The earth does not have as much space as we believed

For years, the carbon capture and storage (CAC or CCS) has been One of the great technological promises in the Fight against climate change. The idea is simple: if we can’t stop issuing co₂, It can be captured from the air and bury it safely in deep geological formations. But this ‘plan B’ is beginning to lose meaning.

What was thought. We have always taken for granted that the ‘warehouse’ we had had in mind was practically infinite to store all what we would like. Estimates talked about A capacity of between 10,000 and 40,000 gigatons of CO₂that would allow us to ‘live’ calm without having to reduce our emissions overnight.

What is the problem. A new and devastating study Made by an international team of scientists, everyone has come to give us all: the warehouse is much smaller and has very strict conditions when using it.

The new figure, which the authors have defined as a ‘prudent planetary limit’ is 1,460 gigatons of CO₂. This is almost an order of magnitude lower than the most optimistic estimates that were on the table. It is like discovering that the hard drive that was believed to be 40 terabytes, actually only has 1.5 tenderlast of useful storage.

How they know. To reach this conclusion, the researchers did not limit themselves to calculating the total volume of The sedimentary basins of the planet. Instead, they did what no one had done on this scale: apply a series of risk and exclusion filters based on prudence and damage prevention. They created the most detailed map to the date where the CO₂ should not be stored.

“Peros” that reduce capacity. In the investigation, experts pointed to different reasons to be able to remove storage capacity to our planet. These can be summarized at the following points:

• Seismic risk: All areas with moderate or high seismic activity have been ruled out, since injecting High pressure here can reactivate geological failures that cause earthquakes.
• Protected and Polar Areas: Attending to international agreements such as Kunming-Montreal, all natural parks, biosphere reserves and environmentally sensitive areas are excluded.
• Cercanías to the cities: to protect human health and avoid contamination of aquifers, an exclusion zone of 25 km around urban areas was established, since a CO₂ leak could acidify drinking water.

• Ocean depth: current offshore extraction technology is concentrated in relatively shallow waters. The study establishes a practical limit of 300 meters in marine depth, since going further shoots costs and risks, as the Deepwater Horizon disaster recalled.
• International borders: storing carbon under the territory of another country is a legal and political mines field. The study assumes that cross -border accounts would be, in practice, very difficult to use without complexes and, today, non -existent international agreements.

A finite and precious resource. The main conclusion reached by the study is that geological storage is not unlimited. It is a finite resource, Like oil or lithium, and must be managed with an intergenerational vision. It is, as the authors say, a “savings account” that belongs to this and the future generations.

Right now it is used to mitigate current emissions and continue to burn fossil fuels, and also reverse global warming, since when storing this gas the objective is to lower the temperature of the planet in general. But the conflict is evident: each ton we use today for the first objective is a ton less than future generations will have for their time.

There is a limit. Perhaps the most shocking data of the study is this: if we dedicate the totality of this prudent limit of 1,460 gigatons exclusively to eliminate carbon from the atmosphere, we could only reduce the global temperature by a maximum of 0.7 ºC.

This puts a very real stop to the popular ‘overshoot’ strategies that trust that We can exceed 1.5 ° C limit and then ‘cool’ the planet with mass capture technologies. This study tells us that our ability to back down is, at best, very limited.

The urgency of reducing emissions is multiplied. If we cannot rely on a massive cleanliness, the only safe way to reduce emissions drastically and urgently, we have a problem. The study shows that, to the current rhythm, many climatic scenarios would exhaust this storage budget before the year 2200, leaving future generations without tools to manage the climate.

Rich and poor in storage. The analysis also reveals a new geopolitical panorama with clear ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in this race. Winners are countries such as Russia, the United States, China, Brazil and Australia that retain great alonance potential even after applying all risk filters.

At the other extremes we have the countries ‘poor in storage’ such as those belonging to the European, Indian or Norway Union, which see their potential drastically reduced. This means that, to meet their objectives, they could have to depend on other countries to store the captured CO₂, creating new economic and logistics units.

A blow of reality. This study does not mean that carbon capture is useless. It will continue to be a crucial technology to decarbonize industries such as cement or steel. Which means that it is not the panacea that some expected. It is not an excuse to delay climatic action. It is a forceful reminder that there are no magical technological solutions that exempt us from the hardest and urgent task: stop emitting greenhouse gases.

Images | Peter Burdon

In Xataka | I have measured the CO2 of my office for weeks. And now religiously vento every hour and a half