Carbon capture is expected to play a pivotal role in the race to net zero emissions. But not everyone agrees

Published

4 years ago

July 20, 2021

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A detail of the pilot carbon dioxide (CO2) capture plant is pictured at Amager Bakke waste incinerator in Copenhagen on June 24, 2021.

IDA GULDBAEK ARENTSEN | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON — Carbon capture technology is often held up as a source of hope in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, featuring prominently in countries’ climate plans as well as the net-zero strategies of some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.

The topic is divisive, however, with climate researchers, campaigners and environmental advocacy groups arguing that carbon capture technology is not a solution.

The world is confronting a climate emergency, and policymakers and chief executives are under intensifying pressure to deliver on promises made as part of the landmark Paris Agreement. The accord, ratified by nearly 200 countries in 2015, is seen as critically important in averting the worst effects of climate change.

Carbon capture, utilization and storage — often shortened to carbon capture technology or CCUS — refers to a suite of technologies designed to capture carbon dioxide from high-emitting activities such as power generation or industrial facilities, that use either fossil fuels or biomass for fuel.

The captured carbon dioxide, which can also be captured directly from the atmosphere, is then compressed and transported via pipeline, ship, rail or truck to be used in a range of applications or permanently stored underground.

There are a number of reasons why carbon capture is a false climate solution. The first and most fundamental of those reasons is that it is not necessary.

Carroll Muffett

Chief executive at the Center for International Environmental Law

Proponents of these technologies believe they can play an important and diverse role in meeting global energy and climate goals.

Carroll Muffett, chief executive at the non-profit Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), is not one of them. “There are a number of reasons why carbon capture is a false climate solution. The first and most fundamental of those reasons is that it is not necessary,” he told CNBC via telephone.

“If you look at the history of carbon capture and storage, what you see is nearly two decades of a solution in search of a cure.”

‘Unproven scalability’

Some CCS and CCUS facilities have been operating since the 1970s and 1980s when natural gas processing plants in south Texas began capturing carbon dioxide and supplying the emissions to local oil producers for enhanced oil recovery operations. The first one was set up in 1972.

It wasn’t until several years later that carbon capture technology would be studied for climate mitigation purposes. Now, there are 21 large-scale CCUS commercial projects in operation worldwide and plans for at least 40 new commercial facilities have been announced in recent years.

A report published by CIEL earlier this month concluded that these technologies are not only “ineffective, uneconomic and unsafe,” but they also prolong reliance on the fossil fuel industry and distract from a much-needed pivot to renewable alternatives.

Employees near the CO2 compressor site at the Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plant, operated by Saudi Aramco, in Hawiyah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, June 28, 2021. The Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plant is designed to process 4.0 billion standard cubic feet per day of sweet gas as pilot project for Carbon Capture Technology (CCUS) to prove the possibility of capturing C02 and lowering emissions from such facilities.

Maya Siddiqui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

“The unproven scalability of CCS technologies and their prohibitive costs mean they cannot play any significant role in the rapid reduction of global emissions necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C,” the CIEL said, referring to a key aim of the Paris Agreement to limit a rise in the earth’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“Despite the existence of the technology for decades and billions of dollars in government subsidies to date, deployment of CCS at scale still faces insurmountable challenges of feasibility, effectiveness, and expense,” the CIEL added.

Earlier this year, campaigners at Global Witness and Friends of the Earth Scotland commissioned climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre in Manchester, U.K. to assess the role fossil fuel-related CCS plays in the energy system.

The peer-reviewed study found that carbon capture and storage technologies still face numerous barriers to short-term deployment and, even if these could be overcome, the technology “would only start to deliver too late.” Researchers also found that it was incapable of operating with zero emissions, constituted a distraction from the rapid growth of renewable energy “and has a history of over-promising and under-delivering.”

In short, the study said reliance on CCS is “not a solution” to confronting the world’s climate challenge.

Carbon capture is ‘a rarity’ in Washington

Not everyone is convinced by these arguments, however. The International Energy Agency, an influential intergovernmental group, says that while carbon capture technology has not yet lived up to its promise, it can still offer “significant strategic value” in the transition to net zero.

