Blaming John Glenn for not reaching the moon

Shell’s Quest carbon capture facility in Alberta, Canada came under heavy criticism last week for emitting more CO2 than it captures. I will explain why this is misguided, even as I’d probably support Global Witness’ other campaigns in the future.

So, John Glenn.

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. He did so in 1962. Building on Glenn’s success and deploying more powerful technology, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969 and returned safely. Ten more “moonwalkers” followed. May humanity return soon.

We can commend Glenn’s more modest achievement as a necessary stepping-stone to Neil Armstrong’s “great leap for mankind”, or we can condemn him for not going all the way. It’s the same choice with the Quest CCS project.

First some background.

Shell submitted its Quest CCS project plans to regulators in Alberta in November 2010. That was the month Obama lost his supermajority in Congress. The levelized cost of energy for utility-scale solar arrays in the United States was $0.248/kWh (see page 8). Plug-in electric vehicles in Norway had roughly 0.7% market share (722 passenger vehicles out of 127,754 vehicles sold). Canada did not have a carbon tax.

[edit: Big thanks to Andrew Leach for pointing out that Alberta's SGRR had come into effect before 2010; the Quest project got $30/tonne CO2 with a 2:1 option value on future carbon prices.]

The Quest CCS project started up in November 2015. Donald Trump had recently announced a novelty Presidential campaign. CleanTechnica.com had published my article arguing that learning curves meant green hydrogen would soon be cheaper than grey hydrogen in Europe. The levelized cost of electricity for solar panels in the US was about $0.065/kWh. Plug-in electric vehicles had 22.4% market share in Norway. Canada’s new government promised to implement a carbon tax. All of CAD $20/tonne CO2. In the year 2019.

Net-net, twelve years ago Shell decided to spend hundreds of millions of dollars – which it could have booked as profits – to capture a million tonnes per year of CO2 and permanently bury it. In a country without a carbon tax. They don’t even use the CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery. This is what Global Witness has chosen to vilify them for. No good deed goes unpunished.

Time Travel and its Discontents

Imagine Bjorn Lomborg tweeting that Norway’s ZEV policy support was a climate-wrecking sham because only 22% of model year 2015 vehicles were plug-in electric – or because 0.7% of model year 2010 vehicles were.

That would be ridiculous because it’s 2022 and things have changed. Criticizing blue hydrogen based on a 2010/2015 carbon capture project – built before Canada even had a carbon tax – is no different, because it’s 2022 and things have changed.

Canada now taxes carbon, with the price set to rise to CAD $170/tonne (USD $130/tonne) CO2 by 2030. What’s the result? Four large-scale blue hydrogen projects in Alberta have been proposed. To the best of my knowledge, three of them (Suncor-Atco; Shell-Mitubishi; Petronas-Itochu) will implement 90% carbon capture. The fourth (Air Products) will capture 95% of the CO2 emissions; through other measures they plan for the hydrogen’s carbon intensity to be net zero. They even invited a Canadian eNGO – the Pembina Institute – to check their math.

To blame Quest for not going far enough with carbon capture is to blame John Glenn for not reaching the moon in 1962. NASA didn’t have the right rocket to get there at the time, and Canada didn’t have the right policy in place at the time either (carbon pricing and/or carbon caps).

To think that Quest should have been more ambitious in 2010/2015 is to think the climate crisis can be solved without pricing pollution. To think that mid-climate crisis, future blue hydrogen projects will go no further than Quest, is to think that Neil Armstrong would only circle the earth as well.

Building Bridges

It’s a Climate Emergency, not a Climate Buffet.

We can’t pick and choose just the climate solutions that suit our palate. The atmosphere doesn’t care about our aesthetic tastes. We need everyone and everything. That means stepping outside our comfort zone and working alongside people who don’t vote the way we do, who don’t think the way we do, who don’t live the way we do. “To go fast, go alone; to go far, go together.”

It’s a Climate Emergency, not a Climate Buffet. 
We can't pick and choose just the climate solutions that suit our palate.        

Global Witness does commendable work. Too often, it is only through communities of conscience such as theirs that social justice is achieved. As a huge fan of solar, horrified that half the world’s polysilicon possibly uses forced labour, I would strongly support its efforts to raise enough outrage to secure the workers’ rights and dignity even as we race through the Energy Transition. Apart from buying US-made solar panels, I don’t know what else the conscientious Energy Transitioner can do. Global Witness probably does. When they speak I will listen, then act.

In its criticism of the Quest CCS project, a misguided criticism has accidentally been made. A Bjorn Lomborg-style apples-to-pineapples comparison happened along the way. Designed in 2010 and commissioned in 2015 – all this, I cannot overstate, before Canada had a carbon price – the project is the John Glenn of the blue hydrogen industry. It should be respected as such, even as the near future is a future of Neil Armstrongs.

Matthew Klippenstein P.Eng. is the Regional Manager for Western Canada for the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association. A chemical engineer by training, he worked on hydrogen fuel cells for about 15 years, during which time he became the first person to track Canada’s EV market (2013). In addition to working as a renewable energy consultant, he co-administered and led outreach for North America’s first systematic incentive program to install L2 EV charging infrastructure in multi-unit residential buildings at the Fraser Basin Council, a British Columbia eNGO.

The opinions above are Matthew's, and may not perfectly represent those of CHFCA. Twitter: @ElectronComm.