Speaker 1: Today on Parts Pervilion, we're taking glimmers of hope and
Speaker 1: we're dashing the crap out of them. We're talking about
Speaker 1: carbon capture technology, why a lot of people think it's
Speaker 1: our best bet for solving climate change, and why they're
Speaker 1: probably wrong. Hello, and welcome back yet again to Parts Pervilion,
Speaker 1: the environmental podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm David Schultz. So
Speaker 1: climate change is, let's face it, just really really depressing.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of topic that really lends itself well
Speaker 1: to hopelessness and despair. And I think that's why a
Speaker 1: lot of people, myself very much included, like to talk
Speaker 1: about carbon capture technology. It feels hopeful to consider the
Speaker 1: possibility of sucking greenhouse gases out of the air and
Speaker 1: reversing not just stopping, but reversing the damage that we've
Speaker 1: already done to the planet. And you know who else
Speaker 1: is a fan of carbon capture. The United States Congress
Speaker 1: tucked deep into the most recent COVID relief bill that
Speaker 1: the President signed last month was four hundred four twenty
Speaker 1: seven million dollars for the Energy Department to do research
Speaker 1: into carbon capture technology. Bloomberg Laws. Bobby McGill wrote about
Speaker 1: this funding provision in the bill, and he says a
Speaker 1: lot of climate scientists and climate activists actually aren't too
Speaker 1: excited about it. I spoke with him about where this
Speaker 1: money is actually going to be spent, and also about
Speaker 1: what carbon capture actually is. Carbon capture often to a
Speaker 1: lot of folks, means that, you know, it's something that
Speaker 1: you it's a method of containing the emissions from coal
Speaker 1: fired power plants and oil and gas operations. But that's
Speaker 1: not really what this is about. Carbon dioxide removal means
Speaker 1: removing CO two from the atmosphere as a way to
Speaker 1: mitigate climate change. Yeah, I mean, this is like futuristic stuff.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, you know, the reason why we're
Speaker 1: talking is because the latest stimulus bill had a provision
Speaker 1: tucked deep inside it that gave half a billion dollars
Speaker 1: to the Energy Department to research this. What's the Energy
Speaker 1: Department going to be spending this money on. Well, it's
Speaker 1: going to be spending this money on a task force.
Speaker 1: It's going to be spending this money on, you know,
Speaker 1: basically trying to figure out how much CO two needs
Speaker 1: to be removed from the atmosphere. The thing is, though,
Speaker 1: that scientists already have a pretty good idea of how
Speaker 1: much CO two may need to be removed from the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: So it's unclear as to what this task force is
Speaker 1: actually going to accomplish in the next few years. But
Speaker 1: it is a you know, it's it's half a billion dollars.
Speaker 1: It's quite a bit of money for research, but it's
Speaker 1: also not necessarily going to remove any CO two from
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Well, it's interesting you mentioned you put it
Speaker 1: that way because you know, yes, I mean, half a
Speaker 1: billion dollars is half a billion dollars, it's nothing disneeze at,
Speaker 1: but in terms of the federal budget, like, it's not
Speaker 1: really not that much. I mean, but you said this
Speaker 1: is like one of the biggest outlays of federal money
Speaker 1: toward carbon capture research, right, Like ever, I mean, is
Speaker 1: that true? Right? I Mean, here's the thing. The reason
Speaker 1: this is so con is that and you know, there
Speaker 1: is bipartisan support for this. There are you know, plenty
Speaker 1: of Democrats and Republicans are interested in this in part
Speaker 1: as a as a climate mitigation strategy. But it's controversial
Speaker 1: because it's not it's not entirely agreed on that it's
Speaker 1: necessary that's because none of this means anything unless you
Speaker 1: stop emitting carbon dioxide in the first place. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the scientists I talked to were like, well,
Speaker 1: removing CO two that that sounds good, but you've got
Speaker 1: to prioritize the thing that most that a lot of
Speaker 1: folks don't want to do right now in any sort
Speaker 1: of serious way, which is to stop burning oil. Well,
Speaker 1: let's really get into that, because I mean, that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about this, and one of the reasons why I like
Speaker 1: talking about carbon capture is because to me, at least,
Speaker 1: it feels like one of the few climate change stories
Speaker 1: that is optimistic that you know, it's sort of offers
Speaker 1: hope that maybe we cannot just stop the damage to
Speaker 1: the planet but reverse it. But you know, it sounds like,
Speaker 1: based on everything you're saying and everything that was in
Speaker 1: your story, it's really not the case. Well, here's here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Carbon dioxide removal was a little bit of
Speaker 1: the elephant in the room of the Paris Climate Agreement
Speaker 1: because the science that's behind the Paris Climate Agreement suggests
Speaker 1: that if CO two concentrations of the atmosphere reach a
Speaker 1: certain point by mid century, we're going to need to
Speaker 1: begin removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a mass scale.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that is that there's no the
Speaker 1: technology for this has never really been proven to work
Speaker 1: at a mass scale, and you would have to potentially,
Speaker 1: you know, to meet the most ambitious goal of the
