Major oil companies including Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and BHP have all invested into a small Canadian company called Carbon Engineering. This comes after years of oil companies taking the main blame for carbon emissions, negatively affecting the environment. Carbon Engineering claims that they are on the verge of developing a fan that will remove already existing carbon out of the atmosphere. This could keep bringing oil companies profits for years as we've seen a rise in affordable alternatives such as electric cars.
Carbon Engineering is also researching ways to process carbon to create synthetic fuel. This fuel would be more costly to consumers, but would be a lot less harsh on the environment. However, the rise in price in this fuel could make it difficult for a new market to develop. There are negative externalities affecting the environment with regards to driving motor vehicles.
However, the additional cost of environmentally friendly fuel would not be worth it to many consumers.
It will be interesting to see the development and implementation of environmentally friendly alternatives by these oil companies. Addressing carbon emissions could be a turning point for the oil industry as a whole. Climate change has been a global concern for decades and it is interesting to see oil companies finally take action against it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/business/energy-environment/climate-change-carbon-engineering.html
2 comments:
It would be a huge discovery if Carbon Engineering could create a technology that could remove carbon from the air as it would allow the economy to continue to operating as it currently is without a massive change in the energy sector. Some economist have predicted that climate change could cost upwards of $600 trillion by 2100 and this technology would prevent that loss from occurring. I think it is also interesting that big oil is paying for this research because it will cost them lots, but in the long run it will allow them to continue to operate.
This is a very interesting article, as jack mentioned above this would be a huge discovery if there is a technique that could extract carbon from the atmosphere. I believe if this technology is actually viable it would be a huge breakthrough for the oil industry. The oil industry has taken the biggest public perception hit from global warming, this technology could help change the perception of this industry and help this industry to continue to thrive.
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