Shell sold millions of carbon credits for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that never happened, allowing the company to turn a profit on its fledgling carbon capture and storage project, according to a new report by Greenpeace Canada.
Under an agreement with the Alberta government, Shell was awarded two tonnes’ worth of emissions reduction credits for each tonne of carbon it actually captured and stored underground at its Quest plant, near Edmonton.
This took place between 2015 and 2021 through a subsidy program for carbon, capture, utilisation and storage projects (CCUS), which are championed by the oil and gas sector as a way to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
At the time, Quest was the only operational CCUS facility in Alberta. The subsidy program ended in 2022.
Rant in a totally different direction. Carbon Capture Is Not Sustainable!
Unless you can capture 1 ton of carbon using less energy than is extracted by burning 1 ton of carbon, you can not capture carbon. Carbon capture will ONLY work if the energy you use to capture the carbon does not add more carbon to the atmosphere (nuclear, wind, solar) but having to run a supplementary power generation tech just to negate the effects of your primary tech is just stupid, fossil fuels no longer a viable option.
Carbon capture, carbon footprint, carbon offsetting - its all bullshit made up by the oil and gas industry to greenwash their public image while they continue to destroy our planet.
Pedantic, but you can do this by planting a forest (in a currently not forested area).
Not by half. Look up the rate at which we emit carbon and the sequestering abilities of a forest. You would have to cover every square inch of land with bamboo to break even.
Molten Salt Reactors run at the perfect temp for CO2 sequestration. Should be building these things. Can do this while producing electricity
Molten salt reactors have this little problem that they’re digesting themselves. The salt is so aggressive that it eats through the reactor before the building costs amortise. Unless you are a time traveller capable of giving us the material science of 200 years into the future fusion is going to be here first.
ssr design is pretty based for this reason.
Who needs liquid fuel when you can just put the liquid fuel into a fuel rod anyway!
And? Yep, non-radioactive fluoride salt can be somewhat managed with ludicrously expensive materials. The equation is rather different when you add thorium to the equation. Also note that nine years are nowhere near long enough.
There’s a reason we don’t see those kinds of reactors in the wild: They can’t realistically be built as production-scale power plants. If they did greedy bastards would long-since have invested in the tech and tried to monopolise electricity production with patents and undercutting the competition.
You do know that the blankeded reactor only have a 7 year run cycle? Have you seen the costs of a traditional reactor? Ya know with a 9" thick vessel only made in Japan.
The ONLY reason we don’t have LFTR reactors is because at the time the US was in the middle of a nuclear arms race and you can’t build a bomb that can be hidden (gamma rays) using the decay chain from thorium.
And it would also risk the capitalistic model y’all love so much.
If they were able to get a MSR to run for 9 years in the 1960’s we could easily do it now. Stop being a Debbie Downer
The ONLY reason we don’t have LFTR reactors is because at the time the US
Because no other country would be interested in the tech, or capable of building it. “Muh US nukes killed thorium” is a completely America-brained take.
Germany researched Thorium (pebble bed, in particular), never bothered with molten salt because it was seen as not feasible. Japan dabbled with molten salt, projects failed due to lack of funding. Neither countries have any interest in building nukes. The Chinese currently are trying, which is because the Chinese are currently trying everything. The government throwing money at the issue doesn’t in any way imply commercial viability, push come to shove they’d do it for the published papers alone.
Debbie Downer
I’m sorry for using reality to accost your religious beliefs but they happen to be dumb.
Unless you can capture 1 ton of carbon using less energy than is extracted by burning 1 ton of carbon, you can not capture carbon.
Is this not already the case that these processes are net negative in carbon released? How much does it currently cost, in energy, to capture carbon at these smokestacks?
TL;DR it’s not possible.
We burn carbon based fuels because the reaction between carbon and oxygen releases energy that can be used to generate electricity. It would take EXACTLY as much energy to turn the released CO2 back into oil/coal/carbon except that this is not a perfect world, there are losses at every step. The only way to lower CO2 levels is to globally stop burning fossil fuels for heating and electrical loads (hydrocarbons are needed for a bunch of very specific chemical processes).
Um, nobody is talking about chemically converting the released carbon dioxide back into chemical compounds with stored chemical energy, like hydrocarbons and graphite. They’re talking about physically sequestering CO2, or binding the carbon into materials that aren’t combustible (like calcium carbonate).
Put another way: if I burned some hydrocarbons in a fireplace and put a balloon over the flue, I’d capture some carbon dioxide (and probably some water) in that balloon, and the carbon in that balloon would’ve cost me less energy to capture than was released in burning the hydrocarbons to begin with. So long as I could keep the balloon from leaking or deflating.
Breaking news oil company that lies at every opportunity wasn’t held accountable and choose to lie for bottom line.
Stop subsidising profitable companies, they just use that money to slap us in the face. Stop corporate welfare!
Privatize the profits, socialize the risk. Seems to be the motto Canada likes to follow.
Shame we can’t appropriate CN Rail…
one of my favorite fun facts, is that apparently a non insignificant number of “carbon credits” come from unsealed oil wells being sealed up. Which sounds good and all.
Until you realize that leaving oil wells unsealed is literally illegal and not to regulation standards what so ever. So you are literally paying for carbon credits, that remove carbon, that never should have been in the environment to begin with.
I love capitalism.
Market-based solutions for the win!
/s, obviously.
Edited, this is what carbon taxes were supposed to replace, because everyone wanted something “market-based” even though regulation worked well for addressing CFCs. Personally, I’m of the opinion that if companies are cheating on cap-and-trade and whinging about carbon pricing that we should just straight-up regulate them. No bribes, no incentives, just “stop polluting or we fine you at 110% of your global revenue.”
Lets say that you’re married but you want to cheat on your wife. That’s not good, you don’t want to upset your wife and I don’t want you to upset your wife. So I’m gonna do you a favour, I’ll not cheat on my wife and sell you the credit! Now when you cheat on your wife it’s ok, because you have a credit that negates it! Zero sum, no harm!
And you know what, I wouldn’t want anyone to upset their wife so out of the goodness of my heart I will not cheat on my wife as much as I can so that I can sell the credits to other men, that way it’s ok if they cheat on their wives. They don’t have to worry about upsetting anyone and my good behaviour is rewarded with money!
And all I had to do was nothing, then sell the credit for it…
The carbon credit system is designed to make companies responsible for emissions to pay money to companies who are reducing emissions. It’s a financial incentive to produce less emissions AND on the other side, a financial incentive to invest in green tech.
Using your metaphor…if you stopped cheating on your wife you could avoid spending ten grand on wife cheating credits. That’s a financial incentive to stop cheating on your wife. So many people will stop cheating on their wives. Meanwhile, people who were thinking about cheating on their wives could instead collect ten thousand bucks for being faithful. So…many of those people won’t cheat on their wives.
Get it now?
I get how it’s supposed to work but who is keeping track of how many times I was going to cheat but then did not? Who says I even have a wife? Who says I REALLY was going to burn all that coal but then decided not to? Giving credits for not doing a thing is just too easy to abuse.
Yes ok, but the people spending 10k to cheat on their wives are oil executives with bottomless pockets
Why hide the subsidy, Alberta? We know who your daddy is.
This bullshit does nothing for Albertans.
No way!
