Showing posts sorted by relevance for query CCS. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query CCS. Sort by date Show all posts

Feb 20, 2012

$45 Trillion Dollar Plan That Will Fail Save Us ...called "carbon capture and storage" | AlterNet

2005...  the G8  committed to building a global infrastructure for "carbon capture and storage" (CCS), which means burying carbon dioxide (CO2) in the ground. Now, seven years later, that infrastructure is being built worldwide. The centerpiece is the Global CCS Institute created in 2009. (The "S" in CCS can stand for "sequestration" or "storage" but it's the same thing -- burying pressurized CO2 in liquid form about a mile below ground.)...CCS is being readied for that time when the chaos, heat and misery from global warming become intolerable and people start begging (or rioting) for relief -- say, sometime between 2015 and 2030.

The problem is that is will fail horribly... why? Just read  recent Letter to Lisa Jackson (head of EPA)

Recently CCS has been critiqued by scientists and engineers from Harvard, Georgia Tech, University of South Carolina, and Dillard University, calling themselves the Environmental Justice and Science Initiative. In April 2011, 18 members of the Initiative signed a long letter to Lisa Jackson, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opposing the PurGen proposal in Linden and spelling out a host of technical concerns about CCS.

The Jackson letter makes some of the following points, among others:

  • Every dollar spent on CCS is a dollar that can't be invested in a modern energy system based on maximum efficiency and renewables. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that a CCS system large enough to manage 20 percent of global CO2 emissions in 2050 would cost $45 trillion. And sooner or later, we'll run out of affordable fossil fuels, so eventually we'll have to pay to develop renewables anyway. Why not skip the costly, experimental CO2 burial stage and go for efficiency and renewables now?
  • A CCS industry large enough to make a real difference in global warming would have to be enormous. Burying one-eighth of global CO2 emissions today would require an infrastructure the size of the global petroleum industry.
  • CCS only buries CO2 and does not address the other health or environmental effects from mining, transport, processing or burning of fossil fuels.
  • A CCS system requires large amounts of energy to operate. When equipped with CCS, an industrial plant requires 25 percent to 40 percent more fossil fuel than the same plant without CCS. In other words, for every four power plants fitted with CCS, we'd need a fifth plant just to run all the CCS equipment. This large "energy penalty" for CCS contributes to high costs, excessive wastes, and more human disease from mining and burning fossil fuels. 
  • An industrial philosophy that promotes wasteful technologies violates the principles of both green chemistry and green engineering.
Please read on at:

Jul 5, 2008

GETTING ALL OUR LEMMINGS IN A ROW

 
 
The G8 nations -- the world's eight richest countries -- will meet in Hokkaido, Japan next week to put the finishing touches on their plan to pass their carbon dioxide (CO2) problem along to all the world's children.
 
The G8 plan -- now fully spelled out in official documents -- is to bury carbon dioxide in the ground, hoping it will stay there forever, but in any case making it our children's problem, not ours.
 
The G8 is an exclusive club that includes Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the U.S. Since 2005, the G8 has been systematically putting together the pieces of its CO2-burial plan, which will be endorsed again at next week's meeting in Japan.
 
Burying carbon dioxide in the ground is called "carbon capture and storage", or CCS for short. CCS is being promoted as a "silver bullet" to the global warming problem, as a kind of speculative bubble of expectations has developed around it. CCS has been used for 35 years on a very small scale in oil fields, to loosen up sticky oil and help force it to the surface (the CO2 comes back out with the oil). But on a large scale CCS is untested and untried. Despite this fact, CCS is the basis for claiming that "clean coal" is a viable energy option for the world's future.
 
The U.S. had been building a coal-fired power plant to demonstrate large-scale CCS (and thus "clean coal") at Mattoon, Illinois -- a project called Futuregen -- but runaway costs forced the federal government to abandon the project in January.
 
