All posts by Gofishing

Carbon Removals

Economics, Environment, Science

The net-zero strategy of Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) relies heavily on unproven carbon removal technologies to camouflage its fossil fuel emissions and those of its customers while expanding its oil and gas production, a new investigation reveals.

Released on 2 May 2024, to coincide with Oxy’s annual general meeting, the Carbon Market Watch report, ‘Net-zero oil company: climate action or oxymoron?’, takes a deep dive into Oxy’s climate strategy. We assess the oil and gas corporation’s publicly available climate documents, pronouncements and projects.

The in-depth analysis reveals that not only does Oxy’s net-zero strategy conflict with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, it also underplays the significance of indirect emissions and focuses far too much on experimental technologies, such as direct air capture (DAC), instead of committing to deep and rapid emissions reductions through winding down fossil fuel production. In fact, the company intends to use carbon removals as a licence to expand its oil and gas output.

“Oxy’s net-zero strategy fuels the climate crisis. The oil major’s massive investments in oil production and offsetting with unproven technologies are clearly intended to perpetuate the fossil fuel age. Plucking carbon out of the air is no substitute for keeping it in the ground,” says Wijnand Stoefs, CMW’s lead expert on carbon removals and co-author of the report.

                                    Diagram: Noemí Rodrigo, Carbon Market Watch

A central pillar of Oxy’s climate plans is to invest heavily – including using taxpayers’ money – in energy-guzzling and unproven-at-scale direct air capture technology. Its flagship STRATOS facility was initially meant to suck a million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, but this advertised capacity has been slashed by half and we will have to wait and see what the final capacity will be when it comes online in 2025.

Moreover, when the lifecycle emissions associated with the plant are factored in, STRATOS’s net removal capacity plummets to a mere 195,000 tonnes.

The doubts surrounding the plant’s real capacity have not stopped Oxy from selling DAC carbon credits to its customers (including AT&T, TD Bank and Trafigura) to enable them to offset their emissions. More worryingly still, it has not stopped Oxy from indicating that it intends to use captured carbon to pump more petrol out of the ground through a process known as enhanced oil recovery, to market “net-zero oil” products and even potentially to offset Occidental’s own colossal emissions.

These plans are extremely far-fetched, to put it mildly. Even if Oxy were able to construct the 135 DAC plants it intends to build by 2030 and use them to offset its own emissions, this would only cover 11% of its carbon footprint, if the plants have the same capacity as the flagship STRATOS plant.

“Oxy’s misguided climate strategy is not only damaging to the climate, it is also ultimately harmful to its bottom line,” concludes Marlène Ramón Hernández, CMW expert on carbon removals and co-author of the report.  “The company, its investors and customers are all at risk of being left with stranded assets and fending off greenwashing lawsuits. ‘Net zero oil’ doesn’t exist.”

Massive Battery

Education, Environment, Science

How These 24-Ton Bricks Could Fix a Huge Renewable Energy Problem

This startup could solve a core issue with renewable energy. From CNET Zero Energy

Energy Vault’s first large-scale gravity storage system is under construction in China.

Energy Vault

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Imagine a gigantic brick, packed full of compressed dirt. As big as a pickup truck but — at 24 tons — about five times heavier. An elevator powered by solar panels or wind turbines hoists it over 300 feet up the side of a huge building. A trolley stows it inside, but it’s not alone. An automated system lifts and stores hundreds more bricks, like giant Pez candies, as the sun shines and the wind blows.

Now imagine the building’s control system lowering those hundreds of bricks one by one, spinning electrical power generators in the process. They drop down every evening just as demand for power peaks but solar panel output fades away.

This story is part of CNET Zero, a series that chronicles the impact of climate change and explores what’s being done about the problem.

In effect, the brick-filled building is a giant battery that stores energy with gravity instead of chemistry.

Gravity batteries are a potentially important solution to a critical problem with the green energy revolution: making sure electricity is available when we need it, not just during the times when sun and wind supply it.

And it isn’t just an idea. With two sites under construction — one in Rudong, China, just north of Shanghai, and the other in Snyder, Texas, about 250 miles west of Dallas — startup Energy Vault will begin seriously testing the viability of the gravity storage technology. An earlier pilot generated 5 megawatts of power, but these two facilities and expected successors will show whether gravity storage is economical and efficient enough to work at large scale.

Power when the sun goes down

You may think putting solar panels on your roof will help fight climate change, but without some form of energy storage in your home or on the grid, you’ll likely rely on carbon dioxide-spewing gas and coal power plants to run your home’s lights, TV and dishwasher as the sun sets.

Energy Vault tested its technology at a smaller scale in Switzerland, where the 170-person company is headquartered. Its two EVx systems under construction are much bigger. The Chinese system, built for waste management and recycling company China Tianying, is in a 400-foot-tall building and will have an energy storage capacity of 100 megawatt-hours. That’s enough to power 3,400 homes for an entire day, and the system should be complete by June. The Texas system, in a 460-foot-tall (but narrower) building, will provide power company Enel with 36MWh of capacity.

Solar panels and wind turbines now generate power more cheaply than coal and natural gas plants, making them a clear choice in the push to replace fossil fuels. Solar power costs dropped 83% from 2009 to 2023 and wind costs dropped 63% over the same period, according to tracking from investment advisory and asset management firm Lazard. But in many parts of the country, new solar panels often just supply a glut of power during the middle of the day without helping in the evenings.

Sacsayhuaman revisited

History, Just for Fun, Science

Sacsayhuaman revisited

I have traveled extensively and have been fortunate to visit many of my “bucket list” locations. Among those are the Great Pyramid at Giza, Newgrange in Ireland, the Hypogeum in Malta, Puma Punku in Bolivia and several others. However, nothing compares to Sacsayhuaman in Peru. The site is located about 1 ½ miles from Cusco up a hill (about 700’ in higher elevation at 12,500 ft). Even though I have visited the site 3 times it continues to pull me back.

What is so amazing? There are over 10,000 very large stones that were quarried about 3 miles away across a river and on a hillside on the other side of the valley. Consider that in addition they had to be transported from the valley floor to the current site a gain of almost 1,000 feet in elevation.

Once they arrived, they were positioned in a manner where they fit together perfectly, without mortar, some having a half dozen angles. It is not possible to fit a razor blade in the joints. There are a few of these stones that have been estimated to exceed 200 tons and thousands that exceed 50 tons.  The only other site that even comes close is the roof of the Valley Temple at the feet of the Sphinx at Giza, but that is a story of another time. For more details please click on the following.

https://www.ticketmachupicchu.com/fortress-sacsayhuaman

              This shot gives you an idea of size.                                                                                   

                       Check out the angles here