Environment

From Bill Gates to the pope, talk of carbon capture and its efficacy is dividing society

Published

1 year ago

October 25, 2023

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This image from 2016 shows a carbon capture project in Texas.

Houston Chronicle/hearst Newspapers Via Getty Images | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

The U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) is fast approaching, and businesses, politicians and environmental organizations are weighing up how best to slash emissions and tackle climate change both now and in the future.

From wind turbines and green hydrogen to solar panels and fossil fuels like natural gas, a host of sources and innovations are being touted as tools in the fight to safeguard the planet’s future, sparking intense debates about their merits and flaws.

Technologies related to carbon capture are also generating a huge amount of discussion, and the sector’s potential was a hot topic at the recent ADIPEC oil and gas conference in Abu Dhabi.

During an interview with CNBC at ADIPEC, the CEO of energy technology firm Baker Hughes was asked why carbon capture hasn’t been scaled to the point of commercialization and decarbonization.

“It is coming,” Lorenzo Simonelli replied. “And I look at all the different carbon capture processes that exist in our portfolio, but those also available in the market, and we are starting to see scalability,” he added.

“The Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, [and] some of the policies being introduced in Europe, do enable that,” Simonelli said. “And if I look at just our first half order intake, 50% of it was relative to CCUS.”

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According to the U.S. Department of Energy, CCUS — carbon capture, utilization and storage — refers to “a process that captures carbon dioxide emissions from sources like coal-fired power plants and either reuses or stores it so it will not enter the atmosphere.”

CCUS is different from carbon capture and storage, or CCS, which is when CO2 emissions related to industrial processes are captured and stored, rather than reused.

Other processes in the sector include direct air capture, with firms like Climeworks operating in the space.

Climeworks, which specializes in direct air capture and storage, has offices in Switzerland and Germany. Its clients include businesses such as Stripe and Microsoft, and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund has invested in the company.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has spoken about using Climeworks to “pay for direct air capture” and while the sector has high-profile backers, it faces challenges.

The International Energy Agency, for instance, notes that capturing carbon dioxide from the air “is more energy intensive — and therefore more expensive — than capturing it from a point source.”

“Carbon removal technologies such as DAC are not an alternative to cutting emissions or an excuse for delayed action, but they can be an important part of the suite of technology options used to achieve climate goals,” the Paris-based organization adds.

Ex-BP CEO on the Paris Agreement and CCUS

Another high-profile figure speaking to CNBC at ADIPEC was Bob Dudley, the ex-CEO of energy giant BP.

He sought to contextualize the role of CCUS within the wider energy transition.

“By 2050 there’ll be 2 billion more people on the planet,” he said, arguing that every form of energy — including increases in nuclear — would be needed.

“We’ve got to have everything and decarbonize it, and there’s great new technologies that are doing that,” he said.

“I don’t know of a single scenario to get us to Paris without natural gas — cleaned up natural gas — displacing coal, that’s really important,” Dudley added, referring to 2015’s Paris Agreement.

“And second is CCUS,” he said. “And people say CCUS is only a tool for the oil and gas industry to perpetuate its life — that’s not true.”

While carbon capture has its advocates, the technology is divisive and has been questioned by a range of organizations.

In March 2023, for example, the environmental group Greenpeace expressed strong views on the subject in a political briefing published ahead of announcements from the U.K. government related to energy security.

“Carbon capture is not zero carbon; is unlikely to see dramatic cost reductions or be scalable; and is often used for greenwashing by oil and gas companies so they can carry on polluting,” it said.

“It doesn’t do what it says on the tin and certainly should not be prioritised as part of a green industrial strategy,” it added.

‘Pushing a snowball down a hill’

Pope Francis is another high-profile figure who’s weighed in on the subject.

In a recent letter titled Laudate Deum, or Praise God, Francis touched upon the use of technology to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Among other things, he noted that “some interventions and technological advances that make it possible to absorb or capture gas emissions have proved promising.”

“Nonetheless, we risk remaining trapped in the mindset of pasting and papering over cracks, while beneath the surface there is a continuing deterioration to which we continue to contribute,” he added.

“To suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism, like pushing a snowball down a hill.”

Environment

Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

Published

9 hours ago

April 2, 2025

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

In a joint statement, the French CAE and the German Council of Economic Experts have called for "a common approach" by France and Germany in the decarbonisation of road freight transport. And in doing so, the experts are clearly committed to battery-electric trucks.

In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.

France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.

At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.

And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:

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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.

FRANCO-GERMAN COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS (FGCEE)

That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.

“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”

The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.

You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.

Electrek’s Take

Hydrogen-sceptical truck maker MAN to produce limited series of 200 vehicles with H2 combustion engines — MAN hydrogen semi; via MAN Trucks.

MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.

He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”

With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.

SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.

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Environment

Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

Published

10 hours ago

April 2, 2025

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!

Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Environment

SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

Published

11 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

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