> Would you rather Exxon, Phillip Morris and Pfizer fund the research? Private funds by Musk and Besos?
Actually Exxon just bought the $5B Denbury CO2 pipeline. While I am on the fence about CO2 actually being a problem, we need to recognize that companies that may be viewed as opposed to something may be part of the solution.
If someone works out a super-efficient algael biofuel that is commercially viable at a national scale, I fully expect the oil multinationals will move to growing it everywhere.
That CO2 project is for enhanced oil recovery from aging oilfields, it's really not a viable mechanism for continuing to burn fossil fuels in electricity plants while capturing and burying the CO2 emitted from those plants. Fossil fuel carbon capture and sequestration does actually have all the hallmarks of a fraudulent science program; it would take roughly all the energy produced by a power plant to capture and sequester the fossil CO2 molecules emitted by that plant. Exxon and Chevron are promoting it only because it's the kind of false claim that they can use to prevent moves towards replacing fossil fuels with renewables.
Enhanced CO2 extraction works by pushing the CO2 through the oilfield as a carrier of the oil, so what you get out of the extraction borehole is a mix of CO2 and oil, and the CO2 just vents back to the atmosphere during refining. Some fraction is left in the oilfield, but it's fairly minor.
The cost of the CO2 injection system is thus offset by the profits from the oil recovered; if this were to go to zero then the corporation would abandon it as an unprofitable exercise.
Actually Exxon just bought the $5B Denbury CO2 pipeline. While I am on the fence about CO2 actually being a problem, we need to recognize that companies that may be viewed as opposed to something may be part of the solution.
If someone works out a super-efficient algael biofuel that is commercially viable at a national scale, I fully expect the oil multinationals will move to growing it everywhere.