The Fort Worth Press - Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era

USD -
AED 3.67265
AFN 70.432593
ALL 91.050584
AMD 390.569924
ANG 1.798032
AOA 911.999897
ARS 1063.861021
AUD 1.581395
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.6682
BAM 1.790616
BBD 2.014374
BDT 121.21767
BGN 1.790616
BHD 0.376104
BIF 2956.099794
BMD 1
BND 1.331563
BOB 6.894026
BRL 5.745596
BSD 0.997665
BTN 86.717327
BWP 13.592126
BYN 3.264912
BYR 19600
BZD 2.003937
CAD 1.43792
CDF 2876.000437
CHF 0.882751
CLF 0.024225
CLP 929.613184
CNY 7.23785
CNH 7.2395
COP 4115.44976
CRC 498.420691
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 100.952163
CZK 22.998099
DJF 177.651637
DKK 6.858399
DOP 62.732891
DZD 133.115129
EGP 50.468299
ERN 15
ETB 131.0374
EUR 0.91555
FJD 2.290976
FKP 0.773091
GBP 0.773465
GEL 2.775008
GGP 0.773091
GHS 15.442804
GIP 0.773091
GMD 71.491246
GNF 8672.105689
GTQ 7.704568
GYD 208.985412
HKD 7.772765
HNL 25.633617
HRK 6.9258
HTG 133.076909
HUF 366.799262
IDR 16351.742674
ILS 3.64425
IMP 0.773091
INR 86.948679
IQD 1310.306894
IRR 42002.880173
ISK 133.993515
JEP 0.773091
JMD 156.136803
JOD 0.709029
JPY 148.632975
KES 129.702749
KGS 87.450009
KHR 4001.036016
KMF 451.767344
KPW 900.009261
KRW 1451.244265
KWD 0.3088
KYD 0.820011
KZT 501.199581
LAK 21652.993185
LBP 90227.73003
LKR 296.309238
LRD 199.168874
LSL 18.168804
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.812993
MAD 9.689035
MDL 17.791289
MGA 4675.310857
MKD 56.379504
MMK 2099.758323
MNT 3473.17909
MOP 8.006543
MRU 39.968936
MUR 44.950674
MVR 15.45992
MWK 1733.394393
MXN 19.93505
MYR 4.446459
MZN 63.574491
NAD 18.168804
NGN 1547.612245
NIO 36.625074
NOK 10.640405
NPR 139.183097
NZD 1.740281
OMR 0.385
PAB 1
PEN 3.658336
PGK 4.054568
PHP 57.269249
PKR 280.096131
PLN 3.838435
PYG 7987.102859
QAR 3.639795
RON 4.574106
RSD 107.724204
RUB 85.504654
RWF 1404.876498
SAR 3.750156
SBD 8.499789
SCR 14.938148
SDG 599.053774
SEK 10.13767
SGD 1.334462
SHP 0.785843
SLE 22.829729
SLL 20969.501083
SOS 571.789733
SRD 36.294663
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.750149
SYP 13001.855181
SZL 18.168804
THB 33.506786
TJS 10.892306
TMT 3.506346
TND 3.078015
TOP 2.403823
TRY 36.632898
TTD 6.808789
TWD 32.974352
TZS 2631.61813
UAH 41.646876
UGX 3665.577031
UYU 42.641413
UZS 12947.309311
VES 65.8227
VND 25505.052165
VUV 122.95793
WST 2.818495
XAF 602.356458
XAG 0.0296
XAU 0.000335
XCD 2.700037
XDR 0.750475
XOF 602.356458
XPF 109.580728
YER 246.760526
ZAR 18.180601
ZMK 9001.199408
ZMW 28.750575
ZWL 321.999592
  • SCS

