An unplanned event, such as injected CO2 ending up in the wrong place, can affect much more than one SCS project. Such events are publicized and remembered by a public that is skeptical about whether SCS is safe and necessary. This is further exacerbated by existing projects that have failed to deliver on their promises. Consider, for example, the Gorgon SCS project in Western Australia. J.P. Marshall (2022), in an article for Clean Technologies concluded that:
‘There is no indication that the Gorgon project, even if it is fully successful, will reduce the emissions from the fossil fuels it excavates and sells, and given the problems it faced, it seems unlikely that storing a significant amount of emissions produced by burning would be possible.’
Opinions such as this highlight the challenge facing the emerging SCS industry. We must be complete, objective and transparent in our evaluations, and include a rigorous assessment of risk. This is especially important for complex, long-term projects where Social License to Operate over many decades is a requirement. In hydrocarbon exploration, we accept that there will be a certain number of failures and so we drill enough wells to take advantage of the portfolio effect. As we’ll discuss in our next posting, we don’t believe this will be acceptable to companies, advantage of the portfolio effect. As we’ll discuss in our next posting, we don’t believe this will be acceptable to companies, regulators, or the broader societal interests in SCS projects.
