DAC

The permitting process for carbon-capture projects is, in some ways, like navigating Houston’s notorious rush-hour traffic — if everyone tries to move at once, gridlock can quickly ensue. That’s true at both the federal level, where the EPA has more sequestration wells under review than ever before, and at the state level, where Louisiana just hit the pause button on its reviews. In today’s RBN blog, we look at how increased interest in carbon capture has exacerbated the permitting backlog.

Progress in the carbon-capture industry can be slow, given the extended permitting process for sequestration wells, uncertain long-term outlook and skepticism about the real-world effectiveness in reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The past several weeks have been a better-than-usual period for advocates of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), with significant milestones reached for a trio of important projects under development, but not all the news was positive. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at what’s happening with a handful of key CCS projects. 

A great deal of attention has been heaped on the carbon-capture industry over the past couple of years, from its inclusion in major federal legislation such as 2021’s infrastructure bill and last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, plus all sorts of recently announced carbon sequestration projects. Still, there are plenty of concerns that the technology is not fully baked, that many of the projects are not ready for prime time, and that few have the practical know-how to deploy carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at scale. But what if there was a company that has been doing carbon sequestration for a very long time — decades in fact? And what if that company has built out a huge carbon dioxide (CO2) collection, distribution and sequestration system on the Gulf Coast along with concrete plans for a massive expansion of this network to capture a lot more manmade, “anthropogenic” CO2, not in decades but in just a few short years? A company like that would be pretty much the ideal acquisition candidate for a cash-flush multinational with big ESG goals and strategies, right? As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, that is just what is happening with ExxonMobil’s acquisition of Denbury, a deal that will create today’s undisputed leader in CCS.

If the world is going to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net-zero levels by 2050, a lot of things need to go right, with the success of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) long-term plan balancing on three different pillars. First, there are emissions reductions from improvements to fossil fuels and processes, such as power generation and industrial production. Next, there are advancements in bioenergy, a category that includes biofuels like ethanol, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and renewable diesel (RD). And then there’s direct air capture (DAC) — a minor factor so far, but one with the potential for significant growth, especially given the billions in U.S. funding already set aside for it. In today’s RBN blog, we look at U.S. plans to develop four regional DAC hubs, how those proposals will be evaluated, and the likely timeline for their development.

It’s one thing if you’re 25 or 30 years old and your 401(k) is just getting started — you’ve got time to build it up, so don’t sweat it — but it’s quite another if you’re 60 or 65 and you’ve still got to sock away a lot of money before calling it quits. It could be argued that the environmental community is facing a quandary very similar to that of an aging boomer short on retirement savings. The fact is that the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) target of achieving net-zero man-made carbon emissions globally by 2050 in order to blunt the human impact on climate change will require massive new investment and a complete and well-coordinated transformation of the world’s energy complex. In the near-term, progress along that path must include an extraordinarily rapid ramp-up in the use of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). And like an aging worker whose late discipline may be thwarted by an unforeseen health challenge, as we’ve seen with the recent energy crisis, there’s a lot that could derail progress toward those goals. Is the IEA's goal achievable? Maybe. But, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog, it won’t be easy.