Boondoggle Watch: Carbon capture is great at making things worse, study finds

The study I refer to actually didn’t say that carbon capture makes things worse. But that’s the only conclusion that can be drawn given that the capping is done for the purpose of dramatically extending the life of oil wells that would otherwise be shut in, according to a recent article in Desmog. The oil wells in question are in Saskatchewan and were slated to shut down in 2016. Now with carbon dioxide being pumped into them, they could produce oil for anywhere between 39 and 84 more years.

In May, I reminded readers of a broader definition of the word «boondoggle,» one promulgated by author Dmitri Orlov. To understand: It is not just something that is useless. Ideally, it should be something that “creates[s] additional problems that can only be handled by more cheaters.”

It turns out that carbon capture provides an excellent complementary aid to the machines mentioned in my previous article, machines that extract carbon dioxide from the air rather than from the source, as carbon capture does. In this case, the carbon dioxide comes from the Dakota Gasification Plant in Beulah, North Dakota, which according to its website is «the only commercial-scale coal gasification facility in the United States that produces natural gas.» . The gas – produced synthetically from lignite coal – is sent to various electric cooperatives in five states which burn it to produce electricity. The captured carbon dioxide is then piped to the Weyburn and Midale oil fields in Saskatchewan and injected into oil wells to vent, something the industry refers to as enhanced oil recovery.

The machines mentioned above that extract carbon dioxide from the air (which are based in Iceland) absorb this greenhouse gas without knowing where it comes from. Some of the carbon dioxide may very well come from burning oil produced by the Weyburn and Midale oil fields, oil forced out of the ground by carbon dioxide. Champions of carbon dioxide injections in those fields claim that not as much carbon dioxide is re-entering the atmosphere from burning oil that we now know would not otherwise be produced. Consider me skeptical of this claim if the wells – which have been flowing oil since 1954 – continue to produce for another 80 years.

This is not carbon capture and storage so much as carbon capture and oil replacement, as the previously unavailable new oil is extracted and burned. The project is officially called the IEA GHG Weyburn CO2 Monitoring and Storage Research Project, a name that suggests public money is involved. And indeed, in the fine print you find the following:

We were founded in 1998 by: Saskatchewan Industry & Resources, Natural Resources Canada, the University of Regina, and the Saskatchewan Research Council. We are funded by Canadian and international governments and industry.

So the project credentials are now certified. Public money is being «invested» in this research. But, of course, what seals the deal is that the project’s goal is to produce more fossil fuels to replace (at least indirectly) what was originally burned to produce the now-injected carbon dioxide. This creates an opportunity to emit more carbon dioxide, which, in turn, has to be extracted from the air using more gimmicky machines like those wonderful extractors in Iceland. There’s no cheater like a cheater that leads to more cheaters!

There are two other considerations when determining the boondoggle status of this particular project. First, some nearby residents complained that carbon dioxide was leaking from underground tanks. Project managers denied this, although they admitted that they do not monitor the entire site. Leakage, of course, would completely negate the idea that carbon dioxide is «stored» to prevent climate damage.

Second, a smart journalist I once met referred to carbon capture and storage as a «delay and fail» strategy by the fossil fuel industry. The industry has generated a lot of hype and pumped out significant public funding to help make the technology supposedly «commercially viable.» The funds are spent on so-called pilot projects, which take many, many years to complete.

There is no reason to believe that, absent large subsidies, carbon capture and storage will ever be widely applicable. By the time politicians and the public realize this, industry will be able to burn fossil fuels for several more decades with few consequences. Of course, one of the advantages of spending limited public research funds on scams like this is that such spending will deprive alternatives to fossil fuels (including conservation and efficiency) of funds that these alternatives might otherwise have access to.

So in carbon capture and storage we have a truly magnificent boondoggle that qualifies on all counts. Therefore, he can be classified as a «quintessential» cheater. This should be distinguished from a «pure» scammer who burns through a lot of money without producing any tangible results; «Asteroid mining» is an example mentioned in my previous article.

As global society progresses ever further into its energy, resource and climate predicament, we can count on the creation of increasingly clever tricksters. This is because truly effective responses would require much more intensified sacrifice and cooperation. It is much easier and more amusing to think about how our countless greedy people are going in an age of plenty and a sustainable environment. The fun, however, would be ruined if the contemplatives realized they were actually focused on the deceptive castles in the air.

ProtestProtest Against Carbon Capture and Storage (2021) by Matt Hrkac via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Protest_Against_Carbon_Capture_and_Storage_(51697301719).jpgt Capture and Storagebon