"We strongly support the recommendation that 20 large-scale CCS demonstration projects need to be launched globally by 2010..., 80 chief executive officers (CEOs) of transnational corporations issued their own endorsement of CCS as the "solution" to global warming. Their report, "CEO Climate Policy Recommendations to G8 Leaders, July, 2008" acknowledged that CCS is essential, but also that free markets would not provide CCS, so taxpayers would have to do it:
 
"For non-mature technologies, however, markets will not be sufficient and enhanced RDD&D [research development, demonstration and deployment] policies will have to be encouraged. Photovoltaics, fourth generation nuclear and the area of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for coal are good examples. Acceleration of the demonstration and deployment of a range of CCS technologies is particularly important because if all new coal fired electricity generation plants are not operating with CCS by 2015 to 2020 onward, it will be difficult to realize the target of 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050." (pg. 16, emphasis added)
 
Still, no one has ever addressed the most fundamental question about CCS: what would constitute a demonstration of "success?"
 
The plain fact is, if the goal is to bury CO2 forever, success will be impossible to demonstrate. On whatever day such a demonstration is declared a "success," leakage could begin the following day. So any such demonstrations will be meaningless. Everyone involved knows this is true.
 
To make a dent in the global warming problem would require burying trillions of tons of CO2 a mile our more below ground thus creating a reservoir of hazardous gas that could leak back into the atmosphere at any time and begin to cook the planet and acidify the oceans. Even if only 0.01% of it leaked out each year -- a suggested industry standard -- two-thirds would escape in 10,000 years. Even CCS advocates acknowledge that this would be a catastrophe. How could a leak of only 0.01% per year be measured? How could humans remain alert to this enormous underground threat for centuries to come? Even if 0.01% leakage were detected, could anything be done about it? Who would be responsible for taking action? Who would pay?
 
This raises the possibility that the G8's goal isn't actual scientific verification of the technology -- but 20 "demonstrations" intended merely to lull the public into thinking that it's OK to build more coal plants because somehow someday CO2 will be safely captured and stored forever. By the time this bit of fakery is widely understood, the present generation of CEOs and politicians will be long dead and all the world's children will be left holding the bag.
 
By definition, the G8's CCS plan is intended to force future generations to deal with the consequences of our present-day cupidity
-- a position that is morally indefensible.

Oct 18, 2011

The case against CCS

Excerpt from the editor’s accompanying email: In a "Roadmap" report, published in 2009, the International Energy Agency (IEA) sets out the case for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in no uncertain terms. CCS, the IEA argues, must play a major role in reducing worldwide carbon emissions. The nations of the world, says the IEA, must be prepared to spend an 'additional' $ 2500 to 3000 billion up to 2050 to create a global infrastructure to capture CO2 and store it underground.  
The Apollo program pales in comparison to this "Project CCS": the IEA's target is for 3,400 CCS-projects to be operative by 2050, which together would capture 10 billion tons of CO2 or one-third of current global emissions. That means that from today on one CCS-project would have to be realised every 4 days for the next 38 years - and we have hardly even started yet.  Ambitious as this may sound, the IEA nevertheless argues that its global CCS programme is a low-cost option: without CCS, overall costs to reduce emissions to 2005 levels by 2050 would increase by 70%, the prestigious OECD think tank insists.  (…) As a journalistic medium, European Energy Review takes no position on this dilemma, but we do view it as our task to bring you informed articles for and against "Project CCS". Today, we have an article by Peter Droege, Professor of Sustainable Spatial Development at the University of Liechtenstein and urban planning consultant Matthew Ulterino, who strongly argue that spectacular advances and cost reductions in renewable energy make CCS a costly exercise in futility.

Jun 28, 2012

Gov Report - Carbon Capture & Storage (#CCS) 75%more costly than by conventional coal-fired plants.

CBO Releases Report on Federal Efforts to Reduce the Cost of Capturing and Storing Carbon Dioxide June 28, 2012

Coal-powered facilities account for roughly a third of all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, and most climate scientists believe that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could have costly consequences.

Today CBO released a report—prepared at the request of the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—on federal efforts to reduce the cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS), a much-discussed option for reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions while preserving the ability to produce electricity at coal-fired power plants.

