Anyone have any insight into carbon capture? I've certainly read a lot of perspectives that it'll never be cost effective. But the thing I keep coming back to is the currently 'cost-ineffective' scrubbers, operating at a cost of $50-$100 USD per tonne of CO2 removed, are still cheaper than the planned 2030 carbon tax of $170 CAD per tonne of CO2 emitted. Am I wrong in thinking that the combination of the carbon tax and even existing scrubber technology will make implementing it inevitable for most heavy emitters by the end of the decade?
I imagine that for heavy emitters in Canada, there is the hope that the carbon tax gets scrapped at some point, but even if they resign themselves to making that change, there's going to be a difficult choice about when to implement, as you don't want to spend massively on carbon capture projects today if you think scrubbers are going to improve their cost efficiency in the next decade. My hunch is that this is why we see actual implementation in Canada so low in almost every sector beyond natural gas processing.
I tend to be in favour of carbon capture research funding like that recently announced by the Feds, because there's going to be intense economic pressure on emitters to make those changes by the end of the decade so the research and development needs to happen now. But I also feel like perspective isn't shared by most climate-concerned people I know, who view it as a technology that will never be practical.
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