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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 2: I'm Olivia Rodgaard, a reporter for Bloomberg Green. I'm currently

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Speaker 2: working on a piece about climate anxiety, and I have

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Speaker 2: request for zero listeners.

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Speaker 3: Climate change can.

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Speaker 2: Cause stress, both of people directly affected by it and

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Speaker 2: for those concerned about its effects on others and their future.

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Speaker 2: If you're okay to share your experience of this, we

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Speaker 2: would love to hear from you. Tell us what makes

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Speaker 2: you worry, how your worries affect your life, and what

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Speaker 2: helps you feel better. Take our short survey. There's a

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Speaker 2: link in the show notes.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week corraling

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Speaker 3: carbon Carefully. This is a climate solutions podcast, and I've

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Speaker 3: talked with experts about all kinds of weird and wonderful solutions,

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Speaker 3: everything from stuff that got to start in a garage

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Speaker 3: to things that make billions of dollars in profit every year.

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Speaker 3: Deploying these solutions means avoiding carbon pollution in the first place.

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Speaker 3: Deploying a solar panel means someone has to burn less coal.

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Speaker 3: But there is a type of climate solution that directly

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Speaker 3: manages those emissions. It's called carbon capture and storage or CCS.

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Speaker 3: As a commercial technology, is being exploited for more than

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Speaker 3: fifty years by the oil and gas industry. Its use

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Speaker 3: for climate purposes is more recent and has often failed.

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Speaker 2: Some say carbon capture is an expensive and misguided distraction

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Speaker 2: in the fight against climate change.

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Speaker 3: The fundamental problem of this industry, which is that it

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Speaker 3: lacks revenue.

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Speaker 1: Carbon capturing storage is a priority for this administration.

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Speaker 3: Over the next two episodes, we will explore the different

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Speaker 3: ways in which carbon pollution can be managed using CCS technologies.

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Speaker 3: It's a crucial time to talk about carbon capture because

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Speaker 3: there's a resurgence in interest. This year, the United Nations

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Speaker 3: Climate Conference COP twenty eight will be hosted in oil

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Speaker 3: dependent United Arab Emirates, and the COP twenty eight president

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Speaker 3: is the CEO of the country's national oil company. He

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Speaker 3: has promised that oil and gas companies will come with

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Speaker 3: credible climate promises at COP twenty eight. Carbon capture and

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Speaker 3: storage has been the oil industry's favorite solution. As you

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Speaker 3: drive out of the Dubai Airport, you are greeted with

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Speaker 3: billboards put up by oil companies advertising CCS. Carbon capture

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Speaker 3: technologies can be put in two big baskets. Those that

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Speaker 3: capture emissions from smokestacks of power plants or industry, and

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Speaker 3: those that attempt the harder challenge of trapping carbon dioxide

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Speaker 3: directly from the air. In all climate models, point source

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Speaker 3: carbon capture from smokestacks is supposed to play a much

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Speaker 3: bigger role in helping the world reach net zero emissions

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Speaker 3: by twenty fifty. After that, carbon capture from the air

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Speaker 3: is supposed to play the bigger role to undo climate damages.

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Speaker 3: This technology is often referred to as carbon dioxide removal,

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Speaker 3: which we will look at more closely next week. For

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Speaker 3: this episode, we will look at coin source carbon capture.

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Speaker 3: It's the technology that's been used by the oil industry

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Speaker 3: since the nineteen seventies to extract more oil. The same

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Speaker 3: process can also be used for climate good if the

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Speaker 3: trap pollution is simply put into the ground without extracting

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Speaker 3: more fossil fuels. The US is a country that has

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Speaker 3: deployed csious technologies the most under President Donald Trump and

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Speaker 3: Joe Biden. There has been growing support for the technology

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Speaker 3: in the form of billions of dollars in new incentives,

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Speaker 3: But given the string of failures that have dotted the

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Speaker 3: use of carbon capture for climate good, is it a

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Speaker 3: waste of money.

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Speaker 1: Carbon capture technologies are precious, They're incredibly energy intensive. They

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Speaker 1: involve a lot of demand for storage that takes a

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Speaker 1: lot from the communities that host it. We really need

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Speaker 1: to be extremely pointed with where we're talking about deploying this.

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Speaker 3: This is Emily Grubert, a professor at the University of

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Speaker 3: Notre Dame and one of the leading experts on CCS.

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Speaker 3: I wanted to ask her whether point source carbon capture

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Speaker 3: will work this time, which sectors deserve the use of ccs,

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Speaker 3: and whether the oil and gas industry is necessary for

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Speaker 3: deploying this technology. So I first got into writing about

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Speaker 3: climate solutions back in twenty seventeen, and I started with

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Speaker 3: carbon capture and it was just sort of an idea

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Speaker 3: that my editor had, Well, Trump's talking about it, What

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Speaker 3: is this thing? Can you write about it? And it

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Speaker 3: became so quickly, so complicated. Yeah, but I ended up

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Speaker 3: spending in an entire year just trying to understand and

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Speaker 3: write about the set of technologies that exist within this sphere.

