Shell sold millions of carbon credits for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that never happened, allowing the company to turn a profit on its fledgling carbon capture and storage project, according to a new report by Greenpeace Canada.
Under an agreement with the Alberta government, Shell was awarded two tonnes’ worth of emissions reduction credits for each tonne of carbon it actually captured and stored underground at its Quest plant, near Edmonton.
This took place between 2015 and 2021 through a subsidy program for carbon, capture, utilisation and storage projects (CCUS), which are championed by the oil and gas sector as a way to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
At the time, Quest was the only operational CCUS facility in Alberta. The subsidy program ended in 2022.
No, you can’t. There are trillions of trees on earth and the impact they have on carbon emissions is relatively minimal, planting a forest or even many forests isn’t going to cut it.
Not to mention that for trees to be an at all viable long term carbon capture method, you can’t ever cut those trees down. If we can’t leave the fucking Amazon alone, what makes you think we won’t chop up that artificial forest in 50 years?
This is the same issue with kelp. Kelp has a ton of uses, and is an even better carbon sink than trees are, but to be a carbon sink you have to forgo all of those other uses because you have to literally sink the kelp to the bottom of the ocean and leave it there, because actually using it for anything just rereleases the carbon.
You can cut down the trees and they’ll still hold on to their carbon. Just don’t burn them.
Not all cut timber is used for burning. Paper is still manufactured, along with strand board, particle board and plywood.
Not practically. You’d have to be replacing the trees faster than you chop them down just to account for the energy(and thus carbon) used to chop them and process them. Then there’s the fact that decomposition will also release the carbon, so you HAVE to use the lumber for stuff that is intended to last at least as long the tree grew, or else that tree is still a net negative.