Insight
Bataille: Enhanced oil recovery is the first major use for captured CO2
“The first biggest use if you're going to do CCU is actually enhanced oil recovery in place of other higher emitting oil sources as we climb down from a hundred million barrels a day down to zero sometime mid-century. But, you know, obviously that's a contentio…”
Prediction Held up
Bataille: Over 90% of captured CO2 must be permanently stored, not utilized
“The numbers I typically see is we will utilize less than 10% of it. Most of it has to go into deep storage, be it depleted oil and gas reservoirs with tight overseal, or into deep saline aquifers. Like, the vast majority has to go into permanent storage withou…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bataille: CCS is essential for cement due to lack of alternative chemistries
“We're going to need it for cement because there are no alternative chemistries coming down the pipe anytime soon, and there's a lot of buildings that need to be built.”
Assertion Supported
Bataille: Permian methane leak rates make natural gas as dirty as coal
“In places like the Permian where, you know, the number is seven percent, then eight percent, then nine percent, those are tragically high fugitive, fugitive, fugitive levels. You might as well be doing coal.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2070
Bataille: Carbon removal is an admission we will miss net-zero targets
“We're probably going to blow past the deadline by about two decades, which means, you know, CDR is basically an admission of failure. That we did not mitigate fast enough.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bataille: Technical carbon dioxide removal will reach 1 to 5 gigatons annually
“The key CDR technologies, in my mind, will be direct air capture with CCS, because what CCS does is it takes the CO₂ taken by the direct air capture unit and pushes it back underground, and probably some forms of geological weathering, and it's going to be a b…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bataille: Underground CO2 storage will face public resistance due to fracking fears
“I think there's going to be some resistance there, partly just socially. You know, after the experience with the shallow fracking that brought up a lot of math, methane, people are worried about drilling, right? So deep saline is you're going 800 meters down. …”
Assertion Supported
Bataille: CCS costs $40-60 per ton for pure CO2, $80-120 for post-combustion
“Typically the numbers we work with is if you've got pure CO₂ to work with, you probably have 40, it's 40 to 60 dollars per ton. But if you're using, doing post-combustion with a clean flue gas, probably 80, the end application will be 80 to a hundred dollars p…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Apr 2052
Bataille: Massive global oil and natural gas consumption will persist for decades
“Because, you know, we're at a hundred million barrels per day and a large consumption of natural gas. That's going to be with us for 30 years.”
Opinion
Bataille: Gas CCS for grid firming won't lock in major fossil production
“A little bit of net power gas to firm up a mainly wind and solar power system is not going to lock in a whole lot of oil and gas production.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030
Bataille: Green electricity will displace blue hydrogen for fertilizer past 2030
“Now, for ammonia, there may in the short run be an argument for using blue hydrogen to make, you know, to make ammonia for fertilizers, but in the long haul, like past 20, 30, really, You know, the cost of electrolyzers and the cost of solar, you would just ma…”
Opinion
Bataille: CCS is not strictly necessary for steel decarbonization
“If somebody tells you that we absolutely need CCS for steel, that's just not the case.”
Assertion Supported
Bataille: Global saline aquifers offer thousands of gigatons of CO2 storage
“The number that goes around, the utilizable number is roughly a thousand gigatons, which is more than the current Budget for, you know, for 1.5 C and the, you know, the IA says something like 2000 to 3000 gigatons. And really there's probably tens of thousands…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bataille: Post-combustion CCS breakthroughs will likely happen in the cement sector
“So we, you know, if we're going to make a breakthrough in post-combustion CCS, It will likely be in the cement sector, and there are three pilots happening, ah, that are built, high capture pilots happening right now.”
Assertion Supported
Bataille: Standard amine carbon capture fails on contaminated coal flue gas
“The problem is, for most coal plants, what's coming out, it's full of garbage. Like, it's full of all sorts of It's full of contaminants, it's full of particulates, and it messes with the amine separation process, so you can't just straight off use that, and t…”
Assertion Supported
Bataille: NET Power generates pure CO2 using supercritical CO2 working fluid
“A company in Texas called NetPower that is getting pure CO₂ out of the back end of an electricity generation plant, but it's because the working fluid is not air. It's actually compressed supercritical CO₂. So they inject methane, they inject oxygen, they igni…”
Assertion Partly supported
Bataille: Equinor offshore CCS costs $15 to $20 per ton
“That 15 to 20 dollars is the recompression, the drilling recompression, and down to the saline aquifer and monitoring. That's what the 15 to 20 was. And again, they initially estimated 50, 60 dollars per ton.”