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Speaker 3: What's your story about getting interested in carbon capture.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, carbon capture specifically is an interesting one. I think

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Speaker 1: a big piece of how I got this involved with

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Speaker 1: thinking about carbon captures that I was asked to run

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Speaker 1: the Office of Carbon Management for the DOE a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago. But I think that happened because I've

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Speaker 1: been kind of a fossil oriented academic that works on

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Speaker 1: climate mitigation for a long time. Where that really comes

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Speaker 1: from is I grew up around the oil industry. So

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Speaker 1: my dad's a petroleum engineer. On the other side, my

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Speaker 1: grandfather and my great grandfather also were in oil kind

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Speaker 1: of going way back in California, and so I grew

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Speaker 1: up around the industry and kind of understood it from

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Speaker 1: that perspective, and really as it became a lot more

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Speaker 1: clear that climate change was this massive, massive thing as

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Speaker 1: I was kind of getting into high school and beyond.

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Speaker 1: Bringing those two things together has kept me really interested

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Speaker 1: in what transition looks like, and particularly in what phase

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Speaker 1: out looks like. So a lot of the work that

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Speaker 1: I do is around how you kind of safely transition

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Speaker 1: away from fossil fuels in a way that allows us

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Speaker 1: not to have a bunch of industrial explosions and things

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Speaker 1: like that.

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Speaker 3: Now we're going to talk about a number of things

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Speaker 3: that are going to involve many acronyms like CDR, CCS,

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Speaker 3: CCUS E R DAC. Before we get into all that complication,

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Speaker 3: let's just define the large umbrella term that is carbon capture.

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Speaker 3: What set of technologies come underneath it. How do you

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Speaker 3: think about that technology set?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so carbon capture. The way that I think

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Speaker 1: about it is when you have some sort of mechanical

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Speaker 1: or chemical intervention to separate carbon dioxide from some other

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Speaker 1: set of gases. Sometimes it's at very very high concentration,

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Speaker 1: as with ethanol, where you may have essentially a ninety

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Speaker 1: nine percent pure CO two stream coming off of a process.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it's directly from the air, where you know you're

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Speaker 1: about four hundred and twenty parts per million. Basically, I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of other kinds of technologies or approaches

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Speaker 1: that we think about that can take CO two out

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Speaker 1: of the I typically don't define as carbon capture. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, when you have like a reforestation project, we

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Speaker 1: consider that as something where the trees are pulling CO

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Speaker 1: two out of the air. But I typically wouldn't call

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Speaker 1: that carbon capture, even though it can provide some of

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Speaker 1: the similar functions.

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Speaker 3: So let's do the abbreviations right. CCS is carbon capture

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Speaker 3: and storage, but then there are all these other variations.

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Speaker 3: What are the other acronyms you come across? And why

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Speaker 3: is there such a plethora of abbreviations in this industry?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the kind of silly answer I feel

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Speaker 1: like is a lot of these are really long words,

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Speaker 1: and people get tired of writing them a bunch of times.

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Speaker 1: But carbon capture and storage, like you say, typically is

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Speaker 1: how we would define CCS. People will also sometimes say

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Speaker 1: carbon capture and sequestration, same thing. Essentially. CCUS often also

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Speaker 1: comes up as even more of an umbrella term. So

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Speaker 1: carbon capture, utilization and storage. That also gets very complicated

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Speaker 1: because some utilization is storage, some utilization is not storage.

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Speaker 1: But that's another term that you'll see a lot. Then

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Speaker 1: CDR carbon dioxide removal is an interesting one because it

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Speaker 1: doesn't really refer to technologies. It refers to an atmospheric

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Speaker 1: function where you're taking CO two out of the atmosphere

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Speaker 1: and storing it away. It includes a number of CCS

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Speaker 1: technologies though, and so you often kind of see it

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Speaker 1: in this category. One of those is direct air capture DAK.

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Speaker 1: Usually we talk about it as direct air capture with

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Speaker 1: carbon capture and storage, So DAX is a term that

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Speaker 1: you'll often see, and then I think one of the

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Speaker 1: ones that shows up quite frequently that isn't really about

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Speaker 1: the CCS element is ER or enhanced oil recovery. EOR.

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Speaker 1: Can be done in a number of different ways. This

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Speaker 1: is basically usually referring to using a fluid to increase

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Speaker 1: pressure and kind of drive oil out of a reservoir.

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Speaker 1: When you do it with CO two, that's considered to

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Speaker 1: be kind of a direct working fluid utilization for CO two,

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Speaker 1: and so you'll see it pop up around CCS as well.

