Carbon reversal technologies should be scalable by 2030, expert says
Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz is focused on the future of decarbonization, and he joined a Bipartisan Policy Center event on Thursday to speak about different aspects of the technology, specifically direct air capture.
According to Moniz, to move forward with scalable decarbonization on a national level, the strategy needs to be technological. Because net zero is a very different number from zero, negative carbon technologies are a crucial strategy to meet those goals.
“Even in the nearly four years since Paris, what we have seen is the science has continued to push us in the direction of more and more stringent targets,” Moniz said, adding that “success in getting to net-zero doesn’t mean we have to start there.”
Moniz, who is now president & CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative (ETI), released a report on carbon dioxide removal technologies and strategies believed to help with decarbonization. The report looked at the broad agenda of decarbonization, which includes terrestrial, technological, geological, and ocean agendas.
“Among the many who have bought into the idea that we need to dramatically raise the bar on our targets, let’s call it net zero, I think it’s understood that if you’re going to get there by looking at the traditional mitigation approaches — and we need them — the more we can do with [traditional] mitigation the better, without going up the cost curve,” Moniz said. “Coming from the other direction, we need to see cost reduction in scalable carbon reduction strategies to get us to low carbon as fast as we can.”
Direct air capture is a technology that was focused on in the panel, and an idea that is getting more attention as a decarbonization strategy.
“The fundamental thing with direct air capture is that you can capture any emission of any type from any place on the planet and from any moment in time,” said Richard Jackson, president of Oxy Low Carbon Ventures. “And when you can do that you build yourself so much more flexibility in the way that you can decarbonize.”
Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering, said there is a recognition in the oil and gas industry for energy transition and climate solutions. For his company, it was a technical solution that turned into a business solution. They are one of many companies looking to help commercialize the technology.
“We looked at this from a low-carbon perspective,” he said. “As a maker of product, controlling your own emissions is very important. Most of our focus is in carbon capture or carbon removal.”
There are hundreds of technologies looking to decarbonize in different ways, and thousands of combinations, both on the technology and commercial sides. But those in the industry are working to make it even more of a focus. Jackson believes decarbonization will become the size of the oil and gas industry.
“This essential technology employs less than 200 people in the world today,” he said. “This is going to be a colossal industry and the general public is demanding its existence. If money flows into the sector, the brilliant minds will figure it out.”
To move forward quickly, the report recommends starting with existing channels, in this case the National Science and Technology Counsel, with a recommended budget of $10.7 billion over 10 years.
The pricing of carbon emissions will be an important incentive for adoption in order to achieve the 2030 goals. According to Moniz, “Today the incentives are there to maximize the oil output and minimize the carbon input. We could flip it around and make it economic to do the opposite.”
One goal is to focus on research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) within those 10 years, with the end goal of major cost reductions in large-scale successes by 2030. “The success in that portfolio by 2030 will give us an idea on which parts of that portfolio are scalable,” Moniz said.
Moniz acknowledges that, even with the world’s best technology, more regulatory and legal structures will be needed. However, there are now fewer political hurdles than ever before. The industry now finds that decarbonization “has moved from the debate over whether there is a problem to now, where we are looking on working on it,” Moniz explained. “We are seeing Congress look at innovation in a much more constructive way.”
The team at ETI is hoping to see real movement in decarbonization by 2030, and although they have laid out a specific path they would like to see, they know it won’t be easy.
“This is getting real attention. I believe the pace is not the one we want, but I believe we are going to see by next year commitments being made in this direction by Congress and I suspect support from most of the energy industry,” Moniz said.
“I think this is an area where we’ve got a really good shot.”
