Dig approximately one or two in some parts of the United States and you will start to see the remains of an old ocean. The shells of Dead Sea Creatures are compressed in white limestone, surrounding the salum aquifers with a higher salt content than the Atlantic Ocean.
Last summer, Exxonmobil sponsored one week’s camps to teach students of the primary schools in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi on the virtues of these aquifers, in particular their ability to serve as carbon capture and sequestration wells, where petroleum, gas and heavy industry can bury deep underground harmful emissions. In an exercise, the students had 20 minutes to build a model of model from vegetable oil, play-do, pasta and uncooked beans. Whoever could keep the most vegetable oil (intended to represent liquefied carbon dioxide) in his aquifer, won.
This type of carbon capture boosterism at home is a relatively new development for the oil and gas giant. In recent years, Exxonmobil and other fossil fuels have spent millions of lobbying for government support for them considering a green technology adapted to industry, especially in evidence Carbon capture and storageThat many scientists and environmental activists have argued are ineffective and distract from the elimination of fossil fuel operations in the first place. According to Exxon’s website, this is proof that they direct “the biggest energy transition in history”.
Now that the congress has turned its attention to the return of public spending in renewable energies, it seems that most of the climatic “solutions” which are left to blocking are the privileged by companies with high carbon intensity like Exxon. The fiscal reductions of companies for the capture and storage of carbon, for example, were one of the few things that are not affected when the Republicans of the Chamber adopted a budget bill on May 22 which actually emptied the law on the reduction of inflation, or Ira, the legislation on the climate of the signature of the Biden administration. What remained tax credits on IRA’s own energies are nuclear incentives, so-called clean combustibles such as ethanol and carbon capture. When IRA was adopted in 2022, there was an immediate reaction against carbon capture provisions.
“Essentially, we, the taxpayers, subsidize a private sewer system for petroleum and gas,” said Sandra Steingraber, principal scientist of the non -profit network Science and Environmental Health.
Tax credits for nuclear power plants, which produce energy without emitting greenhouseare intended to stimulate what President Donald Trump hopes to be an “energy renaissance”, reinforced by a wave of pro-nuclear decrees which he delivered one day after the budget bill has erased the Chamber. Projects will be able to use tax credits if they start building by 2031; Wind and solar companies, however, will lose access to tax credits unless they start construction within 60 days of signing the Trump invoice and are fully operational by 2028.
The fact that the carbon capture tax credit has never been in danger of being revoked is a testimony to its importance for the petroleum and gas industry, said Jim Walsh, director of policies for non -profit Water Watch. “The main beneficiaries of these tax credits are oil and gas companies and major agricultural interests.”
The carbon capture tax credit was created for the first time in 2008, but the subsidies were more than doubled when it was classified at IRA in order to bring former senator Joe Manchin to vote by Virginia-Western. Companies now receive $ 60 for each tonne of CO2 captured and used to hunt soil oil (a process known as “improved oil recovery”) and up to $ 85 for a ton of CO2 which is permanently stored. In the United States, around 60% of the C02 captured in the United States is used for improved oil recovery, detractors consider the tax credit as a good Devil case, a provision that supports a taxpayer expenses.
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The quantity of carbon is really captured by these projects is also a question of debate. The tax credit requires companies that claim the self-assessment of the quantity of CO2 which they inject the Internal Revenue Service. The Environmental Protection Agency, on the other hand, is responsible for following leaks. There are tax penalties if the captured carbon ends up fleeing, but these penalties only apply if leaks occur during the first 3 years after injection. The companies that are responsible are made more complicated by the fact that the declarations of income are confidential, and Walsh warns that there is very little communication between the EPA and the IRS. Surveillance is “very, very minimal”, added Anika Juhn, analyst of energy data at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a research company.
“You can keep oil fields really played for a long time, and you can charge the public,” said Carolyn Réfensberger, executive director of the scientific network and environmental health, explaining the potential impact of the budgetary bill. “The argument is therefore:” It is a victory for the climate, it is a victory for the domination of energy. “” [But] It’s really a low-budget buster without railing. »»
The existing carbon capture installations were prey to technical and financial problems. The country’s first commercial carbon sales plant in the country in Decatur, Illinois, won two leaks last year directly under Lake Decatur, which is the main source of drinking water. When the concentrated CO2 strikes the water, it turns into carbonic acid, which then led to the heavy metals of the rocks inside the aquifer and poisons water. Although a certain level of public health concerns comes with many emerging technologies, criticism emphasizes that all these risks are taken for a technology that has not been proven on a large scale and can in fact increase emissions by encouraging more oil and gas production. It could also filter the existing electrical network – the equipment of a natural gas or coal plant with carbon capture equipment can vacuum around 15 to 25% of the power of the power station.
Tax credits exist “to pollute and confuse people,” said Mark Jacobsen, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Stanford, who argued that there is essentially no reasonable use for carbon capture. They “increase people [energy] costs and do nothing for the climate. »»
But technology has its defenders among scientists. The 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called an increase in “inevitable” carbon capture technology if countries want to reach net-zero emissions. Jessie Stolark, Executive Director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, an umbrella organization of fossil fuel companies, unions and environmental groups, argues that arguments like Jacobsen have unnecessarily established technology against renewable energies. “We need all solutions in the toolbox,” she said. “We do not say that these other technologies do not deploy. We see it a lot as a complementary and supporting room in the widest decaruration Toolkit. “”
Stolark said that carbon capture was not classified in the fully unscathed budget process, because the bill specified that companies could no longer sell carbon capture tax credits. The so -called “transferability” – the possibility of selling these tax credits on the free market – was invaluable for small energy startups which had trouble obtaining funding at their beginnings, according to Stolark. The Coalition Carbon Capture urges legislators to restore transferability now that the bill has gone from the Chamber to the Senate.
However, the types of companies likely to claim carbon capture tax credits – often the main players in petroleum and gas, ammonia, steel and other heavy industries – are less likely to rely on transferability than more modest companies (often renewable energy providers), whose lower tax invoices make them more difficult respective tax credits.
“Many factories, power plants, industrial facilities that are deployed in the next ten years, should be these very large [facilities] With big tax burden, “said Dan O’Brien, senior modeling analyst at Energy Innovations, a reflection group on clean energy based in San Francisco.” It is not the type of small producers – like small solar companies – which depend on transferability in order to monetize the tax credit. »»
For some observers, keeping the carbon capture credit looks like a blatant gift from the petroleum and gas industry. Juhn estimated that the credit could end up costing taxpayers more than $ 800 billion by 2040. Given the aggressive cuts of the Chamber Bill to social programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Aid program, Juhn finds the carbon capture credit offensive. “When we watch these other programs, where we are nickel And reduce the advantages for people who could really use them, what does that mean? It’s disgusting. “”
