Carbon Capture: A Smoke and Mirrors Solution?

The Malaysian government launched the National Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR) this year, outlining Malaysia’s plans towards achieving a sustainable and inclusive energy system, that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, and moves us towards a low carbon economy. However, organisations like Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) have voiced concerns over some of the proposals in the roadmap, including hydrogen, and Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies, which they believe require more thorough assessments and debate, before being accepted as appropriate solutions. We unpack some of these new technologies heralded as the solution to our climate woes - specifically Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and CCUS technologies - to discuss what it means, and whether it's "a greenwash to extend the life of fossil fuel assets, or a panacea to avert catastrophic climate change consequences" with Grant Hauber, who is a Strategic Energy Finance Adviser for Asia, at the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis. Grant also shares his findings based on two long-running Norwegian carbon capture and storage projects held up as the success stories of CCS, which he believes raises a cautionary tale about the technical and financial viability of the concept in the long run.