Energy secretary explains why feds are spending $2.5 billion on carbon capture
Source：CNBC
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Los Angeles
Update Time：2022/05/27
As part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, more than $2.3 billion USD was earmarked for carbon capture technology. Starting in May, the first steps are being taken to disburse this vast sum.
The Department of Energy, responsible for the disbursement, aims to help bring down the cost of carbon removal technologies which for the time being are still in their very early stages and remain quite expensive. At the moment, it can cost between $100 to $300 USD to remove one metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The goal of the Department of Energy’s Carbon Negative Short, or Earthshot, the initiative is to be able to remove gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it for less than $100 a ton by 2050.
The Earthshot Initiative is significant, if not for anything else, for marking a departure from previous Federal Government inclinations. Previously, the Federal Government was largely satisfied with relying on the private sector to help create the carbon capture market.
As evidence, there is an ongoing lack of financial incentive in the United States for companies to engage in carbon capture. The closest to the United States was a tax credit, 45Q, which offers as much as $35 a ton for carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide stored as part of enhanced oil recovery projects, and up to $50 per ton for the gasses in their stored in geologic formations outside of EOP projects.
However, there is now real political interest in establishing public-private partnerships. President Biden has signed an Executive Order to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 for overall federal operations, including a 65% emissions reduction by 2030. Carbon capture technologies are seen as critical to reaching these targets, particularly by compensating for hard-to-decarbonize sectors like heavy industry.
This plays into the complaint of some critics that carbon capture technologies are mainly used by polluting industries as a way to delay the necessary work of reducing emissions, but for now, the Department of Energy sees anything that contributes to decarbonization as a good thing.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/08/energy-secretary-why-feds-are-spending-2point5-billion-on-carbon-capture.html