![]() ![]() Many analysts and environmental advocates received Exxon’s announcement with skepticism. “We’re not penalizing them, we’re considering paying them,” he added. “Paying them to do this is paying a ransom on the planet,” said Corey Williams, who until recently served as the research and policy director at Air Alliance Houston, an environmental advocacy group. The prospect of these multibillion-dollar government handouts has riled many climate advocates. Lawmakers also increased the value of a carbon-capture tax incentive such that, if Exxon and its partners meet their 2030 goals for Houston, they would stand to reap more than $4 billion every year from taxpayers for up to 12 years. Since the company released its proposal, Congress has given the Energy Department $20 billion to spend on carbon capture and clean hydrogen projects and authorized another $250 billion in loan guarantees for these and other emissions-cutting technologies. Donate NowĮxxon and others have already made strides in securing this support. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. This story is funded by readers like you. It would also require substantial government financing, Exxon said. The $100 billion mega-project would tie together dozens of facilities owned by 12 of the world’s biggest corporate polluters, including oil majors like Chevron, power generators like Calpine and chemical giants like Dow. The company would then compress the gas and deliver it through hundreds of miles of new pipelines to injection wells drilled beneath the Gulf of Mexico, where the climate-warming gas would remain locked away forever in porous rock.Įxxon is proposing to create an entirely new industry, built to capture carbon and reinject it, all so that energy companies can keep on pumping and burning oil and gas. Using a technology called carbon capture and storage, Exxon said it could collect 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually from industrial smokestacks by 2030, and double that amount by 2040. So last year, Exxon proposed a herculean industrial effort for the Houston area that would allow the region’s fossil fuel infrastructure to continue operating at full throttle for decades while steadily lowering its climate emissions. Oil and gas aren’t the problem, Exxon chief executive Darren Woods has said. Fossil fuel-burning power plants churn away, too. In this story of the future, oil refineries continue to distill crude. Fossil fuels become relics, or disappear altogether.ĮxxonMobil has a different vision. Imagine a clean energy future, and you might picture giant turbines twisting in the wind, or electric vehicles zipping quietly down the highway. Pipe Dreams: Sixth in a continuing series on whether capturing carbon is a climate solution or a dangerous distraction. ![]()
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