2023-11-10 06:41:31
The world’s oceans are a graveyard for tens of thousands of abandoned offshore oil rigs. There are more than 32 thousand of them in the waters of the United States alone. More and more rigs are continually being retired as oil fields age and global energy markets and fuel policies shift further away from fossil fuels.
These abandoned platforms can pose a serious environmental threat if mismanaged or inadequately managed. The International Ospar Convention requires these rigs to be removed from waters around the world, but some scientists believe that if properly decommissioned, maintained or upgraded, they might bring significant environmental benefits.
In addition to the platforms already being used as artificial reefs for tens of thousands of marine species of fish and shellfish, abandoned oil rigs might become doubly environmentally beneficial if they were retrofitted to capture and sequester carbon from the atmosphere above the oceans.
As The Conversation reports, citing scientific results from the Danish Greensands project, the platforms are capable of filtering CO2 using on-board equipment previously used for oil and natural gas production, except that with minor modifications it will work in the opposite direction.
Projects like these show promise, but corruption in other green initiatives discourages potential funders of beneficial innovations.
Many experts argue that the main purpose of carbon capture and storage is corporate greenwashing, a practice that allows companies to claim they care regarding the environment. Yet they continue to extract fossil fuels and emit more and more carbon, using little environmental compensation as a convenient excuse. Several cases of such corruption, misuse of funds and fraud were uncovered last year. They became public knowledge and raised doubts regarding the sincerity of large companies in pursuing climate goals.
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