Date of publication: 06 Apr 2022 • 8 hours ago • 4 minutes reading • 406 comments FILE PHOTO: Pipes pass through Shell’s new carbon capture and storage facility (CCS) in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada, October 7, 2021. REUTERS /
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In the early 19th century, Chicago had a problem: the city was only slightly higher in altitude than Lake Michigan, which caused sewage and other runoff to accumulate in the city center, leading to bad living conditions and numerous outbreaks of disease. To solve this, engineers naturally lifted the city – buildings, streets, sidewalks and everything – and installed a sewer system throughout the city. This is the power of human ingenuity and offers a lesson in how we can tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems, such as climate change.
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Unfortunately, too many environmentalists reject any solution that does not involve massive government intervention in the economy and an immediate end to the use of fossil fuels. On Monday, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report arguing that removing carbon from the air by natural or technological means would be necessary to meet emission reduction targets. In response, Daniel Quiggin, a British think tank researcher, told Reuters that instead, “we need to minimize our dependence on commercially unproven technologies” such as carbon sequestration and storage, and instead suggested that we eliminate kiln and travel less. In the absence of technological backwardness and forcing everyone to stay home in their icy homes instead of vacationing on the beach in winter, however, a significant reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions will mean harnessing the full power of human innovation to find solutions. Some of them will work and some will not. But if we do not try, then realistic solutions to climate change will continue to elude us.
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A similar debate has taken place here in Canada after the Liberals published an outline of their latest climate plan, which acknowledges that the “journey to zero” involves “developing a carbon capture, use and storage strategy (CCUS)”. . Although details will not be available until the budget is tabled on Thursday, the government plans to “introduce an investment tax credit to motivate the development and adoption of this important technology.” The announcement met with similar outrage among some environmentalists such as the IPCC report. “We would like to see more demand from the oil and gas sector and less reliance on unproven technologies such as carbon capture and storage,” said Tom Green, senior climate policy adviser at the Suzuki Foundation. Forcing the energy industry to cut emissions by 42 percent below 2019 levels by the end of the decade was not enough of a requirement.
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Environmentalist Sven Biggs said: “I understand that the government is under a lot of pressure from industry, especially oil and gas, who continue to hope that there is some kind of technological solution that does not include reducing the amount of oil and gas that extract Instead, he suggested that the money would be better spent on devaluing the fossil fuel industry, investing in renewable energy and retraining oil workers. This, however, has already been tried. Europe has spent the last decade shutting down coal (and nuclear) plants and replacing them with green energy, leaving the continent heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies.
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Current renewable energy technologies are clearly only part of the solution, and whether the Green Movement wants to admit it or not, closing Canada’s oil and gas industry will not stop people from burning fossil fuels elsewhere in the world. However, radical environmentalists are content to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. “To double Canada in a dangerous technology is to gamble with all our lives,” said Environmental Defense’s Julia Levin. “At a time when the oil and gas industry is full of cash, if they want to bet they can meet their emissions targets with (CCUS), let them pay for it.” This is a common refrain: with crude prices above $ 100 a barrel, oil and gas companies have “unexpected” profits and should be punished with increasingly draconian regulations and high taxes. It is funny how we did not hear any of these people say that these companies should be given a helping hand when oil prices hit craters in March 2020, but I deviate.
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Critics point out that Canadian governments have been sinking a lot of money into CCUS over the years – $ 5.8 billion since 2000, according to Environmental Defense – and have little to show for it. A federal tax deduction could be justified if it was financed directly from the energy industry’s carbon taxes, to help companies meet the government’s ambitious emissions targets. Carbon tax, after all, is not supposed to be an unexpected profit for the public treasury, but a means of motivating companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As companies are forced to pay for it, using revenue to fund emission reduction technologies seems perfectly reasonable. But at the same time, if companies are looking at Canada’s sharp carbon tax – which rose to $ 50 a tonne on April 1 and will rise to $ 170 by 2030 – and still believe CCUS is uneconomical, it may be a sign that the technology itself is not ready for prime time. Inventing a technologically cognitive incentive, as opposed to the one specifically associated with carbon capture, to offset the price of coal would encourage innovation and hopefully lead to discoveries that will allow oil and gas companies to reduce their emissions without being heavily dependent on taxpayer subsidies or finding other countries to invest in. National [email protected]/accessd
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