I met Friedmann on a cool day in September outside his favorite coffee shop in Livermore, California, a small city some 40 miles (65 km) east of San Francisco. He arrived on a recumbent bike, wearing a faded Southwest-patterned shirt.\u201cCool bike,\u201d I said. Without hesitation, he replied: \u201cAnd it\u2019s also very efficient.\u201d We got coffee, and talked about why CCS is crucial to reach global climate goals.<\/p>\n
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n
Quartz: You argue that carbon capture and storage is necessary. Why?<\/p>\n
Julio Friedmann: A clarifying aspect of the Paris agreement, with 197 countries part of it, is that there is no market in the world where carbon emissions aren\u2019t an issue. Each government is trying to deal with them in one way or another. One of the things they are grappling with is that, despite the progress on renewables and electric vehicles, we are simply not on the right trajectory to reduce our emissions.<\/p>\n
For the past three years, CO2 emissions in the energy sector have been flat. That\u2019s a plus. The dark cloud inside that silver lining is that global emissions continue to rise<\/a>. The math remains grim. As countries look around and ask \u201cWhat can we do to hit climate targets,\u201d the CCS option keeps coming back.<\/p>\n Q: Is the technology ready?<\/p>\n There are plenty of people on the left and on the right that think this technology is not ready for prime time. That\u2019s just hogwash. The first carbon-capture device was built in 1938. So it\u2019s a common myth that needs to be debunked and dispelled. It is a proven, robust technology.<\/p>\n We are injecting [underground] tens of million of tons of CO2 every year by using CCS. We\u2019ve been doing large-scale carbon capture and storage for over 20 years. There are a dozen companies that will sell you a unit with a performance guarantee. It\u2019s not that the technology costs too much, but it\u2019s that you can\u2019t finance it.<\/p>\n Q: Why won\u2019t anyone finance CCS projects?<\/p>\n To get one unit of carbon capture fit on a fossil-fuel power plant, it costs a lot of money. It\u2019s not like wind or solar, where you can build small units. There is a big capital outlay at the front for CCS. So you\u2019re committed to a billion dollars or more. That\u2019s why it\u2019s not something a lot of private investors are willing to take on.<\/p>\n If you went to a bank and you said you wanted to build wind turbines, they\u2019ll lend you money. In 2014, the US Congress approved $44 billion in wind-production tax credits. The bank would say \u201cwe know how we\u2019ll get their money back, so we\u2019ll give you the loan.\u201d<\/p>\n CCS needs that kind of policy support to create a market. If there is no market, the investment never comes.<\/p>\n From the US perspective, we now have two bills\u2014one each in the house and in the senate. In both cases, the bills say there will be a performance tax credit for doing CCS. If those bills go through, they will be the biggest and clearest support for CCS. They will provide between $30 and $50 per metric ton of CO2 stored in tax credits. With that kind of pricing, a lot of CCS will get done immediately.<\/p>\n By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.![\"YouTube\"](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/borlabs-cookie\/assets\/images\/cb-no-thumbnail.png\")
<\/p>\n
Learn more<\/a><\/p>\n