Clarifying My Thoughts on CCS

Any time I write a piece about the future of carbon capture and storage (CCS), a bit of a backlash ensues here from some readers here who generally question my sanity for saying anything positive about this sector. Honestly, I have no problem with that - it’s the kind of reaction I want this platform to produce.

Today’s a great example. In response to my post - which also appears in the Daily Caller today - urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to force his agency to get off its ass and delegate primacy on Class VI injection wells to the State of Texas, one reader asked this question:

Sincere question from a non industry guy... isn't the entire carbon narrative just more eco-bullshit?

It’s a great question, quite honestly, and here’s my answer to it:

I know many folks believe this to be the case, but I don't. I mean, I question the necessity of CCS in terms of climate alarmism narratives that claim atmospheric CO2 is the thermostat for the Earth’s environment, but I don't really question the propriety of the technology as some do.

I was never employed at ExxonMobil during my career, but I did work on an array of industry-wide projects with dozens, perhaps hundreds of its employees, including some very senior executives. In my second career as a writer and podcaster, I have interviewed some of its senior executives many times, including those in charge of its Low Carbon Solutions Business unit.

Those years of experience informed me that this is a company that a) doesn't really give two shits about green virtue signaling, and b) is not about to invest billions of capital dollars on technologies and projects that do not work and will not produce strong returns to investors.

During the first 20 years of this century, as competitors like Shell, BP, and Equinor spent billions hiring in entire departments made up of social sustainability experts and communications people to appease the green activists and leftwing governments, ExxonMobil spent billions hiring in additional engineers backed up by hundreds of additional lawyers whose job was to sue the shit out of them and protect the company’s interests.

Largely as a result of this stark divergence in corporate strategic approaches, here is a comparison of today’s real-time market caps for those companies:

ExxonMobil - $483 billion

Shell - $204 billion

BP - $92.1 billion

Equinor - $70.3 billion

So, as of 2.12.2025, ExxonMobil’s market cap exceeds the grand total combined market caps of these three “competitors” by more than $120 billion.

This tells me that ExxonMobil’s management teams have had a pretty good idea of how to run their business in this century.

ExxonMobil has led the world, by far, in CCS projects for more than 30 years now. It has plans in development to invest many billions of dollars in additional CCS projects in the years to come. The vast majority of those planned projects - and the massive economic impacts and job creation that come along with them - are targeted for Texas.

ExxonMobil is making those investments based on intensive research indicating there is a big and growing market for these projects that is not likely to go away due to changes in public policy, and they will create profits on a par with its core oil and gas projects. If the company's management believed otherwise, these projects would be cancelled. Simple as that.

So, is it all eco-bullshit? Maybe. But as long as I see ExxonMobil planning to invest billions in growing this sector in Texas, I'm going to advocate that state and federal policymakers do the right thing for my state.

That is as clearly as I can explain the reason why I continue to write about CCS from time to time. I don’t expect to stop anytime soon.

That is all.