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Speaker 3: Today we are talking about point source carbon capture, which

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Speaker 3: is basically capturing carbon pollution from smokestacks. When first used commercially,

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Speaker 3: the oil and gas industry used it for something called

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Speaker 3: enhanced oil recovery or EOR. It's when compressed carbon dioxide

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Speaker 3: can be used as a perfect lubricant to push out

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Speaker 3: the hardest to reach oil in aging wells. I asked

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Speaker 3: Emily why that origin has affected the development of the technology.

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Speaker 1: CO two e R or enhanced oil recovery, has been around,

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Speaker 1: I think even longer than we've been talking about CCS

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Speaker 1: as a climate mitigation technology in the United States. When

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Speaker 1: we use CO two EO r. Most of that is

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Speaker 1: actually using natural CO two that we extract from domes,

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Speaker 1: and so because that was already something people were doing

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Speaker 1: basically to give new life to certain oil fields, and

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Speaker 1: actually finding that CO two underground, putting it in a

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Speaker 1: pipeline and moving it to your oil field is not

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Speaker 1: cheap particularly, and so once the climate conversation started to

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Speaker 1: get a little bit louder, kind of you know, in

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Speaker 1: the nineties or even a little bit longer after that,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of interest in the notion that

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Speaker 1: you might be able to do some pollution control that

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Speaker 1: would also allow you to do this oil production via er.

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Speaker 1: So because there was this existing structure, there's an existing

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Speaker 1: demand for CO two associated with oil production, and there

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Speaker 1: seemed to be an opportunity where a lot of capital

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Speaker 1: might be available to do this, most of the projects

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Speaker 1: that really got going were associated with you are also

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Speaker 1: because somebody was willing to pay for the CO two.

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Speaker 1: That paying for the CO two bit has been quite

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Speaker 1: relevant for a long time and is part of the

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Speaker 1: reason why people are excited about alternative ways to make

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Speaker 1: this viable.

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Speaker 3: Point source carbon capture. The technology has been around for

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Speaker 3: fifty years and clearly the urgency of using it for

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Speaker 3: climate purposes has been growing, especially in the recent decades.

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Speaker 3: But just to situate the listener, where are we on

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Speaker 3: that progress metric of being able to use this technology

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Speaker 3: for putting us on the track to be net zero?

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Speaker 1: So the technologies have been around for around fifty years,

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Speaker 1: but they haven't been around in a climate oriented way

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Speaker 1: for that long. But yeah, in terms of where they

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Speaker 1: actually are and how they putent contribute to net zero,

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Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of things going on here.

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Speaker 1: One is that the kinds of carbon capture and storage

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Speaker 1: that we use for emissions mitigation in the sense that

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Speaker 1: we're reducing emissions from something that's creating them, whether that's

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Speaker 1: a power plant or a cement factory or a stealel

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Speaker 1: mill or something like that that has the potential to

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Speaker 1: reduce emissions. Hypothetically, it has the potential to eliminate emissions.

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Speaker 1: But generally speaking, when we look at those types of

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Speaker 1: mitigative carbon capture on point sources, they're not going to

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Speaker 1: get the CO two all the way down to zero.

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Speaker 1: So they've typically been thought of as a way to

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Speaker 1: decarbonized processes that kind of fundamentally have CO two associated

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Speaker 1: with them, largely power, but increasingly we look at this

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Speaker 1: maybe more for industrial applications where there aren't obvious other

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Speaker 1: mitigation strategies, especially because power has a lot of other

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Speaker 1: decarbonization options now that we have things like wind and

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Speaker 1: solar kind of readily available. The other big piece of this, though,

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Speaker 1: is carbon dioxide removal, which actually takes CO two that's

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Speaker 1: already in the air out of the air and stores

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Speaker 1: it out of the end atmosphere. That one is exceptionally

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Speaker 1: relevant to net zero strategies because it basically generates a

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Speaker 1: negative emission. Direct air capture with storage is actually a

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Speaker 1: really potentially important technology when we think about net zero

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Speaker 1: because it does create these negative emissions. You can't have

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Speaker 1: net zero without a negative.

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Speaker 3: If you look at the next thirty years, say between

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Speaker 3: now and twenty fifty, when we need to reach net zero.

