CCS Technologies the Way Forward in Climate Change Fight: Shell

Carbon capture and storage technologies are the way forward in fighting climate change, according to executives at oil mega-firm Shell.  Projects that capture industrial CO2 emissions and trap them deep underground, they said, could reduce overall carbon pollution levels by as much as 40 per cent.

Acknowledging the cost factor currently associated with CCS technology, speaking to journalists at a recent media event, the Shell figureheads nonetheless indicated that it could prove to be a multi-billion dollar market in the future.

“CCS is probably the largest source of potential carbon reduction for the next 30 years, and a way to deal with 30 to 40 per cent of emissions”, Shell’s Kimberly Corley stated. 

Capturing and Storing CO2 Emissions

Shell itself anticipates that it will become the dominant force in terms of capturing and storing CO2 emissions – not just its own, but those created by other firms too.  As of May 2009, Shell had seven CCS trials taking place at various locations, and is seeking to inject capital into future CCS ventures via profitable carbon credit schemes.

“We think [that CCS] is one of the few technologies that has the potential to become very big”, the chief executive officer of Shell, Jeroen Van der Veer, said.

According to Corley, the cost to Shell of actually getting CCS technology up and running at this stage would work out to be about $2 billion per million tons of CO2 emitted per annum.  To put this in context, total US emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases currently stand at seven billion tons per annum.

“No one knows the cost if you start to do it on a large scale”, explained Van der Veer.

Another Shell representative, climate advisor David Hone, stated that, if implemented aggressively, CCS technology could allow Shell and its compatriots to store one billion tons of CO2 emissions within 16 years.

CCS is reliant on financial incentives given to firms that manage to reduce their carbon footprints.  An example of these kinds of incentives is cap and trade projects, which Shell is a backer of.

Among the firm’s short-term CCS technology ventures is a facility in Holland, where carbon emissions will be stored beneath a town near to one of its oil refineries.

Critics of CCS technology highlight how it is flawed, in that, once trapped, CO2 emissions could always make their way back out again.  This thought, however, was dismissed by Van der Veer.

“We think we can do it safely”, he said.