The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: Unveiling Fossil Fuel Interests Behind Carbon Capture
Dear Diary. Over the last few years, I have seen and posted several Twitter messages poo pooing carbon capture as a great method to stem the climate crisis. It has become clear that industrial carbon capture methods and mechanisms either are too expensive or too ineffective to be viable. Yes, it is technologically possible to capture atmospheric carbon and store it underground, but this would have to be done on such a wide planetary scale as to make such schemes physically way to expensive. It would be far better to invest in green renewable energy and electrify everything. Doing so as fast as possible will allow atmospheric carbon levels to level off slowly as we move through the rest of this century and even drop during the 22nd.
Fossil future interests are propping up expensive carbon capture schemes mainly so that they will have excuses to keep drilling for oil. After all, if carbon can successfully be taken out of the air, then we should not worry about any transition away from internal combustion engines. True, but that demonstration has not occurred and is a sheep in wolf’s clothing pipe dream. Cheaply planting real trees does a better job.
Here are more details concerning a carbon capture conglomerate in Europe from Common Dreams:
Green Groups Blast ‘Reckless, Unscientific’ EU Carbon Capture Plans | Common Dreams
Greenpeace activists light up a mock bomb labeled “CO2” during a campaign in front of the German Chancellery in Berlin on March 25, 2009. (Photo: Michael Gottschalk/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
Green Groups Blast ‘Reckless, Unscientific’ EU Carbon Capture Plans
“Rejecting the influence of the fossil fuel industry and investing in climate action that can actually deliver emissions cuts and steer a just transition from the fossil fuel economy is crucial.”
Oct 11, 2024
As attendees gathered in the south of France Thursday for the start of a European Union-hosted summit on carbon capture and storage, an international coalition of green groups warned against funding “reckless, unscientific, and lobbyist-driven” false climate solutions and instead urged investment in “a just transition that prioritizes renewable energy, energy demand reduction, and energy efficiency.”
“Today the Industrial Carbon Management Forum (ICMF) kicks off in Pau, France,” 43 organizations wrote in a letter to the European Commission. “This forum has been revealed to be dominated by fossil fuel interests to the exclusion of civil society stakeholders and other expert voices with critical views.”
The letter points to a report published Thursday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), which concluded that “most of Europe’s planned carbon capture and storage (CCS) applications are too expensive to work on a commercial basis and are nowhere near ready to be rolled out.”
According to the report, Europe’s planned CCS projects will cost an estimated €520 billion ($569 billion), which IEEFA energy finance analyst and report author Andrew Reid said “will force European governments to introduce eye-wateringly high subsidies to prop up a technology that has a history of failure.”
The green groups’ letter also notes widespread criticism of CCS, which has been panned by Food & Water Watch—whose European branch signed the letter—as a “false climate solution” and a “lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.”
The signers wrote that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “has labeled CCS as one of the most costly and least effective emissions reduction methods, and an Oxford study found high-CCS pathways could cost $30 trillion more globally than renewable alternatives,” the signers wrote, referring to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The letter continues:
As well as being prohibitively expensive, plans for carbon capture and storage (CCS) at scale face overwhelming technical challenges and the records show 50 years of failure. Even with $83 billion in investment since the ’90s, research found that nearly 80% of large-scale projects fail. The industry itself has acknowledged that for all these efforts, only 52 metric tons of carbon dioxide have ever been stored long-term, highlighting the unlikeliness of achieving the E.U.’s stated goal of storing 280 metric tons of CO2 by 2040…
The union has already spent over €3 billion ($3.3 billion) on CCS and hydrogen projects—hydrogen is often paired with CCS to attempt to capture the carbon dioxide emissions released during hydrogen production from fossil fuels in order to label hydrogen a low-carbon fuel. However, this ignores the ineffectiveness of CCS to reduce emissions and the continued use of fossil fuels in the process.
“We cannot afford to give further investments to the fossil fuel industry to gamble with our future and our tax money,” the green groups stressed. “Money allotted to CCS would be better spent on the communities and countries that need it most and on ensuring a full and fair phaseout of fossil fuels.”
In stark contrast, E.U. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said during the opening session of the CCS summit that the 27-nation bloc’s climate target plan “underlines that industrial carbon management is not just an alternative, it is a vital complement to renewable energy and energy efficiency.”
The letter’s signers are calling on E.U. policymakers to:
- Stop wasting money on CCS projects and commit to a full phaseout of fossil fuels;
- Reject the influence of the fossil fuel industry;
- Commit to a full consideration of the scientific and real-world evidence of CCS’ failures, limitations, and challenges; and
- Invest instead in real climate, health, and nature solutions that deliver a transition to a clean, healthy, and safe economy.
“The current fossil fuel industry influence on the E.U.’s carbon capture policy undermines the E.U.’s ability to meet its climate goals and responsibilities, and is damaging its reputation and leadership,” the groups asserted. “Rejecting the influence of the fossil fuel industry and investing in climate action that can actually deliver emissions cuts and steer a just transition from the fossil fuel economy is crucial if the E.U. is to deliver real solutions for climate, nature, and people.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is some more September 2024 climatology (Prior reports are listed on older daily diary blogs for each calendar day.):
Here is More Climate News from Sunday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)