Though increasingly framed as a key way to slow climate change, for most commercial Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) operations, selling the carbon they capture to produce more fossil fuels through Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) production is the only way they can ensure profits for investors. According to a count by the Global CCS Institute, of the 28 currently operable CCS complexes worldwide, 22 rely on EOR as their back end “storage” system. CCS advocates hope that under the right public policy regimes, this profit-making motive will help scale up CCS operations while driving costs down. Getting the public onboard means selling CCS as a way to prevent climate change, but who pays when they fail? L. Michael Buchsbaum reviews one of 2020’s biggest CCS disasters as the fourth part of the on-going Seduction series. Meet Enhanced Oil Recovery Currently the largest industrial use of CO2 is EOR.  Though many different methods exist, most concentrate the CO2 and inject it under pressure deep into existing but declining production fields to squeeze out more oil. As … Continue reading CCS Seduction IV: A new dawn for the oil industry goes Nova