“CCUS is a really important part of this portfolio of technologies that we consider,” Samantha McCulloch, head of CCUS technology at the IEA, told CNBC via video call.

The IEA has identified four key strategic roles for the technologies: Addressing emissions from energy infrastructure, tackling hard-to-abate emissions from heavy industry (cement, steel and chemicals, among others), natural gas-based hydrogen production and carbon removal.

For these four reasons, McCulloch said it would be fair to describe CCUS as a climate solution.

At present, CCUS facilities around the world have the capacity to capture more than 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. The IEA believes plans to build many more facilities could double the level of CO2 captured globally.

“It is contributing but not to a scale that we envisage will be needed in terms of a net-zero pathway,” McCulloch said. “The encouraging news, I think, is that there has been very significant momentum behind the technology in recent years and this is really reflecting that without CCUS it will be very difficult — if not impossible — to meet net-zero goals.”

Electricity pylons are seen in front of the cooling towers of the coal-fired power station of German energy giant RWE in Weisweiler, western Germany, on January 26, 2021.

INA FASSBENDER | AFP | Getty Images

Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest U.S. oil and gas trade lobby group, believes the future looks bright for carbon capture and utilization storage.

The group noted in a blog post on July 2 that CCUS was a rare example of something that is liked by “just about everyone” in Washington – Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike.

Where do we go from here?

“Frankly, tackling climate change is not the same as trying to bring the fossil fuel industry to its knees,” Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, told CNBC via telephone.

“If the fossil fuel companies can help us get to net zero then why wouldn’t we want them to do that? I think too many environmental groups have conflated their dislike of oil and gas companies with the challenge of tackling climate change.”

When asked why carbon capture and storage schemes should be in countries’ climate plans given the criticism they receive, Ward replied: “Because if we are going to get to net zero by 2050, we have to throw every technology at this problem … People who argue that you can start ruling out technologies because you don’t like them are those who, I think, haven’t understood the scale of the challenge we face.”

The CIEL’s Muffett rejected this suggestion, saying proponents of carbon capture technologies are increasingly reliant on this kind of “all of the above” argument. “The answer to it is surprisingly easy: It is that we have a decade to cut global emissions in half and we have just a few decades to eliminate them entirely,” Muffett said.

“If on any reasonable examination of CCS, it costs massive amounts of money but doesn’t actually reduce emissions in any meaningful way, and further entrenches fossil fuel infrastructure, the question is: In what way is that contributing to the solution as opposed to diverting time and energy and resources away from the solutions that will work?”

Environment

Chevy Brightdrop finally gets a lease deal worth writing about

Published

5 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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Chevy Brightdrop finally gets a lease deal worth writing about

Holy smokes- Costco Wholesale is selling the General Motors Brightdrop electric van at a DEEP discount!🤑🔋🚐

GM may have decided to pull the plug on the forward-looking Chevy Brightdrop electric van a few months ago, but don’t let that stop you, but don’t let that fool you. Right now might be the best time ever to get your hands on one.

SKIP THE STORY: jump right to the deals (trusted affiliate link).

It’s hard to overstate how good the deals on Chevy’s Brightdrop got while GM was still trying to build up demand for its fleet-focused van, and now that the company has decided to stop production, the deals have gotten even better, with a newly announced $699 lease for 39 mo. with $2,999 down through January 2nd — and that’s before you factor in an additional $3,000 discount reserved for Costco Executive Members!

Despite that, I’ve heard more than one fleet manager express hesitation at the thought of adding a discontinued product to their fleet, even if it is a killer discount. To them, I offer the following, model-agnostic rebuttal:

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Legacy brands support their products

GM-Envolve-electric — Fleet of FedEx BrightDrop 600 electric vans; via GM.

Companies like GM aren’t going anywhere soon, and neither are the customers they’ve spent millions of dollars acquiring over the past several decades. They’ll keep building parts and offering service and maintenance on vehicles like the Brightdrop for at least a decade — not least of which because they have to!

