Fuel to the fire

What?

https://www.boell.de/en/2019/02/13/fuel-fire

Summary

Notes

Summary

  • Investigating the role of the fossil fuel industry in dev, patenting and promoting geoengineering technologies
  • IPCC models are increasingly relying on large scale CDR
  • Most direct air CDR techs are used to produce fuel or enhanced oil recovery ... = preserve existing systems of energy and transport. Direct air capture is energy intensive
  • Most geoengineering rely on CCS:
    • used for enhanced oil recovery: 40% more coal and millions of additional barrels by 2040 alone according to proponents of the tech
  • Carbon mineralization = infeasible scale. It would help monetize hazardous waste from the coal industry.
  • BECCS cannot be scaled without impact on food security.
  • Oil Co. use it to justify business as usual
  • SRM is dangerous
  • Has been researched as profit stream by Oil Companies
  • Link with acid rain and ozone depletion
  • Fossil fuel interests are raising the visibility of SRM, to allow business as ususal
  • Geoeng is an excuse for not taking action

Part 2 - Geoengineering: Carbon Dioxide Removal, Solar Radiation Management, and Beyond

  • P9 - There are other techs than SRM and CDR
  • CDR looks local impact, but wide scale development would reshape the planet: massive geological storage of CO2, land-use change, change in marine ecosystems
  • CDR will entrench fossil fuel interests: they own the technologies. IPCC makes it clear we need to transition is just allowing the system to continue
  • CSS is essential to most methods

Part 3 - History of fossil fuels and weather modification

  • experiments with weather modifs: 1930s / Rain predicatbility
  • Cold war: projects to melt the arctic
  • 1940's oil industry looking at weather modification to protect assets from hurricanes in teh golf of mexico
  • ...
  • Weather modification and geoengineering exist on a spectrum
๐Ÿค”
Don't forget to mention weather modifications

Part4 - CCS is everywhere

  • CCS technologies are developed, funded and owned by oil companies
  • Primary use of CO2 is for enhanced recovery
  • incentivizing CSS will slow the transition away from fossil fuels: it is in the interest of those doing CSS to continue burning coal and pumping oil
  • CSS is also needed for SRM scenarios: to remove excess CO2 and mitigate termination problem
  • CSS techs have been around for over 70years. Exxon even recognized it could be used to address climate change in the 80s. But it was develop to increase profits (enhanced oil recovery)
  • EOR is key to profitable CCS. Even the proponents of the tech admit: other markets (like chemicals or platiscs based on captured carbon) are very small compared to the quantities we need to store
  • There are only 2 CCS worldwide: coal plants + EOR
  • Even EOR resevoirs are not large enough for what we need to store
  • In any case: oil and gas reserves exceed the total remaining carbon budget
  • The entire process is emissions positive (not negative)
  • For the coal industry: it is more a matter of survival