Cars in 2045: Offsetting Petrol/Gasoline costs with Carbon Capture and Storage

Why should we switch our entire fleet of cars over to Battery Electric Vehicles over the course of the coming decade? 

Isn't that going to be a huge pain? 

Shouldn't we just let people carry on using petrol cars? 

Well, let's try and work this out. 

Net zero future

We are in 2040 or 2050 and in urgent need to get to net zero because we have done so little about climate change up to that point. The global temperature is now on average 2 degrees over the pre-industrial average and still rising. 

Finally the governments of the world agree they have to achieve net zero after all by belatedly charging the full cost of carbon pollution. But how much will that add to the cost of petrol? 

I've tried to work this out, based on rough current prices, but I'm happy to be corrected if I've got something wrong. 

Invisible pollution caused by burning petrol/gas

We can't sense CO2 of course, but burning a litre of petrol apparently produces an astounding 2.4 kg of CO2! 

Furthermore, we have to add in the emissions involved in producing the petrol in the first place. I will estimate this to be an extra 0.72kg at present. 

But maybe that amount will come down if refineries and oil tankers use renewable power in the future? So let's assume pollution from petrol production has improved to 0.6kg per litre. 

This makes a nice round number of 3kg of CO2 per litre. 

Offsetting the CO2 pollution

What are the options to offset this CO2? All the cheap options - growing trees and plants and so on - will be long used up by this point. Let's say the airlines have already bought all these up and there is no land left for this. 

This leaves Direct Air Capture of Carbon and Storage (DACCS). It is hard to predict how much DACCS will cost in the future. It is completely unproven technology. Plus we don't have places to reliably store all the carbon produced, but let's ignore this for now and assume we can use it for something or put it back in the wells which we emptied of oil and gas for the same cost as getting that oil and gas out. 

At the very least the DACCS machinery would need to be powered with spare renewable capacity, since powering it with fossil fuels would mean you would also have to "CCS" those emissions, which would require burning more fossil fuels, which would require more CCS. So you need to build extra renewables to cover this usage. Let's assume you've overbuilt renewables and run the DACCS machine whenever there is a surplus. 

Nobody has any idea how much this will cost, but the IEA believe - no doubt correctly - that some CCS will be inevitable and have provided some estimates. Optimists say it will be $100 per tonne. Pessimists that it would be $350. I'm pessimistic myself, but let's consider those two scenarios to get an idea. 

Do we want to continue to using petrol and "DACCS" it or do we want to switch to BEVs? Let's consider the extra cost of capturing the carbon from petrol. 

Cheap DACCS cost of offsetting Petrol

DACCS cost per tonne of CO2: $100

DACCS cost per kg of CO2: $0.10

DACCS cost per litre of petrol: $0.30 (£0.25 at current exchange rates)

Expensive DACCS cost of offsetting Petrol

DACCS cost per tonne of CO2: $350

DACCS cost per kg of CO2: $0.35

DACCS cost per litre of petrol: $1.05 (£0.86 at current exchange rates)

Conclusion

As I've said, I am pessimistic that DACCS will come down significantly in price. It will probably end up somewhere in between those two extreme guesses. 

There is also the issue of what you do with all this carbon. I've added in some costs to transport it, but transport it to where? Presumably to make some E-fuels or something. Then the question is whether you should also DACCS the e-fuels as well? Or should the user of those e-fuels be responsible for that? 

Either way, imagine that the cost of petrol, whatever it would be in 2045 or 2050 (when peak oil might have hit anyway) is supplemented by a DACCS charge of fifty pence or more. 

BEVs are already cheaper over their lifetimes than petrol cars due to their lower fuel, running and maintenance costs. 

How much do you value your petrol car over the BEV alternative that you would pay this premium? Let's face it, few will. Petrol cars will be historic curiosities. There will be plenty of enthusiasts. However, they will be seen as inefficient, wasteful, dirty and polluting compared to normal cars (BEVs)