GM sells each Brightdrop with a minimum 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on the battery and other key components, which can be extended either through GM itself or through reputable third-party companies like Xcelerate Auto for seven more.

There are precious few large fleets out there looking at 15 year, 200-plus thousand mile vehicle replacement cycles. For those that are, however, all indications so far are that the vehicle’s battery health and general performance will still be well within usable limits.

So, yes: parts longevity and manufacturer support will be there (something I’d be less confident about with a startup like Rivian or Bollinger, for example), but there’s more.

Section 179 and local incentives

National construction company deploys its 100th Chevrolet Silverado EV — McKinstry’s 100th Silverado EV; via GM.

The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of 2025 gutted America’s energy independence goals and ensuring its auto industry would fall even further behind the Chinese in the EV race, but the loss of Section 45W wasn’t the only change written into the IRS’ rulebook. Section 179, an immediate expense reduction that business owners can take on depreciable equipment assets, has been made significantly more powerful for 2025.

The section 179 expense deduction is limited to such items as cars, office equipment, business machinery, and computers. This speedy deduction can provide substantial tax relief for business owners who are purchasing startup equipment.

INVESTOPEDIA

The revised Section 179 tax credit (or, more accurately, expense reduction) allows for a 100% deduction for equipment purchases has doubled to $2.5 million, with a phase-out kicking in at $4 million of capital investments that drops to zero at $6.5 million. That credit and can be applied to new and used vehicles, as well as charging infrastructure, battery energy storage systems, specialized tools, and more (as long as they’re new to you).

What’s more, with regional incentives like the up to $15,000 off a new medium-duty van available from Illinois utility ComEd, the net cost of GM’s $699 promo lease drops to ~$315/mo., and there is still state money out there, as well, depending on where you live.

All of which is to say: don’t let a little thing like GM discontinuing the Brightdrop convince you to skip it. If you do that, the bean counters that killed off the Buick Grand National, GMC Syclone, and Pontiac Fiero win.

SOURCE | IMAGES: GM Envolve.

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EIA: Solar + storage soar as fossil fuels stall through September 2025

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5 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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EIA: Solar + storage soar as fossil fuels stall through September 2025

EIA solar storage — Photo by Mark Stebnicki on Pexels.com

US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data released on November 25 and reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign reveal that, during the first nine months of 2025 and for the past year, solar and battery storage have dominated growth among competing energy sources, while fossil fuels and nuclear power have stagnated.

Solar set new records in September

EIA’s latest “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through September 30, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity in the US.

In September alone, electrical generation by utility-scale solar (>1 megawatt (MW)) ballooned by well over 36.1% compared to September 2024, while “estimated” small-scale (e.g., rooftop) solar PV increased by 12.7%. Combined, they grew by 29.9% and provided 9.7% of US electrical output during the month, up from 7.6% a year ago.

Moreover, generation from utility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic systems expanded by 35.8%, while that from small-scale systems rose by 11.2% during the first nine months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 29.0% and produced a bit over 9.0% (utility-scale: 6.85%; small-scale: 2.16%) of total US electrical generation for January-September, up from 7.2% a year earlier.

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And for the third consecutive month, utility-scale solar generated more electricity than US wind farms: by 4% in July, 15% in August, and 9% in September. Including small-scale systems, solar has outproduced wind for five consecutive months and by over 40% in September.

Wind leads among renewables

Wind turbines across the US produced 9.8% of US electricity in the first nine months of 2025 – an increase of 1.3% compared to the same period a year earlier and 79% more than that produced by US hydropower plants.

During the first nine months of 2025, electrical generation from wind plus utility-scale and small-scale solar provided 18.8% of the US total, up from 17.1% during the first three quarters of 2024.

Wind and solar combined provided 15.1% more electricity than did coal during the first nine months of this year, and 9.8% more than the US’s nuclear power plants. In fact, as solar and wind expanded, nuclear-generated electricity dropped by 0.1%.

Renewables are now only second to natural gas

The mix of all renewables (wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) produced 8.7% more electricity in January-September than they did a year ago, providing 25.6% of total US electricity production compared to 24.2% 12 months earlier.