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Speaker 3: What we see in climate models is that the bulk

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Speaker 3: of the work that is done towards mitigation first starts

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Speaker 3: off with point source carbon capture, and none of the

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Speaker 3: technologies that we have towards mitigation right now, CCS being

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Speaker 3: one of them, are things that we are on track

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Speaker 3: for net zero. Solar and wind and electric cars their

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Speaker 3: adoption is growing pretty rapidly. Point source carbon capture, on

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Speaker 3: the other hand, has been around for fifty years, and

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Speaker 3: yet the gap between where we are, which is about

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Speaker 3: thirty to forty million tons of capture globally versus what

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Speaker 3: we should be on for net zero by time twenty

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Speaker 3: and fifty, there's a ten x difference. Why is that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think part of the reason is that carbon

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Speaker 1: capture on something like a powerplant, on something like a

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Speaker 1: cement plant is a pure cost. You are not getting

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Speaker 1: any benefits from those types of things really beyond the

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Speaker 1: CO two reductions, and so if you're not required to

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Speaker 1: do it, you're not going to do it. Probably generally,

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Speaker 1: when you talk about retrofitting a plant with CCS, you're

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Speaker 1: talking about kind of a hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 1: to billions of dollar retrofit that involves your plant being

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Speaker 1: down for maybe years. It's not an easy thing to

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Speaker 1: do and it's not required. Looking at CCS in particular

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Speaker 1: is an interesting one because in many cases where models

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Speaker 1: suggest that CCS could be helpful, there are probably alternatives,

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Speaker 1: and so you can have a wind farm instead of

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Speaker 1: a coal plant, you can have a solar plant with

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Speaker 1: batteries instead of a gas plant. Those are alternatives that

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Speaker 1: we could do. If CCS is not really showing up

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Speaker 1: in areas where there's not really a lot of other

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Speaker 1: mitigation options, then I think those are the places we

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Speaker 1: probably need to be focusing on deployment. Potentially, this varies

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Speaker 1: a lot from country to country. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: dynamics like that around just what it means to retrofit

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Speaker 1: a plant and whether you have other alternatives for mitigating

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Speaker 1: those emissions.

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Speaker 3: The nice thing, if there is one nice thing about

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Speaker 3: all this, is that all these experiments have been happening

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Speaker 3: around the world in different places. But let's focus on

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Speaker 3: the US, because the US is where carbon captures of technology,

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Speaker 3: both for climate purposes or for other purposes, has been

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Speaker 3: scaled up. It is the country with the largest deployment

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Speaker 3: of carbon capture technologies. It has the largest carbon dioxide

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Speaker 3: pipeline network. It also has some of the most generous

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Speaker 3: incentives now, both under Donald Trump's administration and under Joe

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Speaker 3: Biden's administration. So what are the thorny issues that have

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Speaker 3: still held this back?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, fascinating question, And I think one of the

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Speaker 1: things about the US that I just want to make

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Speaker 1: super clear to people that might not be pre familiar

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Speaker 1: with this. Also, I'm a little not caught up quite

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Speaker 1: exactly on where China is with some of their projects

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Speaker 1: that have been announced versus whether they're online. But we

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Speaker 1: are definitely top tier in terms of projects that have

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Speaker 1: been deployed. That still means there's like ten of them.

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Speaker 1: This is not something that exists in a real way.

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Speaker 1: We have never done a full demonstration of carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: capture on a full scale power plant. We have one

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Speaker 1: operating slipstream on a single unit, so it's part of

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Speaker 1: one unit of a multi unit plant that was offline

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Speaker 1: for a while because of a fire and some other issues.

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Speaker 1: But this is not something that's widely deployed. It exists,

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Speaker 1: We've tested it, We have a couple of examples, like

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Speaker 1: on ethanol plants and things like that, but this is

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Speaker 1: not something that's widely deployed, even if it's more than

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Speaker 1: what a lot of other places see. But I think

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Speaker 1: really the core reason why we haven't seen a lot

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Speaker 1: more of it is this issue of it not being required.

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Speaker 1: You alluded to the CO two pipeline network in the

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Speaker 1: US being very large comparatively. That's true, but it's oriented

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Speaker 1: around the CO two that we're producing naturally from ground resources.

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Speaker 1: It's not really about the climate pieces of this, and

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Speaker 1: so a lot of the infrastructure we have is kind

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Speaker 1: of cobbled together because of these historical associations with oil production.

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Speaker 1: And now we do expect to see more deployment exactly

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Speaker 1: like you say, because there have been some really big

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Speaker 1: incentives announced in the last couple of years. But we'll

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Speaker 1: see what that uptake looks like, because again it's it's

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Speaker 1: not required, and it is something where even with that incentive,

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Speaker 1: it's still pretty disruptive for a lot of people. I

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Speaker 1: will say too, it's interesting because we talk a lot

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Speaker 1: about the increased incentive for carbon storage, which is really

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Speaker 1: what we're paying for. There's the incentive is per ton

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Speaker 1: of CO two that you put underground for the most part,

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Speaker 1: but that incentive has been around for a while. I

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Speaker 1: think it was initially introduced in around two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: and what the Inflation Reduction Act did was jump that

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Speaker 1: value for that tax credit from about fifty dollars a

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Speaker 1: ton to about eighty five dollars a ton when you

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Speaker 1: look at inflation over that period. Though it's really not

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Speaker 1: that big of an increase, and so it's an interesting

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Speaker 1: question to see exactly where people go with this, and

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Speaker 1: probably it does incentivize the people with the highest concentrations

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Speaker 1: of CO two most.

