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False Solutions

Norway’s Equinor Forced To Withdraw Key Carbon Capture Claim

January 14, 2025 Edward Donnelly, DeSmog. , , , ,
Equinor has retracted a claim that it stores about a million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually at its flagship carbon capture project after DeSmog obtained data showing the real figure was as little as a tenth of that amount. The Norwegian oil company scrubbed the estimate from its website in November, when presented with official figures showing that it captured 106,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) at its Sleipner carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in 2023. Equinor has not captured 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year at the site since 2001, according to the data, provided by the Norwegian Environment Agency.

Midwest Wins Funding For A New Hydrogen Hub

January 3, 2025 Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, DeSmog. , , , ,
The U.S. Department of Energy is rolling out the first installment of its $1 billion commitment to ramp up clean hydrogen production in the Midwest, part of a bid by the Biden administration to lock in a nationwide roadmap for decarbonization. The Midwest Hydrogen Hub, which is set to span Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan, was awarded $22.2 million late last month as part of a billion-dollar federal cost-share grant through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The hub “aims to decarbonize a variety of industries such as manufacturing, steel and glass production, power generation, refining, and heavy-duty transportation through the use of clean hydrogen,” according to a Department of Energy factsheet.

A Reality Check On Our ‘Energy Transition’

January 2, 2025 Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee. , , ,
The much-vaunted “energy transition” that promised a great leap forward from fossil fuels to renewables along with a cornucopia of technologies is now struggling with history and complexity. A few facts tell the story. Despite all the talk of “decarbonization,” global coal production reached a record high in 2023. The dirtiest of fuels accounts for 26 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption. And despite all the promises of a green revolution, oil, gas and coal still account for 82 per cent of the global energy mix. Meanwhile greenhouse gas emissions galloped to a new high in 2023. The concentration of carbon dioxide gases in the atmosphere has increased 11.4 per cent in just 20 years.

Developers Eye Louisiana, Texas For Offshore Carbon Storage

December 30, 2024 Pam Radtke, DeSmog. , , , , ,
The fishers in Gulf of Mexico waters off Cameron Parish, Louisiana, estimate their catch has fallen catastrophically from 1 million tons a season to 150,000 tons since the first liquefied natural gas terminal in the parish began operating eight years ago. Now, a new industry is being developed in the waters that were once the most productive grounds in the nation for fish, shrimp and oysters. A company called OnStream CO2 is developing the GeoDura hub, which it says could hold millions of tons of carbon dioxide captured from fossil fuel industries, including LNG terminals, a mile or more below the waters off Cameron Parish’s shores.

Alliance To End Plastic Waste Members Created 1,000x More Plastic Than They Cleaned Up

November 25, 2024 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. , , ,
In 2019, a group of major companies from around the world agreed to form the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), an alliance that set out to reduce the amount of plastic flowing into the environment by around 15 million metric tons by the end of 2023. But according to a new report by Unearthed, a Greenpeace investigative journalism team, the initiative members have actually produced more than 1,000 times the amount of plastic than they’ve cleaned up in the 2019 to 2023 timeframe. The report found that the initiative was established by American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade association, and a PR company. According to Unearthed, the project aimed to “change the conversation – away from short-term simplistic bans of plastic.”

Evidence During COP29 That Biomass Is A Disaster

November 19, 2024 The Canary. , , , ,
The global biomass energy industry will triple by 2030, increasing woody biomass supply from monoculture plantations by 13 times and woody biomass supply overall by three times, according to a new report Burning up the Biosphere: A Global Threat Map of Biomass Energy Development released on Monday 18 November by the Biomass Action Network of EPN International. The natural forests which supply the wood burnt for energy production will suffer from intensified logging, degradation, and plantation conversion, exacerbating both the climate and biodiversity crises and adversely affecting communities throughout the global supply chains.

‘As The Coal Age Ends’: UK Announces Ban On New Mines

November 18, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , , , , ,
In a landmark decision, the United Kingdom’s energy secretary Ed Miliband has announced the banning of new coal mines in Britain, as part of the country’s drive to reach net zero. The UK government has committed to introducing legislation to restrict the licensing of future coal mines by amending 1994’s Coal Industry Act, a press release from the UK Government said. “Coal mining powered this country for over 140 years and we owe a huge debt to workers who kept the lights on for homes and businesses across the country. Now the UK is in prime position to lead the way in phasing out coal power around the world, which remains the single largest contributor to global emissions,” said Energy Minister Michael Shanks in the press release.

