Advocates: Carbon Capture, Like Fracking, Compromises Climate Progress

Environmental advocates are offering stinging criticism in the wake of California Governor Gavin Newsom's last-ditch effort to codify carbon capture in the state's climate plans. Among the governor's "Five Climate Pillars" is "Establishing a CCUS Framework," a bill memo which offers regulatory controls on the controversial practice decried by many advocates and scientists as a lifeline for fossil fuel projects.

As the legislative session winds down before the August 31 recess, Food & Water Watch's Acting Director California Mark Schlosberg issued this statement:

"Carbon capture is a thinly veiled effort by the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual, and it appears Governor Newsom has signed off on this massive scam. Carbon capture, like fracking, harms communities, enriches fossil fuel companies, and worsens the climate crisis. There is no regulation that will change the disastrous impact carbon capture will have on California's climate future."

Read Food & Water Watch's research into the flaws of carbon capture here.

Carbon capture is prohibitively expensive

Carbon capture and Direct Air Capture (DAC) require massive amounts of energy to function, contributing to their colossal expense. If implemented by utilities, carbon capture could result in an 80 percent increase in operating costs that would be passed on to ratepayers. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars developing carbon capture technology and it has failed miserably as a climate solution, while facilitating waste and abuse of public money.

Carbon capture relies on dangerous infrastructure

Storing and transporting carbon pose extreme health and safety risks. CO2 is denser than air, and exposure to a concentration higher than 10 percent can be deadly. A CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi shows the risks that massive CO2 pipelines necessary to transport CO2 can cause, sending people to the hospital with several near fatalities.

The transportation of carbon via pipelines is also highly dangerous due to the tendency of CO2, like natural gas, to leak at every stage of its transportation and storage lifecycle. A recent study found natural gas pipelines are most likely to be located in or around disadvantaged communities, exposing nearby neighborhoods to the risk of explosion and health risks from harmful emissions.

Carbon capture leads to more pollution

Most of the CO2 that is captured at smokestacks is used in oil drilling operations to increase production, which undermines any supposed climate benefit of CCS. Even if carbon capture is not used for enhanced oil recovery, research has shown itleads to increased fossil fuel production, endangering the historically overburdened communities. Outfitting coal and natural gas plants with carbon capture technology could increase gas production by 33 percent, further polluting communities with fracking, pipelines and other infrastructure just to run carbon capture equipment. A full deployment of 90 percent effective carbon capture technology would only reduce power sector emissions by 39 percent. Such technology also does nothing to address other harmful emissions from fossil fuel power plants, including ammonia, fine particulate matter, and methane.