The colonialism of carbon capture and storage in Alberta's Tar Sands

Abstract

This essay considers carbon capture and storage (CCS) in relation to struggles over value and territorial jurisdiction in the Alberta Tar Sands. Critical engagements with CCS have pointed to the legitimising function of the technology and highlight its role normalising extraction in the tar sands. We suggest that neither the significance of CCS nor the legitimation function it performs can be fully understood absent an analysis of settler colonialism. CCS we argue is a colonial flanking mechanism directly centred on the governance of harm that construes harm in ways that reproduce settler colonial entitlements to Indigenous lands, bodies and ecosystems and helps to consolidate state jurisdiction and power in the tar sands. This construal of harm also productively intersects other colonial strategies of harm reduction relative to the tar sands, including the criminalisation of Indigenous jurisdiction, and is part of a broader relational context that prioritises settler colonial futurity.

Converging old and new carbon frontiers in northern Australia

“…Therefore, we call for a research agenda that analyses old and new carbon economies as a co‐produced and generative assemblage rather than as isolated activities. While we have focused on an Australian case study, similar dynamics are structuring carbon management policies and programmes wherever net zero pledges and high residual emissions collide, including in the UK, Canada, and European Union (e.g., Alexander & Stanley, 2022; Sovacool et al, 2023). Due to the influence of logics of circular carbon – seeking ‘balance’ between emissions sources and sinks – new frontiers have opened in the creation of carbon debts, credits, and derivatives, and also in facilitating their lucrative material and economic interactions.…”

“…Third, we turn to actors and projects that now seek to place themselves at the interstices between such old and new carbon economies. Given the high stakes of circular carbon policies (Carton et al, 2020), the widespread pursuit of these policies (e.g., Alexander & Stanley, 2022; Sovacool et al, 2023), and extensive concerns about their feasibility (e.g., Buck et al, 2023; Field & Mach, 2017), we call for a research agenda that analyses old and new carbon economies together as co‐produced frontier assemblages.…”

How do grand challenges determine, drive and influence the innovation efforts of for‐profit firms? A multidimensional analysis

“…For example, emerging research has highlighted how deep sea mining may irreparably damage the microbial organisms that constitute the building blocks of the marine ecosystem (Orcutt et al, 2020; Washburn et al, 2019) with further, open‐ended, and as yet unknown consequences (Washburn et al, 2019). Despite its undoubted potential, carbon capture remains extremely expensive, and it can be argued that there has been much more interest in small scale demonstration or in indicative projects aimed at relieving pressure on carbon‐intensive industries than in meaningfully scaling matters up to making any real difference (Alexander & Stanley, 2021). In part, this reflects the extent to which immediate financial exigencies and opportunism supersede what may potentially be done.…”