‘Give Trees A Hand’: Ad Agencies Sell Sketchy Climate Solutions

November 18, 2024 Ellen Ormesher, DeSmog. , , , , ,
The video opens on an anonymous industrial site, where a woman stands under a clear blue sky. She’s wearing a white hard hat and a grey utility shirt with the name “Regina” stitched above the breast pocket. Smiling into the camera, she tells viewers that “the world needs ways to reduce carbon emissions.” Speakers from diverse backgrounds then reassure viewers that, luckily, they’re working on solutions to that very problem, “like carbon capture, and clean energy from hydrogen.” If it weren’t for the logos appearing on their uniforms, it would be easy to miss that these characters are representatives of one of the world’s biggest oil companies — until Regina reappears to say, “Believe it or not we’re ExxonMobil.”

How A Former ExxonMobil Employee Confronted Climate Disinformation

November 8, 2024 Matthew Green, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Lindsey Gulden, a climate scientist, spent more than a decade working as a data scientist for ExxonMobil until she was fired in 2020 after internally reporting an allegedly fraudulent overvaluation of the company’s assets in the Permian Basin, an oil and gas-producing region spanning Texas and New Mexico. (ExxonMobil says her termination was unrelated and denies fraud took place). That experience prompted her to ask deeper questions about the oil and gas company’s assurances to staff that it is committed to playing a leading role in the energy transition.

Big Ag Uses ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ To Mask Business-As-Usual

October 23, 2024 Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog. , , ,
During September’s Climate Week in New York City, the world’s major food companies lined up to share their pro-nature credentials, claiming that they are embracing “regenerative agriculture” practices that will reduce their massive carbon footprint. However, a new report finds that multinational food and ag companies – such as Cargill, Bayer and Unilever – which are using the term, have barely changed how they do business. A total of 30 major agriculture companies were analysed in the report, which was released in September by the New Climate Institute. It found that while around 80 percent of the firms were heavily referencing the phrase “regenerative agriculture” in their climate and sustainability strategies, only a third had targets, and many lacked specifics on how plans would be implemented, or applied them to just small subsets of their total operations.

Climate Activists Battle The False ‘Solution’ Of Forest Biomass

October 10, 2024 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. , , , , , ,
“Who will own the forests? Who will own the sky?” sang dozens of umbrella-wielding protesters as rain drizzled outside the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon on Sept. 25. Inside the building, timber company representatives, investors and others involved in deciding the fate of forest ecosystems were meeting for an event called CANOPY: Forests + Markets + Society. Billed as “the premier annual event on institutional forestland investing,” CANOPY is a conference whose 2023 attendees included Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascades, biomass energy giant Drax and J.P. Morgan.

Violations Discovered At Nation’s First Carbon Capture And Storage Project

September 14, 2024 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , ,
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found multiple Safe Drinking Water Act violations at the nation’s first carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) storage project, PoliticoPro’s E&E News reported today. The Decatur, IL, project, run by Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), violated rules meant to protect against leaks of captured carbon, the EPA wrote in a notice of violation issued on August 14th. The EPA said it had inspected three ADM wells in mid-June — one used for storing captured carbon dioxide and two used to monitor for leaks and other problems. ADM told E&E News that the violations relate to corrosion in one of the two monitoring wells — a problem that ADM said it had discovered back in March.

US Leads Way In Public Spending On False Climate Solutions

August 31, 2024 Julia Conley, DeSmog. , , ,
Among the world’s wealthiest countries, the U.S. leads the way in spending public money on so-called climate “solutions” that have been proven to “consistently fail, overspend, or underperform,” according to an analysis released Thursday by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International. The group’s report, titled Funding Failure, focuses on international spending on carbon capture and fossil-based hydrogen subsidies, which continues despite ample data showing that the technological fixes have “failed to make a dent in carbon emissions” after 50 years of research and development.

When Is ‘Recyclable’ Not Really Recyclable?

August 21, 2024 Lisa Song, ProPublica. , , ,
Is there anything more pathetic than a used plastic bag? They rip and tear. They float away in the slightest breeze. Left in the wild, their mangled remains entangle birds and choke sea turtles that mistake them for edible jellyfish. It takes 1,000 years for the bags to disintegrate, shedding hormone-disrupting chemicals as they do. And that outcome is all but inevitable, because no system exists to routinely recycle them. It’s no wonder some states have banned them and stores give discounts to customers with reusable bags. But the plastics industry is working to make the public feel OK about using them again.

Fire Reveals How Oil Industry Environmental ‘Solution’ Spurs Climate Crisis

August 14, 2024 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , , , ,
The trouble began at Piñon Midstream’s Dark Horse Treating Plant in Jal, New Mexico, on November 25, 2023, with an unexpected loud “pop” in the early afternoon, the company would later tell state regulators. A poisonous mix of flammable gasses hissed out from a pipeline feeding into the plant. Within a minute, a worker radioed in to the plant’s control room that a dense cloud of vapor had enveloped part of the plant. Within two minutes, Dark Horse was ablaze in what the company would later call an “intense and sustained fire.” Within 15 minutes, more pipes ripped open, and a towering fireball tore through the plant.
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