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Speaker 3: Let's try and take an example of a project to

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Speaker 3: unravel some of these complications, and you already hinted at

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Speaker 3: that project, which is Petronova. This is a point source

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Speaker 3: carbon capture unit set up on a coal power plant

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Speaker 3: south of Houston in Texas. As you said, it takes

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Speaker 3: only a portion of the emissions of that power plant

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Speaker 3: and captures it and then pipes it a few tens

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Speaker 3: of kilometers away for enhanced all recovery, which is essentially

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Speaker 3: using the CO two to extract more oil. It was

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Speaker 3: built on time, it was built within the budget. It

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Speaker 3: had received direct money from the US Department of Energy

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Speaker 3: towards some of its construction, a small portion, not the

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Speaker 3: majority of the construction cost. It ran for a few years,

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Speaker 3: then it stopped, and now it's been restarted. Us through

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Speaker 3: exactly what this project is, why it worked in the

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Speaker 3: first place, why it stopped, and what does it tell

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Speaker 3: us about the future of CCS projects.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting one, and I think one of

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Speaker 1: the major critiques of Petronova has been, like you say,

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Speaker 1: it was built on time and on budget, but the

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Speaker 1: climate benefits of that project are quite questionable, both because

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Speaker 1: you know, it's essentially extending the life probably of a

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Speaker 1: coal plant if it's super successful. They had to build

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Speaker 1: an extra natural gas unit to power the capture unit

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Speaker 1: because again this is extraordinarily energy intensive and the CO

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Speaker 1: two is being used for oil recovery. So that's not

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Speaker 1: really a project that is oriented around massive climate benefits,

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Speaker 1: but it is a technology demonstration. Essentially. The history is

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Speaker 1: we as a country supported this demonstration project on I

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Speaker 1: think a two hundred and forty megawatt slipstream on a

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Speaker 1: six hundred megawat unit at Parish, which is this coal

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Speaker 1: plant in Texas that was coupled to enhanced oil recovery,

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Speaker 1: and at the beginning of the pandemic, oil price started

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Speaker 1: to fall and they essentially said, we can't afford to

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Speaker 1: keep this plant running anymore because we were counting on

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Speaker 1: the revenue associated with the oil being produced based on

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Speaker 1: our CO two that we are getting paid for. Essentially

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Speaker 1: closed it as a result of those dropped oil prices,

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Speaker 1: which made a lot of people realize that these projects

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Speaker 1: were highly highly dependent on ongoing oil production in the

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Speaker 1: way that they were set up. About a year and

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Speaker 1: a half ago, I want to say, the unit that

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Speaker 1: the carbon capture project was installed on caught fire, which

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Speaker 1: delayed their ability to restart. But as of mid September

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three this year, they have restarted it

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Speaker 1: from what I understand, and I believe that it is

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Speaker 1: still coupled to enhanced oil recovery.

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Speaker 3: Technology demonstration is important, so it's not money that is

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Speaker 3: poorly spent, but can you try and separate why having

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Speaker 3: these projects run for a while, even if to show

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Speaker 3: that the tech works is not enough.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm such a broken record on this, but I

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Speaker 1: think the core point is basically, we're not going to

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Speaker 1: see major progress on climate until we have a requirement

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Speaker 1: to act on climate. We have a bit of a

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Speaker 1: policy history in the United States of saying, go do

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Speaker 1: something before we know the tech works, and then not

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Speaker 1: having that work out, and so it is important to

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Speaker 1: actually make sure the technologies work. That said, I think

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Speaker 1: one of the major critiques that I have of the

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Speaker 1: way that the US in particular has approached technology demonstrations

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Speaker 1: is that we're not necessarily choosing the things that are

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Speaker 1: going to teach us the most in ways that are

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Speaker 1: useful for long term climate benefits. In particular, the BIPART

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Speaker 1: is an infrastructure law, Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act that

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Speaker 1: passed a couple of years ago, mandates two demonstrations of

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Speaker 1: ccs on coal fired power plants. The US's coal fleet

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Speaker 1: is very old, like mostly approaching end of life. There

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Speaker 1: are very few power plants that have even been built

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Speaker 1: in the last decade. I think actually now that it's

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, there are no large coal fired power

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Speaker 1: plants built in the last decade. These are old pieces

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Speaker 1: of infrastructure, and so if you demonstrate a retrofit on

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Speaker 1: a fifty year old coal plant, first of all, if

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Speaker 1: that works, you're probably making that plant stick around longer.

