This report shows how even the most ambitious plans for CCS also would not help avert the worst impacts of climate change. Its proponents in the federal government are also working with information that shows it would be the most expensive way to avoid CO2 pollution in the power sector. The Obama administration seems partly driven by faith in a technology that was supposed to sequester pollution from the atmosphere. However, the administration view also appears to be that fossil fuel projects never contribute to climate change. Every federal agency has an excuse for why its okay to support new coal, oil and gas supply projects.
Supporters of carbon capture for oil extraction claim that oil produced with CO2 injection is going to get produced somewhere else anyway, and therefore would actually be ‘green’ oil because it keeps CO2 from a coal plant from entering the atmosphere. Is this “clean coal” for “green oil?” This sounds confusing because it makes no sense for many reasons, one being that injected CO2 comes back up the well with the oil. EPA’s proposed carbon rule ascribes to this logic, by promoting oil production with CO2 injection without accounting for any of the CO2 injected, nor created by burning the oil later.
EPA must rethink its proposed rule and come up with a final policy that acknowledges fossil fuel-fired power plants, not to mention fossil fuel extraction, are a poor investment. The future is in solar and wind are, as the Greenpeace Energy [R]evolution analysis has predicted more accurately than most. There is no viable solution for both supporting the use of fossil fuels and the climate simultaneously.
Download the full report, Carbon Capture SCAM (CCS)
