That’s because in the mid-1980s, crude prices crashed, and interest in alternative energy sources seemed to evaporate overnight. But before the effort to reduce global reliance on fossil fuels could even get up a head of steam, it was over. Government-sponsored financial incentives were committed, and infrastructure development was just getting off the drawing boards. Oil prices soared, and those prices supported serious investment in alternative energy technologies, including hydrogen. Compare the current intensity to one of those earlier cycles when interest cranked up - during the 1973-74 Oil Shock, when OPEC enacted an embargo on western nations perceived to have supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War (we talked about that recently in Been Around A Long Time). Today, we discuss the energy industry’s embrace of carbon capture solutions and how it could shape our energy future.Įnvironmental and climate concerns have cycled into the limelight a few times over the last several decades, but interest in these topics has reached a fever pitch in the past couple of years. Whether we’re talking about refineries, ammonia plants, steam crackers, ethanol plants, or any other carbon-generating industrial process, capturing the CO 2 - making the process “blue” - is seen by many as a way to make significant progress toward climate goals without over-burdening governments or consumers with the sky-high costs associated with some of the more technically challenging energy transition technologies. Across North America, the idea of capturing carbon dioxide to clean up our collective act is quickly gaining momentum and support. It’s one of the largest recent efforts to marry hydrogen production with CCS - an increasingly popular solution informally referred to as “blue” hydrogen. A couple of weeks ago, Shell announced a large-scale carbon capture and sequestration initiative at its Scotford refinery complex near Edmonton, AB.

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