2023-08-12 09:33:50
If the Europeans emphasize energy sobriety to fight once morest global warming, the Americans insist a lot on carbon capture: continue to consume energy, including of fossil origin, on condition of sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2) issued. This is the project announced on Friday, August 11, by the Biden administration, by subsidizing up to 1.2 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros) the development of two direct carbon capture plants in the air, one in Louisiana, the second in Texas, in the Permian basin rich in hydrocarbons.
“Reducing our carbon emissions alone will not be enough to reverse the growing impacts of climate change. We also need to eliminate CO2 that we have already emitted into the atmosphere”, said Federal Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, boasting that the “Ministry of Energy is laying the foundations for a decisive direct air capture industry to combat climate change”.
According to the federal Department of Energy, these projects will remove the equivalent of annual emissions from 445,000 gasoline-powered automobiles and create 4,800 jobs in Texas and Louisiana. These two projects are the world’s first commercial-scale prototypes and are expected to remove more than 250 times the amount of carbon from the atmosphere as the largest plant today. According to the International Energy Agency, 27 direct carbon capture sites have been commissioned around the world, but these are small units, essentially scientific prototypes. Sixteen major projects are underway. If all were successfully carried out, direct carbon capture would reach 7.7 million tonnes of CO by 2030.2500 times the current level, but barely 10% of the 75 million tonnes needed to meet the net zero emissions scenario.
The Texas project will be led by Occidental Petroleum, the oil firm nearly a quarter of whose capital was acquired by billionaire Warren Buffett. Construction began in late 2022 and costs have already risen to $1.1 billion. The plant is not expected to come into operation until 2025. Technically, the latter will be formed by giant fans that will suck air into containers where the chemicals will bind to CO2 to separate it from the air, creating pellets. These will be heated to release pure carbon dioxide, which will be compressed to be transported through pipelines and channeled deep underground. The firm is in the process of applying for permits to store this carbon in old oil wells. The site must operate with cheap renewable energy, solar and wind, favored in West Texas by the climate and extremely powerful winds, comparable to those experienced at sea.
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