Watchdog Group Global Witness has released a study revealing that Shell's
Specifically, the group's study showed that, while Quest had prevented 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released since 2015, it had emitted 7.5 million tons during that same period. The watchdog group highlighted the fact that $645 million of Quest's $1 billion price tag was covered by the Canadian government.
"Governments cannot let the wool be pulled over their eyes to invest vital public funds in projects that will not deliver what's needed to avert climate disaster. Instead, they should use that money to end our reliance on fossil fuels and direct it towards renewable alternatives," senior gas campaigner at Global Witness, Dominic Eagleton, said in a statement.
In response, Shell told CNBC that the study was "simply wrong". In the past, the petroleum company has described Quest as a "thriving example of how carbon capture and storage is working".
According to the Global Witness study, the Quest facility captured just 48% of the emissions that it produced. In the past, the oil and gas industry has touted carbon capture projects as being able to capture 90% of emissions.
Shell stated in 2020 that the Quest facility had exceeded the company's expectations to capture and store carbon, also stressing the fact that the facility had been running at lower costs than expected. In its response to Global Witness, Shell stressed the difference between Quest's CCS technology and the technology set to be used by the company's proposed hydrogen facilities.
"Our Quest facility was designed some years ago as a demonstration project to prove the underlying CCS concept, while capturing around a third of CO2 emissions. It is not a hydrogen production facility," Shell wrote. "The hydrogen projects we're planning - like Polaris - will use a new technology that captures more than 90% of emissions. Global Witness are comparing apples with pears."
While hydrogen-reliant production, also known as blue hydrogen or fossil hydrogen, may have more meaningful effects than the CCS technology used in Quest, climate activists argue that these technologies not only often fail but also prolong the reliance on fossil fuels.
"Oil and gas companies' promotion of fossil hydrogen is a fig leaf for them to carry on with their toxic practices - the extraction and burning of fossil fuels," Eagleton said. "The single best way for companies like Shell to help tackle the climate crisis is to phase out all fossil fuel operations, rather than find ways to hide their climate-wrecking activity behind false solutions."
The climate community seems to be in agreement that CCS and continued reliance on fossil fuels isn't the way to go, but the increasing demand for energy makes it unlikely that fossil fuels will be left behind any time soon. Access to and availability of renewable energy sources are growing, but energy demand is growing faster.
"The global power market is experiencing rapid power demand growth as markets recover from the pandemic. Despite all the capacity additions in renewables generation, the amount of power currently generated by renewables is still not enough to meet this increased demand," S&P Global Platts manager of global coal, Matthew Boyle, told CNBC.
Following the release of Global Witness' study, climate activist Greta Thunberg took to Twitter
