Is carbon capture and storage just a massive scam?

Is carbon capture and storage going to help reduce carbon emissions, or is it just one great big front for fossil fuel companies? That’s the question our columnist asks in this week’s Gossage Gossip. 

For too many years, I have been concerned that the future for carbon capture and storage is nowhere near as rosy as its proponents monotonously continue to claim. The problem is, put crudely, that in almost every circumstance, CCS prototypes are turning out to be far too expensive for them ever to be rolled out for any kind of mass market.

A new survey, undertaken by no less an authority than the Global CCS Institute, has found that the 153 projects in development globally, alongside the 41 others that are already operating or under construction, would together store less than 1% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere just in 2021.

My gut feeling is that the main promoters of CCS, or CCUS as it has been gratuitously renamed, are fossil fuel companies that are convinced that this chimera alone will permit their fuels to remain viable when the developed world does hit net zero emissions. It doesn’t. And it won’t.