A new investigation from ProPublica and Drilled finds that carbon capture and storage (CCS) has failed to scale as promised. The world currently buries less CO2 per year than a single large power plant emits, far short of the 1.6 billion tonnes the IEA projected for 2025 back in 2008. The report traces decades of oil industry funded research that overstated CCS potential while solar power became the technology that actually delivered at scale. In Australia, Chevron's Gorgon project has vented roughly two thirds of the CO2 it removed for injection since it started operating. The Barossa gas field won approval partly on promises that offsets would cover what its capture equipment cannot. The article argues that CCS and carbon offsets are mechanisms that let governments claim climate progress and let fossil fuel companies claim subsidies without reducing what gets burned. It calls for a fossil fuel phase out rather than better designed CCS schemes.
