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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It’s starting to happen. The problem is, we’ve only recently started to care enough about emissions to start implementing it. In addition, it’s hard to do, and the concentration isn’t ‘that’ much higher from smokestacks than in the open air (it is usually 20% co2 iirc), which requires filtering. Then you need a place to store ( sequester) the carbon permanently with no leaks. This is hard to do on an industrial scale, and requires infrastructure that there just wasn’t the need to develop.
The short answer is that it isn’t free, and we’re generally not requiring companies to do it. Those things put together mean that the choice is between more profit, or choosing to be less profitable than their competition.
Even if you are a company that wants to do good and take home less money, you have a higher chance of getting outcompeted and going out of business.
Most of the serious large scale carbon capture projects is doing exactly this. But this comes with its own issues. When you burn coal or oil you do not just get carbon dioxide but also lots of sot, tar, acids, radioactive isotopes, and tons of water vapor. This damages the filters used for capturing the carbon dioxide.
There are other chemical processes which produce more pure carbon dioxide. Most notably cement production does output almost pure carbon dioxide from one of their processes. This is a major contributor to carbon dioxide emission with over 30% of the worlds emissions coming from cement production. It is hard to retrofit an existing cement plant with carbon capture technology as they do not collect the gas from the process and also tends to mix it with gas from burning coal or oil which is used as a heat source for the process. But new cement plant is built to capture the pure carbon dioxide and make it easily available for carbon capture.
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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It’s expensive (installation costs, operating costs, reduced energy efficiency), and carbon emitters don’t want to do it, as it’s private cost for public good.
Until there is public funding for carbon capture or a carbon tax for emissions we are unlikely to see significant carbon capture at point of emission.
(However, there is enough of it being done that the technology is advancing. Maybe it will be more cost effective in the future.)
(Adding from my own comment below:)
Pollution is private benefit from public cost. Tragedy of the commons writ large.
Remediating pollution, right now, is mostly private cost for public benefit.
Because polluters aren’t held accountable for their own externalities, so they pollute with reckless abandon, maximizing profits at everyone else’s expense.
Money is better spent on producing less carbon in the first place.
Why spend 10 million dollars on a carbon capture system on a small gas power plant when you can spend 10 million dollars on a battery that removes the need for the plant?
There is literally only 1 coal plant that implemented carbon recapture (Petra Nova in Tx) and it was so expensive that they put a lid on it after $1B investment.
This tech isn’t ready. It’s just fantasy.
It’s done, but it takes a while to become more common. Ideally, some law changes would help. For example, it would be great if mining CO2 was outlawed so that CO2 from carbon capture is bought in place of the mined one.
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