After pass decades profiting off vegetable oil and gas and propagate climate defense , Exxon just needs a little money , human being . Inan interview with the APpublished earlier this week , Joe Blommaert , the president of a section of Exxon call up Low Carbon Solutions , laid out the company ’s plan to transform an industrial corridor in Houston into a $ 100 billion hub for carbon capture and memory . The company would just like a few financial backer to do it , please .
The Houston Ship Channel is one of busiest industrial stretches in the U.S. The 50 - mile ( 80 - kilometer ) corridor is also home Texas ’ largest cluster of oil and gas refinery ; there are10 of them in the Houston metro area alone , develop 2.6 million barrels of crude crude oil each daytime . All those refineries , which let in Exxon in their social status , produce a netherworld of a batch of C dioxide . The proposal Blommaert adumbrate out in this consultation would capture all that carbon dioxide from the industrial facility and inject it underground — probably , the AP report , mile away under the Gulf of Mexico .
Carbon capture and storehouse ( CCS ) is something that the human beings is in all likelihood going to have to deploy as it harness literally every trick in the record book to keep the satellite from burn up . However , it ’s also the oil and gaseous state diligence ’s favorite climate solution for a number of grounds — chief among them is the deduction that , if we could just figure out a fashion to somehow keep the carbon dioxide from capture in the breeze in the first position , all our problems with fossil fuels could be lick .
Surely $100 billion could clean this up.Photo: Loren Elliott/AFP (Getty Images)
The defect with CCS are plentiful in its current state . The technology has a story ofhigh - profile ( and expensive ) failuresand does nothing about other pollutants like methane . Some oil and gas pedal producers also foresee using all that captured carbon to helpproduce even more fossil fuels , which , again , is the opposite of what we need to be doing ! It ’s cleared that this ai n’t it .
A fiddling logic wo n’t lay off Exxon from gas the engineering science it has adjudicate is a better bet than renewables . “ What is authoritative in my mind is this collaboration of the whole industry , the whole of government , and the whole of bon ton , ” Blommaert tell the AP about the proposed labor . “ And it is in reality addressing mood alteration , which technically is a very complicated exit . It needs all of the solutions , and it is not one or the other . ”
Despite CCS’ssetbacks , it ’s still a darling of productive and potent technofuturists , and the federal government has alsomade a heap of funds availableto jumpstart the industry . Exxon , it seems , is eager to get in on some of this cash floating around — even though it ’s deserving hundreds of gazillion of dollars as a ship’s company . When the AP expect how much cash Exxon was willing to pony up for this transformative newfangled vision for Houston , Blommaert worsen to “ quote a specific number ” but assure the AP that “ the key is that policy to pull public and private investment in supporting this is put in place . And that ’s why we talk about the time value of carbon , which is substantive . ”
Some clues as to how much Exxon could spend on this wonderland of CCS came this week in the company ’s securities filings — where , for the first clip , the company admitted that some of its assets may be at risk of infection due to climate change . In those filings , which were issued under the new board extremity installed after ashareholder revoltin May , Exxon said it plan to spend $ 15 billion total over the next five years on initiatives to reduce emissions . That ’s a batch of money — more than any other oil John R. Major — but it would n’t come close to covering Exxon ’s Houston CCS dreaming .
near to the end of the consultation , the reporter asked Blommaert why , if Exxon cares so much about climate alteration , it simply does n’t stop producing so much dang petroleum and gas ( great head imho ) . Blommaert answer that the earth “ will still require energy sources from fossil fuel ” and that CCS “ can meet the get-up-and-go supplies that the world need in a direction that the emissions are being abated , and that you’re able to do that at the dispirited cost possible to society . ”
record this consultation is a fantastic exercise in familiarizing yourself withBig Oil ’s preferred buzzwords . blab about the “ economic value of carbon ” is a sneaky tactic meant to create a more positive and less dire association with carbon copy dioxide . Blommaert ’s response about “ innovative life ” necessitate “ energy ” islifted directlyfrom denier groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation . Even Blommaert ’s line title is little more than a cant : “ humble carbon ” is essentially a nothing phrase that petroleum ship’s company have started using to convince the populace that they ’re doing something about this whole clime change thing when what we really need is no carbon .
You ’d think that one of the humans ’s biggest historic emitter might have a little more humbleness when ask for a press release for an unproven applied science , but never say never .
American brandsEnergyExxonLow - carbon economyRockefeller category
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the time to come , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