Renewables’ share of electrical generation is now second to only that of natural gas, which saw a 3.8% drop in electrical output during the first nine months of 2025.

Solar + storage have dominated 2025

Between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025, utility-scale solar capacity grew by 31,619.5 MW, while an additional 5,923.5 MW was provided by small-scale solar. EIA foresees continued strong solar growth, with an additional 35,210.9 MW of utility–scale solar capacity being added in the next 12 months.

Strong growth was also experienced by battery storage, which grew by 59.4% during the past year, adding 13,808.9 MW of new capacity. EIA also notes that planned battery capacity additions over the next year total 22,052.9 MW.

Wind also made a strong showing during the past 12 months, adding 4,843.2 MW, while planned capacity additions over the next year total 9,630.0 MW (onshore) plus 800.0 MW (offshore).

On the other hand, natural gas capacity increased by only 3,417.1 MW and nuclear power added 46.0 MW. Meanwhile, coal capacity plummeted by 3,926.1 MW and petroleum-based capacity fell by an additional 606.6 MW.

Thus, during the past year, renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, small-scale solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass, ballooned by 56,019.7 MW while that of all fossil fuels and nuclear power combined actually declined by 1,095.2 MW.

The EIA expects this trend to continue and accelerate over the next 12 months. Utility-scale renewables plus battery storage are projected to increase by 67,806.1 MW (a forecast for small-scale solar is not provided). Meanwhile, natural gas capacity is expected to increase by only 3,835.8 MW, while coal capacity is projected to decrease by 5,857.0 MW, and oil capacity is anticipated to decrease by 5.8 MW. EIA does not project any new growth for nuclear power in the coming year.

SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director Ken Bossong said:

The Trump Administration’s efforts to jump-start nuclear power and fossil fuels are not succeeding. Capacity additions from solar, wind, and battery storage continue to dramatically outpace those from gas, coal, and nuclear, and by growing margins.

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Toyota’s $15,000 electric SUV is a hit in China

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5 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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Toyota's ,000 electric SUV is a hit in China

The bZ3X is off to a strong start as Toyota’s most affordable electric SUV, starting at around $15,000 in China.

The bZ3X is a $15,000 Toyota electric SUV in China

Toyota’s joint venture, GAC Toyota, launched the bZ3X in China this March, an affordable, compact electric SUV aimed at young families.

The bZ3X is Toyota’s “first 100,000 yuan-level pure electric SUV,” starting at just 109,800 yuan, or roughly $15,000.

By May, the electric SUV was the best-selling foreign-owned EV in China, beating out the Volkswagen ID.3, Nissan N7, BMW i3, and Volkswagen ID.4 CROZZ.

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According to the latest update, the bZ3X remains a hot seller. GAC Toyota announced that bZ3X sales exceeded 10,000 units for two consecutive months, with 10,010 units sold in November. Cumulative deliveries have now surpassed 62,000 units.

GAC Toyota recently put the electric SUV through rigorous testing on a winter road trip across China, “showcasing its impressive capabilities as a 100,000-yuan-class pure electric vehicle.”

Measuring 4,645 mm in length, 1,885 mm in width, and 1,625 mm in height, the bZ3X is about the same size as BYD’s popular Yuan Plus (sold as the Atto 3 overseas).

Inside, the electric SUV is a major upgrade over the Toyota vehicles we’re accustomed to, with advanced ADAS features, smart storage, and large digital screens.

The bZ3X is available in seven different trims in China, two of which include a LiDAR. Upgrading to the LiDAR version costs 149,800 yuan ($20,500).

Toyota’s electric SUV is available with 50.04 kWh and 67.92 kWh battery pack options, providing a CLTC range of 430 km (267 miles) and 610 km (379 miles), respectively.

Less than two weeks ago, GAC Toyota launched pre-sales for the bZ7, a new flagship electric sedan. According to Toyota, the new flagship EV “possesses a higher level of intelligence than any of Toyota’s offerings in global markets,” as the automaker fights to regain market share in China’s fierce auto market.

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