Yeah I know cool people who are interested in the science but not only am I skeptical as a geologist it will work long or medium term, I don’t trust ANY of the money being sloshed around for something that feels like far too convenient of a distraction from why climate change is happening.

If this works we will burn even more oil at a greater rate mark my words.

This whole concept hinges on the understandable delusion that we can create, no find in nature an almost perfectly hermetically sealed space to put the consequences of our actions in so they don’t hurt anyone, we can’t.

Despite advances in corrosion-resistant materials and specialized cement blends, ensuring structural integrity over hundreds of years remains unproven in practice. The oil and gas industry’s historical challenges with long-term well integrity, evidenced by numerous abandoned wells leaking methane or other fluids decades after closure, further underscore doubts regarding the feasibility of ensuring permanent CO₂ containment on geological timescales.

Scaling geological sequestration to multi-gigatonne levels exacerbates these engineering uncertainties. To manage several billion tonnes of CO₂ annually, thousands of injection and monitoring wells would be needed, each subject to stringent corrosion and structural integrity requirements. Sourcing sufficient volumes of specialized corrosion-resistant alloys, durable elastomers, and advanced cement mixtures at such massive scales could strain global manufacturing capacity and supply chains.

…

Given these substantial risks and uncertainties, prudence suggests treating large-scale geological sequestration as a solution of last resort rather than a cornerstone strategy. Climate policy must prioritize accelerated electrification, increased renewable energy deployment, and aggressive demand-side measures to reduce fossil fuel dependency as much as possible. Restoring and expanding natural carbon sinks, including forests, wetlands, and soils, similarly provides credible and ecologically beneficial alternatives.

While I haven’t found time to do the full analysis yet, my working hypothesis is all decarbonization scenarios from the IPCC and other major organizations are wrong because they vastly underestimated solar, batteries and global penetration of electric vehicles of all scales, and vastly overestimated hydrogen’s potential in the energy sector. Realistic scenarios that aligned with the rapid acceleration of electrification and the developing world leapfrogging the developed world would not see a need for enormous pipeline networks to sequestration sites for garbage disposal of carbon dioxide.

so many good quotes!