| Post

Exxon touts carbon capture as a climate fix, but uses it to maximize profit and keep oil flowing

Exxon

by Kevin Crowley and Akshat Rathi, Bloomberg


Highlights

  • Carbon captured by Exxon Mobil’s Shute Creek Treating Facility is being sold to other companies that are injecting the carbon into depleted oil fields to help produce more oil
  • Exxon may have claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits due to the tax credit that encouraged companies to capture and store carbon back in 2008
    • The company may have collected $1 billion awarded under the credit over the past decade with nearly $900 million of that amount failing to comply with EPA requirements
  • Exxon is lobbying to eliminate the rule that requires companies to submit carbon monitoring plans to the Environmental Protection Agency in order to claim the carbon credits 
  • Some environmental advocates believe fossil fuel companies are exploiting carbon capture technology to maximize their profits as the carbon they capture can be utilized to pump more oil from the ground in a process referred to as enhanced oil recovery
    • Enhanced oil recovery involves injecting CO2 and water into an oil well which makes the oil easier to move and pump from underground
  • The carbon capture process helps fossil fuels companies retain enough CO2 to keep using the enhanced oil recovery method, which can potentially keep them in business longer
  • The International Energy Agency said recently that carbon capture capacity must soar to 840 million metric tons by 2030, up from about 40 million today in order to have benefits for the environment

Increased air pollution from fossil fuel emissions makes all of us more vulnerable to the current COVID-19 pandemic. For a safe and healthy future for all, endorse the Climate-Safe California Platform to implement scalable solutions that can reverse the climate crisis.


Read More: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25092020/exxon-carbon-capture