Described as a call to action for innovation in carbon dioxide removal, in a recent virtual event in United States - Carbon Negative Shot Summit - policymakers, energy officials and advisers did not sugarcoat the climate change realities currently gripping nations. Reaching net zero is no longer enough, they warned. Only sucking CO2 directly from the air to be safely stored underground can move carbon emissions in the right direction. Carbon capture is about industrial innovation. “For some projects it might be straightforward to add on a carbon capture unit. For others, it's a longer and a larger project”.“It is an unsually complex task, with hundreds and hundreds of variables, and we are looking for the optimum”. Storing carbon in saline aquifers miles underground is the most well-established and tested method of safe CO2 storage. Aquifers are made of porous sedimentary rock. Located above these rocks is an impenetrable cap rock that prevents CO2 from escaping. Additional storage techniques are also being tested to store CO2 in basalt and coal seams. In spite of the technlogical and geologycal risks, a recent report (click here) by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change painted a grim picture without direct air capture of CO2. And note that the United States wants to put a price on captured carbon. According to a politician, “At the end of the day, if you don’t have a carbon price, and it is free to pollute, you handicap yourself in terms of a proper market signal that will give the revenue necessary for innovation to really flourish.”. Click below to read article, including some interesting pictures, covering this U.S. Dept. of Energy’s first-ever Carbon Negative Shot Summit that occurred last July 20. Tomorrow we will share an invitation for the 1st Brazilian Congress of CCS coming September. And if interested, click here for a list of CCS-related posts from this blog, including a post from 20 October 2021 titled "Form 45Q, United States: CO2 Sequestration Tax Credit (US House of Representatives)".