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Speaker 1: Most of these plants closed at around fifty years. But

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Speaker 1: second of all, you're not necessarily learning anything that's going

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Speaker 1: to take you past one technology generation. We're not building

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Speaker 1: new coal fired power plants, and so if you learn

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Speaker 1: how to do this really well, it's not like that's

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Speaker 1: going to help you on new plants. A lot of

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Speaker 1: the time, the argument as well, if the US does it,

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Speaker 1: maybe other countries can use that, but other countries are

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Speaker 1: not using nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies pulverized coal technologies

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Speaker 1: and having to do retrofits. So certainly you learn something

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Speaker 1: from it, but if you learn something that you didn't

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Speaker 1: need to know, I'm not sure that that's super super

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Speaker 1: helpful in some of the areas where we're looking at,

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Speaker 1: you know, can we demonstrate this on a natural gas

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Speaker 1: fired power plant, or can we demonstrate this for a

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Speaker 1: cement facility or something along those lines. I think those

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Speaker 1: are much better oriented around things that might see maybe

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Speaker 1: one or two technology generations as opposed to zero or one.

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Speaker 1: But we have not historically been surgical in the way

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Speaker 1: that we choose tech demos.

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Speaker 3: After the break, Emily tells me how she would invest

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Speaker 3: the billions of dollars available for point source cobon capture. So,

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Speaker 3: if you were given a blank check and also all

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Speaker 3: the power to be able to make policy, how would

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Speaker 3: you go about trying to build both the incentive system

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Speaker 3: in subsidies but also the policy is required to enable

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Speaker 3: cloun capture technology to play a crucial role, as many

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Speaker 3: of the models say it must to try and reduce

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Speaker 3: emissions for.

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Speaker 1: The United States, I think i'd move entirely away from

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Speaker 1: CCS in the power sector. On some of the other things, though,

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Speaker 1: I think from a policy perspective, I would move to

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Speaker 1: a much more regulatorily oriented one and out of a

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Speaker 1: market based scenario. Most specifically, what I would do is

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Speaker 1: really go kind of industry by industry, determine which sectors

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Speaker 1: don't have another pathway in the kinds of time frames

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Speaker 1: that we're looking at. Where I land on that is

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Speaker 1: essentially just the cement industry, which is quite small. It's

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Speaker 1: about forty million tons a year in the United States,

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Speaker 1: about point seven percent of emissions. There are possibilities that

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Speaker 1: we might be able to replace cement chemistries in the

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Speaker 1: maybe even medium term, but I think that those are

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Speaker 1: the ones where there's the least opportunity for alternative mitigation

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Speaker 1: processes and then basically put the rest of attention into

439
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: CDR oriented CCS projects.

440
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 3: So two aspects of that that I would like to

441
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 3: touch upon. One is that among the suite of technologies

442
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 3: that can cut emissions, carbon capture has been one of

443
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 3: those technologies which in the US has received bipartisan support.

444
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 3: And one reason that's happened is because it is said,

445
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 3: and that's true just from looking at the numbers, that

446
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 3: the oil and gas industry can play a big role

447
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 3: in being a part of the solution by scaling up

448
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 3: carbon capture technologies. But then there's a different set of

449
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 3: voices that say, well, it is this industry that has

450
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 3: stopped us from doing as much as we can on

451
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:05,160
Speaker 3: using emissions by delaying, by lobbying against regulations. So why

452
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 3: should we expect that this industry will suddenly turn around

453
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,919
Speaker 3: and actually make use of their skill set for actual

454
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 3: climate purposes. So where do you land on the role

455
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 3: of oil companies in carbon capture?

456
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, oil companies themselves I don't think are particularly necessary

457
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 1: or needed. I agree that there are some technical skills

458
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: that people have, and those people may have come through

459
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: the oil and gas industries. This is largely around subsurface mapping,

460
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: but it's much more about the technical expertise than about

461
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 1: the companies themselves. I think that what history does kind

462
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 1: of show is that there has not been a great

463
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: track record for oil and gas companies or coal companies

464
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: for that matter, which are also very excited about ccs,

465
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: largely because it's so energy intensive that if you add

466
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 1: ccs to a coal plant, for example, you're roughly doubling

467
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: the amount of coal you need. Those kinds of things

468
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: are real incentives for the extraction industries that I think

469
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: we overlook. Sometimes a large buildout of ccs on gas

470
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 1: plants would dramatically increase the demand for gas. Large build

471
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: out for coal would dramatically increase the demand for coal,

472
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: And so these incentive structures are not very well aligned

473
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: with climate action. I think we do need to in

474
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: general separate where we're talking about skill sets and where

475
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: we're talking about actual corporate structures and corporate priorities. Though

476
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: I mean, frankly, I think when we think about the

477
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: kinds of ccs that are actually sort of quote unquote

478
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 1: necessary in the sense that it would be very difficult

479
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 1: to reach and at zero without something like direct air

480
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 1: capture and storage, It would be very difficult to decarbonize

481
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 1: the cement industry without a small amount of mitigative ccs.

