and oil — with tremendous harm — while pointing to their “environmentally friendly” carbon removal efforts. This perpetuates the enormous inequities and injustices caused by fossil fuels. For climate, equity, and justice, the best thing to do is leave fossil fuels in the ground.
6. It Distracts Attention from Cutting Emissions
Artificial carbon removal has already wasted billions of tax dollars — and decades of R&D — and has yet to produce a meaningful climate solution.
It’s already a distraction. And now it’s getting even more attention.
Naturally, if we’re not very clear-headed about this, it could prove to be a further distraction — diverting even more time, capital, and attention — from the hard work of reducing emissions right now.
The hype might make some people rich before it inevitably crashes, but it’s not going to help address climate change anytime soon. Or at all.
7. Fossil Fuel Companies Use It for Profit and to Delay Climate Action
The fossil fuel industry loves this technology, as it gives the illusion that we can use fossil fuels without climate consequences. All while making huge sums of money.
Carbon removal makes it appear that fossil fuel companies are working to address climate change — without actually reducing our addiction to oil, gas, and coal. It helps delay the inevitable phasing out of fossil fuels. Adding insult to injury, captured carbon dioxide is used to extract even more oil and gas out of the ground.
We’ve seen this before. It’s yet another form of “predatory delay”— an attempt to keep stalling climate action a few more years while raking in giant profits. And fossil fuel polluters have mastered the art of predatory delay.
Plus, fossil fuel companies are doing this at our expense. They are benefitting from government-subsidized R&D, and they receive massive tax breaks for projects they deploy. Already, the US has paid out well over $1 billion in tax credits to companies that have deployed CCUS. Exxon-Mobil alone may have received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits.
This is just an excuse to keep extracting and burning fossil fuels. And we’d be fools to fall for it.
Artificial carbon removal is largely a sideshow to addressing climate change for the foreseeable future. It’s too small, will arrive too late, and is too big a distraction. It’s certainly not worth the hype it’s receiving now. Even generous estimates suggest that it’s only going to be a few percent of the climate solutions we need during the coming decades.
To be fair, there may be a few legitimate cases for using artificial carbon removal. For example, we may want to use carbon removal machines to make “net-zero” cement, steel, aviation fuel, or plastic. These are going to be hard things to decarbonize, and limited carbon removal might make sense. And it’s possible we may want significant levels of carbon removal in the second half of the century, once emissions are near zero, to help remove some of our historic emissions. But, no matter what, carbon removal should never be used to keep burning fossil fuels or delay climate action.
But let’s be honest. The hype isn’t about stopping climate change. It’s about money. Or letting the fossil fuel industry drill a bit longer, with trillions of dollars at stake. We’d be foolish to continue the charade.
Stopping climate change is a race against time. We don’t have any to waste, and this technology can’t even find the starting line.
Many other solutions are ready now and can make a real difference. They deserve all of our time, attention, and capital. Let’s not get distracted by non-solutions that mainly feed predatory delay.
Dr. Jonathan Foley (@GlobalEcoGuy) is a climate & environmental scientist, writer, and speaker. He is also the Executive Director of Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions.
These views are his own.
Copyright © 2021, Jonathan Foley. All rights reserved.