Speaker 1: Paris Climate Agreement, you would have to potentially remove decades
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere. It's not known
Speaker 1: if that's even possible, and whether it's possible or not,
Speaker 1: it won't make a bit of difference unless you stop
Speaker 1: emitting carbon dioxide in the first place. One of the
Speaker 1: other reasons that this is controversial is that you know
Speaker 1: a lot of There are plenty of scientists who say
Speaker 1: that you know, despite the fact that this may be
Speaker 1: necessary at some point, a lot of carbon capture proponents
Speaker 1: could see this as a way to continue to use
Speaker 1: oil and gas and coal. If you know that you
Speaker 1: can emit and then or you can burn this for
Speaker 1: electricity and energy, and you can store the emissions and
Speaker 1: prevent it from getting into the atmosphere, it could breathe
Speaker 1: new life into the fossil fuel industry right. And that's
Speaker 1: actually I'm glad you brought that up because that's something
Speaker 1: I wanted to get into, which is that you know,
Speaker 1: this made its way, This half a billion dollars made
Speaker 1: its way into the stimulus bill, which means it has
Speaker 1: bipartisan support. You know, who are the legislators that are
Speaker 1: backing this. I get the sense that, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of Republican lawmakers who are very pro
Speaker 1: fossil fuels who are into this, right. So you've got
Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski, for one thing, she from Alaska, Republican. You know,
Speaker 1: she is one of the most vocal proponents of oil
Speaker 1: and gas development on the north slope of Alaska. On
Speaker 1: the other side of the aisle, you've got folks like
Speaker 1: Sheldon Whitehouse who are climate hawks and you know, wants
Speaker 1: to aggressively cut emissions, and you know, this is something
Speaker 1: it's kind of like nuclear power. You get folks on
Speaker 1: both sides of the aisle UH supporting it as a
Speaker 1: climate measure, but you know there's also UH incentives in
Speaker 1: there for for industry. Yeah, I mean there are not
Speaker 1: a lot of and I know John Burrosso, who was
Speaker 1: the outgoing head of the Senate Environment Committee senator, a
Speaker 1: Republican senator from Wyoming, very very pro fossil fuel industry,
Speaker 1: also is a big fan of carbon capture. So not
Speaker 1: a lot of things that Murkowski, Verasso, and white House
Speaker 1: agree on, this is one of them. I mean, finally,
Speaker 1: do you see more money going towards this in the future.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's tough to say. We have a new
Speaker 1: president and new Congress coming in, but it seems like
Speaker 1: if we can get bipartisans support for this for you know,
Speaker 1: half a billion dollars, this could be going somewhere, we
Speaker 1: could get more money in the future. Is that possible?
Speaker 1: I would I would assume. So, I mean there's no indication.
Speaker 1: I mean, given that you know that four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty seven million dollars may not seem like a lot
Speaker 1: of money in terms of the of the federal budget,
Speaker 1: but it's it is a substantial amount of money. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: it comes down to this, It's it's not proven that
Speaker 1: this is needed. It's also not proven that it's not needed.
Speaker 1: And you know, climate change is such an all hands
Speaker 1: on deck situation that and you know, it seems so
Speaker 1: unlikely that we're going to you know, cut emissions to
Speaker 1: the degree that's necessary within the timeframe that's required to
Speaker 1: you know, meet two degrees. Uh, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: going to be it's going to be likely that this
Speaker 1: this research is critical and and a lot of people
Speaker 1: are researching this and and uh there was a sort
Speaker 1: of a roadmap for you know, research on carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: removal that came out from the National Academy of Sciences
Speaker 1: two years ago, and uh it sort of paves the
Speaker 1: way for this kind of this kind of research. And
Speaker 1: you know, there some some pretty uh significant voices in
Speaker 1: the climate community were are are calling for this and
Speaker 1: and so you know, if it turns out it is necessary,
Speaker 1: we theoretically the countries need to have a plan for
Speaker 1: how to deploy this kind of technology. And there are
Speaker 1: many different, very complicated technologies, but you know, climate change
Speaker 1: is kind of an all hands on deck situation and
Speaker 1: this certainly would seem to be a part of that,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine that the Biden administration would want
Speaker 1: to continue to support it. That was Bloomberg Law reporter
Speaker 1: Bobby McGill speaking about carbon capture technology. And that's it
Speaker 1: for today's episode of Parts per Billion. If you want more,
Speaker 1: Environmental News. Check us out on Twitter. We use the
Speaker 1: handle at environment just that, just at environment, nothing else.
Speaker 1: I'm at David B. Schultz on Twitter. If you want
Speaker 1: to discuss anything with me, I'll take all comers. Today's
Speaker 1: episode of Parts per Billion was produced by myself and
Speaker 1: Josh Block. Special assistance on this episode came from Anna Yugananov.
Speaker 1: Parser Billion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel.
Speaker 1: The music today's episode is a Message by JESR and
Speaker 1: Nightwalk by Polo County and Benoit Mitdrakowski. They were used
Speaker 1: under a Crenitive Commons license. Thank you everyone for listening.
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