482
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: Things like that, those are not the kinds of applications

483
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: that the oil and gas companies are necessarily super good at.

484
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,679
Speaker 1: So I think when we really look at what this means, Yeah,

485
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: doing a bunch of deployment in the power sector absolutely

486
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: would be engaging a lot of the skills that the

487
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: oil and gas companies already have and that the coal

488
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: companies to some extent already have, But we don't necessarily

489
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: need to do that. Who do we need for what

490
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: and why? I think is always a really good question

491
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 1: to ask in these situations, especially when there are some

492
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: really really long standing power dynamics that we know have

493
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: gone a specific direction.

494
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 3: Many times, we know that when you have facilities either

495
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 3: processing oil and gas or power plants that are burning

496
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 3: fossil fuels, the areas around it do suffer from pollution.

497
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 3: This is local pollution that needs to be tackled, and

498
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 3: carbon capture doesn't particularly lend itself to making sure that

499
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,399
Speaker 3: that happens. But what are other environmental justice issues that

500
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 3: we should keep in mind as we think about building

501
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 3: out carbon capture projects.

502
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple of really big ones. I think. One

503
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 1: is that when you retrofit a facility with carbon capture,

504
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: the counterfactual might not be that that facility would have

505
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,880
Speaker 1: continued to operate as it always had. But I think

506
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: when you look at these a lot of the time,

507
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: if you didn't install the carbon capture, the alternative would

508
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: be that the plant would close, eliminating all of those

509
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:00,040
Speaker 1: pollutants rather than reducing them. And that's going to a

510
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 1: little bit site by site. But I think that from

511
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: an environmental justice perspective, recognizing that we're not just talking

512
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,400
Speaker 1: about marginal pollution levels, we're actually talking about like whether

513
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: the facility is still there or not, is a really

514
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: big one. And oftentimes, yeah, like with a retrofit, you're

515
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: dealing with plants that have not necessarily been good neighbors.

516
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: Many of them have explicitly not been good neighbors for

517
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: a very long time. And so especially when you think

518
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:23,360
Speaker 1: about carbon capture coming in a lot of the time,

519
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: the community kind of recognizes, you know, we finally thought

520
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: that this thing was going to go away, and now

521
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: you're saying it's going to be here for another fifty years.

522
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: Like that's it's a hard thing to think about. I

523
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: think the biggest concern that people have expressed is really

524
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: around pipelines and thinking about moving CO two through communities,

525
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: especially if they're co located with existing pipelines, because it's

526
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: easier to get right of ways that way. That sort

527
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: of thing you do end up adding to burden and

528
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: existing overburdened communities. Many times we don't really have CO

529
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: two pipeline regulations in the United States, and a lot

530
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: of the time the kinds of things you need to

531
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: do if there is a rupture or an accident are

532
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: quite different from what people are trained to do. These

533
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: are not flammable gases. They freeze. COO two is what

534
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: we use in fire extinguishers, and so when you can

535
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: think about a pipeline rupturing, you basically fire extinguishing area.

536
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: That means trucks can't run, so like your ems, ambulances,

537
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: whatever internal combustion engines cannot go through that, you can

538
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: end up a scuffocation risks those types of issues, and

539
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 1: so people are quite worried about that, particularly in the

540
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: kind of unregulated space that we exist in. And then

541
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of questions about whether development of

542
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 1: these kinds of infrastructures also means a lot more industrialization

543
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: to take advantage of those, and that again kind of

544
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,719
Speaker 1: concentrates this burden in the same places all over again.

545
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 3: This is an application of electric vehicles that I had

546
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 3: not thought about, which is if you have COO two rupture,

547
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 3: which means CO two being a heavier gas, is going

548
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 3: to sort of displace all other gases. You're going to

549
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 3: have no oxygen or low oxygen, which means you cannot

550
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 3: burn oiler gas, and thus you can't run an internal

551
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 3: combustion engine, and so you can't get the emergency equipment

552
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 3: coming to you. Wow, that's a situation I had not

553
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 3: imagined electric vehicles would be like the solution for. But hey,

554
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 3: when you have a technology that can do things, it

555
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 3: ends up in places you wouldn't think of. But coming

556
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: back to thinking about the solutions that you raise this

557
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 3: idea that we should focus on using carbon capture for

558
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 3: what it's really needed, and much of the focus then

559
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 3: should be on direct air capture as a technology. Now,

560
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 3: that technology requires also a ton of energy. That's why

561
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 3: it is so expensive. It requires even more energy than

562
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 3: would be needed from point source carbon capture. And yet

563
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 3: it's also a technology without which we cannot reach on

564
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 3: at zero goals. And so there is an exuberance currently

565
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 3: both from governments but also in private sector to try

566
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 3: and scale this technology. And that is well informed in

567
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 3: the sense that technologies that will be needed after twenty

568
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: fifty yet very big scales ought to start to be

569
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 3: developed today. But there's also this sort of fear, which is,

570
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 3: if you end up spending a lot of money but

571
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 3: also intellectual capital on these technologies, then you're not focusing

572
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 3: on the stuff that needs to be focused on right now,

573
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 3: which is to reduce the emissions we are putting out today.

