eli5: Why isn’t carbon capture used at emission sources?

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I know that there is ‘legacy carbon’ in the atmosphere that needs to get removed but why aren’t we leveraging carbon capture as part of industrial processes (e.g. at the factory’s smoke stack, for example). Or maybe we are already?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

https://www.wsj.com/articles/carbon-capture-is-hard-this-plant-shows-why-ce6e938c
TLDR: very expensive to retro fit old plants, expensive for an add on for new plants. The plant in the article says it’s a $1.1 billion carbon capture system. But later says smaller plants could be retrofitted for $372 – $600 million.

The tech is still relatively young and needs more time to optimize well and work with other tech. One example in the article said after an unexpected fly ash contamination required a change in the processing, the carbon capture was only at best 50% for a number of years.

The example plant in the article only collects 80% of the the carbon, 3/4 of that 80% is pumped into the ground to pump more oil. The rest is pumped into deep underground caverns where it sits. Not a great long term solution.

It’s up to you how worthwhile all that sounds and potential promise that brings. But it would seem wiser to me to invest in other ways. Instead of investing hard into tech that should instead be on its way out.

Edit: one more tidbit, one of the plant operators say even with their carbon capture they won’t be able to meet their Canadian emission regulations.

Edit2: building a plant with CC in mind is only 10% cheaper than retrofitting.

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