    0.2000

    10.99

    +1.82%

  • GSK

    0.2600

    39.49

    +0.66%

  • RBGPF

    66.0200

    66.02

    +100%

  • CMSC

    0.0500

    23.22

    +0.22%

  • RYCEF

    0.0500

    10.4

    +0.48%

  • BCC

    2.9700

    99.35

    +2.99%

  • BTI

    -0.0200

    41.36

    -0.05%

  • NGG

    0.8900

    63.21

    +1.41%

  • RIO

    1.8400

    63.04

    +2.92%

  • JRI

    0.0335

    12.83

    +0.26%

  • RELX

    1.1200

    48.93

    +2.29%

  • AZN

    1.0900

    77.6

    +1.4%

  • BCE

    -0.1990

    23.47

    -0.85%

  • VOD

    0.0500

    9.55

    +0.52%

  • CMSD

    0.1500

    23.35

    +0.64%

  • BP

    1.0200

    33.39

    +3.05%

Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era
Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era / Photo: © AFP/File

Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era

Backers of carbon capture and storage are emphasizing compatibility with President Trump's energy development goals as they seek to protect hard-won US policies from the administration's climate chopping block.

Text size:

At the CERA Week energy conference this week, supporters of CCS, a climate mitigation strategy long favored by oil companies, described the industry as poised for potentially significant growth.

But that outcome rests on the survival of a key CCS tax credit updated most recently in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, a signature Joe Biden climate law frequently mocked by Trump.

The lobbying strategy is to frame CCS as "an economic competitiveness and American leadership issue," said Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition.

That messaging pivot is also being practiced to make the IRA's hydrogen provisions more "palatable" given Trump's disdain for the renewable energy and net-zero emissions initiative known as the Green New Deal, said Frank Wolak, president of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association.

The IRA's provisions supported hydrogen renewable energy and fossil fuels, the latter of which "wasn't completely of interest to those who were promoting a Green New Deal," Wolak said.

CCS supporters view the federal incentive, called the 45Q US tax credit, as essential to the economic case in the United States, which has no carbon pricing structure.

Stolark's coalition -- composed of oil companies, environmentalists, labor unions and other stakeholders -- has pointed to more than 275 CCS projects announced in the US.

"Without the tax credit, pretty much all of those projects go away," Stolark said.

- Slow progress -

CCS involves heavy capital investment to separate carbon dioxide during industrial processes and store the gases deep underground, an endeavour that also involves outreach to communities, where environmental groups have sometimes fought projects over worries that leaks could contaminate drinking water.

CCS has been discussed as a climate mitigation strategy for more than two decades, but progress has come slowly as far as the industrial-scaled storage facilities that supporters have depicted as a climate change solution.

"The policy development to facilitate carbon storage has taken longer than anticipated," said Emmanouil Kakaras, executive vice president at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, who also cited varying approaches to carbon pricing across markets as a factor.

But Kakaras, who has worked on CCS for almost 30 years, said European decarbonization mandates on heavy industry and the willingness of some consumers to pay premium for "green" steel and concrete was creating opportunity.

"There is a justification to decarbonize the hard-to-abate sectors," he said. "So that is why it's now picking up."

Supporters argue CCS could evolve into big business in America because of geographic space for potential storage and the availability of existing pipelines already used for carbon dioxide, which has long played a role in enhanced oil recovery.

The connection between CCS and oil production is one reason national environmental groups that accept CCS as an aspect of climate mitigation don't usually champion it with as much gusto as renewable energy and other solutions.

At CERA Week, Vicki Hollub, chief executive of Occidental Petroleum, described carbon dioxide gas as a vital tool to boosting output from oil reservoirs. She said it extracts oil when pumped in much better than water, "which just goes past" the crude without loosening it.

This use of carbon dioxide has permitted Occidental to recover 75 percent of the oil in conventional wells, compared with 50 percent before.

Hollub urged policy makers not only to maintain the existing 45Q tax credit, but to tweak it so the credit for carbon dioxide used in enhanced oil recovery is at parity. Right now the credit is higher if the carbon dioxide is stored than if it is used in enhanced oil recovery.

More lawmakers are on board "because they recognize that we really need the carbon dioxide to create incremental oil for the United States," she said.

S.Palmer--TFWP