Jack Cavanaugh
jack-cavanaugh.bsky.social
Jack Cavanaugh
@jack-cavanaugh.bsky.social
Carbon upper middle management

Director, Carbon Management Program at Center on Global Energy Policy + non-resident fellow FAI
But it terms of popular and passable policy in DC, tax credits and loans are great!
January 14, 2026 at 10:29 PM
We have a whole toolkit, contracts for differences, LPO, tax credits, procurement, standards, regulation we should do all of it!
January 14, 2026 at 10:26 PM
Clean product standards are great! A tech-neutral policy is generally the most politically advantageous move. In agreement with you!

EPDs and government procurement are two great places to start that were in IRA/IIJA!
January 14, 2026 at 10:13 PM
Looking forward to the last piece in his series and would note I'm not speaking specifically to Australia in this thread. I am no expert on the climate policy/politics of the country.
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
I welcome any and all CCS criticism, and think Ketan makes good points, my push is for critics to explain their net zero future, how CCS fits in, and what policy/regulations get us there.

And of course, all that has to fold into politics. It's not easy, but plenty of us are doing it!
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
have no interest in using CCS as a tool. And you also have constant criticism as any support for CCS is a fossil fuel hand out, continuing the use of fossil, it's a technology that doesn't work etc.

That's the horseshoe of CCS, both the left and right hate it. And yet we need it!
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
environment that incentivizes those deployments! And all policy and regulatory discussions flow downstream from politics, which is challenging.

You have incumbent interests in continuing to emit CO2 without pollution controls, you have politicians who don't believe climate change is real and so...
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
And this leaves me with my biggest frustration with many of the folks who, in some cases, rightly criticize CCS: all problems no solutions.

If you agree that we need CCS for some emissions, especially in industrial processes in the near to medium term, we need a policy/regulatory...
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
doesn't explain why that is true. It's true because producing a barrel of oil gives you a commodity you can sell that decreases the cost of doing CCS.

We can create policies to incentivize dedicated storage over EOR, but again, the economics have to pencil, and currently, they're better with EOR.
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
In part two Ketan claims "Gorgon is the biggest and ‘best’ CCS project in the world" I do not know anyone who makes this claim, but I understand the editorial decision to paint it like that.

He is again correct that most capture carbon has been used for enhacned oil recovery (EOR) but again...
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
carbon removal! Another technology that has drawn Ketan's critical eye.

Again here Ketan breaks out the failure rate by use case, which is a total fair point to make, but again no discussion on why they have failed.
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
We should both provide support for new technologies that avoid using CCS like direct electrification, hydrogen (which is cheapest to produce without emissions using CCS), thermal batteries, etc and support CCS

Because for everyone emission from cement and ammonia today, we need even more...
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
different approaches, the EU uses the ETS, CBAM and some catalytic capital from the commission to help incentivize deployments. The US uses a tax credit (45Q) and capex grants.

But because CCS is expensive, the support needs to match the cost. This often draws the ire of CCS detractors.
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
CCS is expensive, and yet for many sectors it is the best way to decarbonize right now (cement, ammonia).

So if you want to decarbonize these sectors, amongst others, you need to provide long-term incentives or regulations that lead to deployments.

Many ways you can do this and countries have....
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM
First Ketan notes that CCS has failed to deploy at scales in projections. This is absolutely true.

But there is no discussion of why we have not seen more deployments, which is a very important question.

The reason is because we don't have adequate, long-term policy support for CCS.
January 14, 2026 at 6:00 PM