Dr. Charles Harvey | Decoding CCS: Oil Companies' Role and the Climate Crisis

Zoom link will be provided via email on the day of the event.

Oil companies are ramping up their advocacy for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). On the surface, they appear committed to addressing the pressing climate crisis, emphasizing the need to employ "every tool in the tool chest" to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. However, is this the full story?

Our speaker, Dr. Charles Harvey, will delve into three key reasons that challenge the proactive stance of these companies on CCS:

• Opportunity Costs: Allocating resources to CCS could divert critical funding and focus from more impactful emission reduction methods, particularly the adoption of renewable energy.

• CCS's Role in Producing More Oil and Gas: It's revealed that most carbon dioxide used in CCS processes is for enhanced oil recovery and much of it was geologic CO2 co-produced with natural gas. Furthermore, subsidies given to CCS inadvertently support oil and, separately, gas production, highlighting a contradictory agenda.

• Augmenting the Market for Fossil Fuels: CCS operations consume vast amounts of energy, inadvertently expanding the demand for fossil fuels. There's also a concern that subsidies dedicated to CCS could deter the growth of innovative technologies that bypass the need for burning fossil fuels altogether.

In addition to these central points, Dr. Harvey will shed light on a concerning trend: the influence of oil companies on academic research. Notable institutions, including MIT and Stanford, have seen their researchers funded by oil giants to produce studies in favor of CCS. Join "Scientists Speak Up" for this enlightening session, as we unravel the intricacies of CCS and its true implications on our climate.

Charles Harvey, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studies hydrogeology, biogeochemistry, and ecology. His group has built field programs in Bangladesh, Borneo, and Cape Cod. They combine novel computational approaches with data collected from these field sites to better understand: Arsenic contamination of well water in Bangladesh, a health crisis that threatens millions; Carbon emission from peatlands in Borneo, and; The interaction of freshwater and seawater in coastal aquifers. He has published widely on the physics and chemistry of reactive transport in the subsurface and on geologic carbon sequestration. Professor Harvey has a BA in mathematics from Oberlin College and an MS and PhD in Earth Science from Stanford University. He has worked for the US Geological Survey, was a faculty member at Harvard, and is now a Professor of Environmental Engineering at MIT. He is a fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the Geologic Society of America and has received the M. King Hubbert Award for contributions to hydrogeology, the Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, and the Meinzer Award for advancing the science of hydrology.