574
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 3: So how do you think about the development of direct

575
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 3: air capture and related Commondact side removal technologies with those

576
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 3: caveats in place.

577
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: Director capture itself is not necessary for reaching that zero,

578
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: but CDR in some form is in direct air capture

579
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: seems to be one of the ones that we're a

580
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: little bit more able to track and we can say

581
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: for sure that it's actually potentially removing these emissions, so

582
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: it is an important one there. I think where I

583
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: come from on director capture is very much thinking about

584
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: where it's needed as well. So it's not just sort of,

585
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: you know, do we need mitigative carabing capture? Do we

586
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: need CDR? It's also how much what do we need

587
00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: it for? These kinds of questions, And I think that

588
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: when you really start thinking about how we minimize the

589
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: amount of carbon dioxide removal that's actually necessary so that

590
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,239
Speaker 1: we make sure that we're actually investing in mitigating those

591
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: emissions as quickly as we possibly can. Because this is

592
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: a cumulative game, not a kind of marginal game. It

593
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if we end up emitting as high as

594
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 1: we are now until twenty fifty and then suddenly go

595
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: to net zero. Like that's not a great pathway, can't

596
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: do that anyway. But there are a lot of reasons

597
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: to reduce cumulative emissions much quicker. But thinking about director

598
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: capture and how much of it we actually need to

599
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: reach net zero goals, assuming that we hit all of

600
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: these mitigation targets, leads you to a very different picture

601
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: of how much is necessary versus if you think about

602
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: director capture is a way to kind of offset ongoing

603
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: emissions from a lot of things that we probably could

604
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: be mitigating. So you know, using director capture to offset

605
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: the ongoing emissions of a coal plant, for example, is

606
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: kind of a ridiculous thing to do. So really, I

607
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: think being tactical in understanding how much we need and

608
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: really thinking about the governance of what carbon dioxide removal

609
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: and director capture and storage in particular look like, I

610
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: think is where we really need to be dedicating our

611
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: time now. I do think that it's easy to forget.

612
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: The twenty fifties only about twenty five years away, so

613
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: it probably is worth really trying to understand whether these

614
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: technologies can deliver the things that we are counting on

615
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: them too. Like, if we're going to rely on some CDR,

616
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: we should probably find out if that works. But I

617
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: think that we are rushing a little bit too quickly

618
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,959
Speaker 1: to marketize and commodify carbon credits associated with director capture

619
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: at a point where it's a lot more important to

620
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: be thinking about what do we actually do to get

621
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: to net zero? Does this technology work, and how can

622
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: we plug it into an overall regime that gets us there.

623
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 3: If you had a minute, and that's all you have

624
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 3: to let somebody know what they must know about carbon capture,

625
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 3: what would you say?

626
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: Carbon capture technologies are precious, They're incredibly energy intensive, They

627
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: involve a lot of demand for storage that takes a

628
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: lot from the communities that host it. As such, I

629
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: think we really need to be extremely pointed with where

630
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: we're talking about deploying this, And I think my single

631
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: biggest point is there are a lot of different ways

632
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: this could go. Some of them are much less harmful

633
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: than others, and really focusing on where this is absolutely

634
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: necessary and promotes justice is going to get us to

635
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: a much better place than essentially trying to maximize it.

636
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 3: Wonderful. This has been really fun. Thank you so much

637
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 3: for making the time absolutely thank you. If you want

638
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 3: to learn more about the limits of carbon capture and storage,

639
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 3: you should check out a link in the show notes.

640
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 3: It's a story that I recently published alongside my colleagues

641
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 3: Natasha White and Kevin Crowley about the oil giant Occidental Petroleum.

642
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 3: The US company until recently operated one of the world's

643
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 3: largest CCS plants, but quietly sold the asset after a

644
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 3: decade of underperformance. I hope the investigation prompts a reality

645
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 3: check for the true potential of CCS. Thank you for

646
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 3: listening to Zero. If you liked this episode, please take

647
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 3: a moment to rate our review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

648
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 3: If you write a review, I might read it on

649
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 3: a future episode. Share this episode with a friend or

650
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 3: your local fossil oriented academic. You can get in touch

651
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 3: at zero pod at Bloomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is

652
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 3: Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine Riskell. Our theme

653
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 3: music is composed by wonderly special thanks to Kira bindrim

654
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 3: i'm Akshatrati back next week