Occidental Petroleum quietly sold off a carbon capture facility – the world’s largest — that was built into a natural gas processing plant in Texas, according to a Bloomberg Green investigation.
The plant, called Century, never operated at more than a third of its capacity since it was built in 2010. [emphasis, links added]
According to statements the company made to Bloomberg Green, the technology worked, and the facility continues to operate as designed.
The economics of Century weren’t good because of limited amounts of natural gas coming from a nearby field, according to the report, and as a result, the plant fell into disuse before its divestment.
It was sold off for a fraction of the cost of building it.
Total carbon capture capacity globally is approximately 45 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is about 4% of what’s needed to be operational by 2030 to reach the International Energy Agency’s net zero targets by 2050.
Occidental is one of the biggest investors in carbon capture and storage. It operates a billion-dollar complex called Stratos about 100 miles from Century.
The Stratos facility uses direct air capture, which sucks carbon dioxide from the air to be stored underground.
The company intends to build 100 plants just like it, Bloomberg Green reports.
Top photo via DOE of Petra Nova in Texas, the world’s largest post-combustion carbon capture system.
Read more at Just The News
In an area full of stupid ideas that have been implemented, carbon capture is perhaps the worst. Additional carbon dioxide is benifitional. However if there was a need to remove it, nature is far more economical. Agricultural waste could be sequestered. Some species of plants have the capacity for very rapid growth and these could be sequestered. The only reason for mechanical means to remove carbon dioxide is to fill the pockets of the snake oil salesmen who are selling a worthless product.
Carbon Capture just more ways they want to waste our Taxes on their stupid Ideology based upon a total scam
Happy to see it go as the C C and S was a myth from the beginning. To decrease carbon dioxide is extremely dangerous as plant and by extension animal life on this planet depend on it. As a matter of fact, a few more ppm of this gas would be a good thing, not a bad thing.