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🗞️ Driving the news: While a handful of global CCS ventures currently capture around 40 million tons of CO2 annually — a mere fraction of UK's yearly emissions — doubts persist due to the technology's early stage, casting uncertainty on its crucial role in the net-zero transition, as indicated by the International Energy Agency
🔭 The context: Despite concerns about the industry's readiness, effectiveness, and cost efficiency, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) — a process that captures CO2 at its origin, liquifies it, and buries it subterraneously for millennia — is gaining relevance as a crucial tool in attaining net zero emissions concerns about the industry's readiness, effectiveness, and cost
🌎 Why does it matter for the planet: The reliance on CCS might permit polluting industries to continue their emissions instead of shifting towards cleaner alternatives
• This is worrisome as the current technology can capture only about 90% of carbon emissions at best
• Furthermore, a recent report suggested that the amount of carbon sequestered by the technology since 1996 may have been overestimated by up to 30%
⏭️ What's next: Despite setbacks, the UK is looking to take the lead in CCS, given its considerable carbon dioxide storage capacity due to declining oil and gas reserves. However, a tumultuous history of halted projects and large sums of taxpayer money invested (£20 billion over the next 20 years) puts pressure on the government for sound investment decisions.
💬 One quote: "Getting carbon capture rates to 100 per cent, or very close, is the only way to make carbon capture actually compatible with net zero, but is likely to prove very expensive." (Emma Gatten, Environment Editor)
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