The purpose of this website is to provide an independent, investigative perspective on “carbon capture and storage” (CCS). The site provides peer-reviewed studies and verifiable facts, many of which refute misleading information about CCS that is being promoted by pipeline and fossil-fuel corporations and their supporters. View full website catalogue here.
This website is sponsored by the Science & Environmental Health Network on behalf of a large number of individuals, local grassroots and community groups, and larger organizations* working to advance public policies based on science and justice. Get connected with other groups here. Participating individuals and groups are committed to locating and developing verifiable, factual, information about CCS.
*Organizations supporting the Carbon Capture Facts site and its mission to distribute information on CCS and any related technology have not had the capacity to read and verify all resources provided by other contributing organizations.
The purpose of CCS…
…is to allow the continued use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) while somewhat reducing the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
CCS is a plan to capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) from emission sources (such as smokestacks), pressurize it into a dense-phase fluid, which is a dangerous hazardous waste, then pump it under high pressure through long pipelines across private land, passing beneath hundreds of roadways and waterways, ending at some location that has been deemed “suitable” for burying CO2 a mile or so underground, hoping it will stay there forever.
CCUS is a related term meaning “carbon capture use and storage.” This term was invented by fossil fuel corporations to make CCS seem more desirable. The fact is, there is no use for billions of tons of CO2. It is a hazardous waste. Tiny amounts of CO2 are used in fizzy drinks, and some might eventually be used to permanently store small amounts of CO2 by making concrete. Making other chemical products from CO2 eventually releases that CO2 back into the atmosphere, defeating the purpose of CCS. Today at least 80 percent of captured CO2 is being used to flush oil out of depleted oil fields, making the CO2 problem worse, not better. This web site uses the term CCS, not CCUS, because the “U” in CCUS is misleading.
NOTE: There is a similar, though different, technology called “direct air capture,” or DAC, which aims to remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere and do something with it. (DAC is sometimes called “carbon dioxide removal,” or CDR.) This website covers only CCS – capturing CO2 from emission sources – not DAC.
It is a fact that every major CCS project in the U.S. has failed to meet its stated goals, despite $9 billion dollars of public money spent since 1985 to support them. Furthermore, it is a fact that private pipeline corporations promoting CCS today cannot succeed without multi-billion-dollar subsidies of public money year after year. Nor can they succeed without seizing private land for their own private gain through eminent domain. Eminent domain was never intended for private gain. This is political corruption, plain and simple.
It is also a fact that there are many other ways to solve the problems that CCS claims to solve. Some of those ways are already successful, less expensive, cleaner, and can provide more jobs. Unlike CCS, those other ways can propel the nation towards prosperity and justice. The goal of CCS is to tie us to fossil fuels for another 50 years - navigating into the future by looking in the rear-view mirror.
Image: A 24-inch ruptured CO2 pipeline that sent dozens of victims to the hospital in Yazoo County, Mississippi in 2020. Image captured by MEMA via Yazoo Herald.
