Talk:Carbon capture and storage/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Clayoquot (talk · contribs) 20:16, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Esculenta (talk · contribs) 02:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'll take on this review. As is apparent, it's a long article with lots of things to check, so I'm going to take my time and will need a few days to carefully read it and assess it against the GA criteria. I'll make (what I think to be) uncontroversial copyedits along the way (revert those you disagree with), and bring other things up for discussion here. Esculenta (talk) 02:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful. Thank you for volunteering! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:58, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check.
a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Comments

1: A couple of suggestions for tightening the prose:

"In strategies to mitigate climate change, CCS could have a critical but limited role in reducing emissions.[6] Other ways to reduce emissions such as solar and wind energy, electrification, and public transit are less expensive than CCS and also much more effective at reducing air pollution." -> "Although CCS may play a limited but important role in cutting emissions, more cost-effective options—such as solar, wind, electrification, and public transit—generally reduce air pollution more effectively."
"The IPCC estimates that at appropriately-selected and well-managed storage sites, it is likely that over 99% of CO2 will remain in place for more than 1000 years, with "likely" meaning a probability of 66% to 90%" -> "According to the IPCC, well-managed storage sites likely retain over 99% of injected CO₂ for more than a thousand years, where 'likely' means a 66–90% probability."

In section "Related concepts", subsection "CO2 utilization in products", I think the paragraph is a bit confusing for readers unfamiliar with urea's significance or its relationship to CO2 utilization. We learn in the next paragraph that urea is used in fertilizer production, but that still doesn't clarify why it would need to (or not need to) be reported when reported CC figures. Perhaps a small tweak (incorporating the final sentence of the next paragraph) is sufficient for brief context for urea and explain why it is relevant: "In the production of urea, an important agricultural fertilizer, CO2 generated within the same industrial process is often recycled and reused. However, by convention, this type of internal recycling is not included in figures on carbon capture. Similarly, CO2 produced for the food and beverage industry is also excluded from these figures."
"Once injected, the CO2 plume tends to rise since it is less dense than its surroundings." this may be confusing, as the reader was told elsewhere that the injected CO2 is in a fluid state. Of course, it's in a supercritical state, so it acts as both fluid and gas. I suggest making this a bit clearer, e.g. "Once injected at depths greater than 800 meters, CO2 is typically in a supercritical state, but it may still tend to rise due to being less dense than the surrounding fluids, until it is trapped beneath impermeable rock layers."

2: see spotchecks below. Generally, source quality is fine, with a mix of academic sources, intergovernmental bodies and governmental agency reports, Major international news outlets, academic or well-known think-tank websites, and respected national/regional magazines. Although it's not strictly part of the GA criteria, I recommend adding extra bibliographic details to the sources where available. For example, #52 (Climatewire, Christa Marshall) was published in 2010. The final two citations (The Economist) don't give the authors. Some other sources in between are missing authors or publication dates (or access-dates).
3a: Overall, the article does a thorough job laying out the key aspects of carbon capture and storage, touching on technical fundamentals, historical evolution, current deployment status, policy debates, economics, social acceptance, and controversies, the article is indeed broad in coverage of the main facets of CCS
3b: Despite the breadth, the sections generally remain on-topic and does not bury the core subject in irrelevant detail. The controversies (e.g., fossil fuel industry promotion, partial capture vs. full capture) and cost estimates are given enough explanation to show why they matter for CCS's viability, but the article avoids going off into purely political or corporate histories. Summary style is used properly to point to related articles with more detail.

One concern: the statement "Construction of pipelines often involves setting up work camps in remote areas. In Canada and the United States, oil and gas pipeline construction has historically been associated with a variety of social harms, including sexual violence committed by workers against Indigenous women." introduces a topic—social harms, including sexual violence related to pipeline construction—that, while relevant to broader discussions about the impacts of fossil fuel infrastructure, may stray somewhat from the narrower focus on CCUS. Since the connection is indirect, perhaps the statement could be reframed to clearly connect the social concerns to CCUS pipelines and infrastructure development. Or, if the connection to CCUS is too tenuous, it might be better to omit it to keep the article tightly focused.

4: I think the article has a proper balance of supportive vs. critical perspectives. In general, claims and opinions are attributed to relevant parties—e.g., "Fossil fuel companies heavily promote CCS", "Many environmental groups regard CCS as …", etc.—rather than stated in Wikipedia's own voice. This style keeps editorial bias in check. The tone of the article is largely neutral and fact-based, relaying each side’s arguments with sources. Regarding due weight, no single perspective dominates the article. The widespread critiques are prominent (reflecting a notable body of literature and high-profile NGO positions), but so are mainstream statements from the IEA and IPCC acknowledging CCS’s potential importance for certain sectors. The discussion of controversies (enhanced oil recovery, pipeline safety) is balanced against the fact that CCS is actively subsidized and deployed by multiple governments.
5: No evidence of anything other than steady article improvements in recent history.
6: All images have licenses appropriate for use on Wikipedia. The images are relevant and align with the major themes of the article, and the captions tend to do more than just label an image; they draw clear connections to the article's content.

Spotchecks

I successfully verified many of the statements sourced to the most common source, IEA (2020).
I checked all statements cited to source Lebling et al. 2023 "7 Things to Know About Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration"; all statements successfully verified.
"In these cases, the fossil fuel is partially oxidized ... Several advantages and disadvantages apply versus post combustion capture." source url has presumably changed, as current page does not support this statement
who is Fatih Birol and why is the article using a tweet of his as a source for a somewhat controversial statement?
first paragraph of Social and environmental impacts#Pollution lacks a citation
"Saskatchewan extended its 20 per cent tax credit under the province's Oil Infrastructure Investment Program to pipelines carrying CO2" needs a citation
"Denmark has recently announced €5 billion in subsidies for CCS." needs a citation
"Impurities in CO2 streams, like sulfur dioxides and water vapor, can have a significant effect on their phase behavior and could cause increased pipeline and well corrosion." the second part of the sentence is not supported by the source

Like I warned, I made several copyedits to the article, summarized here, that should be checked. Overall, I think the article is very well done and just needs some tweaks to fully meet the GA-criteria. I'll place the article on hold to give the nominator time to address the suggestions above. Esculenta (talk) 13:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you two don't mind me butting in. I have a query about the scope of the article - the hatnote tells us that is about flue gas and the #Technical components also deals with this exclusively, but looking at the figure at the start of #History_and_current_status we see that the majority of CCS has nothing to do with flue gas but is instead to do with processing of natural gas. I'm not sure how to resolve this, but it's currently unclear and there maybe needs to be more of a distinction made between the two? Related to this, are there any stats on what proportion of global emissions are currently being captured from flue gas? It must be a fair bit smaller than the 0.1% currently cited, but I'm not sure what the "other industrial" means in the figure. SmartSE (talk) 14:41, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both Esculenta and SmartSE for your edits and comments! I'm delighted and grateful for such detailed feedback. Just got back from holidays and I should be able to work on things this week. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:01, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]