No CCS-equipped coal-fired power plants have been built on a commercial scale because any electricity generated by such plants would be much more expensive than electricity produced by conventional coal-burning plants: Engineers’ estimates indicate that electricity generated by the first CCS-equipped commercial-scale plants would initially be about 75 percent more costly than electricity generated by conventional coal-fired plants. Since 2005, lawmakers have provided the Department of Energy with about $6.9 billion to develop CCS technology, demonstrate its commercial feasibility, and reduce the cost of electricity generated by CCS-equipped plants.

In the absence of a significant technological breakthrough, it seems clear that a large amount of new CCS capacity—installed either at new plants or, through retrofitting, at existing plants—would be needed to reduce costs substantially. Such an investment seems unlikely in the foreseeable future and it might not occur even if the technology became more competitive economically. Unless the federal government adopts policies that encourage or require utilities to generate electricity with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, the projected high cost of using CCS technology means that the government’s current program for developing CCS is unlikely to do much to support widespread use of the technology.

Please read full at: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43360

Oct 20, 2009

Insane defined - $2.5 trillion needed for carbon capture 'demonstration' projects

Carbon Capture and Storage (C.C.S.) is a unstable, unreliable, unproven, 'reactive' form of carbon suppression NOT reduction in use or abuse. Yet that is not stopping the $Trillions$ of dollars fed by hopeless dreamers that is can 'fix' global carbon emissions...  the United States has allocated over $4 billion.

Energy czars persuade the persuadable to continue a future built by destroying finite resources 
"the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce"

NOW the executive director of the International Energy Agency, is supporting that $2.5 to $3 trillion should be invested in carbon capture and storage (C.C.S.) projects from 2010 to 2050, or 6 percent of the overall investment needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

The agency recently unveiled a roadmap at the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum in London to give policymakers and industry leaders milestones and steps for reducing emissions. The roadmap includes plans to build 100 C.C.S. demonstration projects by 2020, and increase that to 3,100 projects by 2050. Read full from EcoSeed

Nevermind that:


EPA and "policy" experts not buying it? Better read more about it here:
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Aug 19, 2009

Worlds first carbon capture plan fails biblically

The Guardian reports: It was meant to be the world’s first demonstration of a technology that could help save the planet from global warming – a project intended to capture emissions from a coal-fired power station and bury them safely underground. But the German carbon capture plan has ended with CO2 being pumped directly into the atmosphere, following local opposition at it being stored underground.

From Climate Progress
As I explained a year ago, “CCS has four fundamental problems that have reduced enthusiasm for it recently and limited its likely role“:

* Cost: This is the biggest problem, and it hasn’t gotten better (see Harvard stunner: “Realistic” first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!).
* Scale: We need to put in place a dozen or so clean energy “stabilization wedges” by mid-century to avoid catastrophic climate outcomes — see “How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution (updated)” For CCS to be even one of those would require a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to the current flow of oil out of the ground. That would require, by itself, re-creating the equivalent of the planet’s entire oil delivery infrastructure, no mean feat.
* Permanence and transparency: If Putin’s Russia said it was sequestering 100 million tons of CO2 in the ground permanently, and wanted other countries to pay it billions of dollars to do so, would anyone trust them? No. The potential for fraud and bribery are simply too enormous. But would anyone trust China? Would anyone trust a U.S. utility, for that matter? We need to set up some sort of international regime for certifying, monitoring, verifying, and inspecting geologic repositories of carbon — like the U.N. weapons inspections systems. The problem is, this country hasn’t been able to certify a single storage facility for a high-level radioactive waste after two decades of trying and nobody knows how to monitor and verify underground CO2 storage. It could take a decade just to set up this system.
* Timing: As Howard Herzog of MIT’s Laboratory for Energy and the Environment said last year, “How can we expect to build hundreds of these plants when we’re having so much trouble building the first one?“

Stuart Haszeldine, a CCS expert at the University of Edinburgh, warned of the danger of opposition towards CCS snowballing into a “bandwagon of negativity” if too many early projects were rejected. “Once you’ve screwed up one or two of them, people are going to think ‘if they rejected this in Barendrecht, there must be a reason’,” he said.

People should think of CCS as a post-2025 solution (at best), worthy of R&D and demonstration funding, especially for projects that include biomass cofiring.

But we need massive deployment of low-carbon technology now, however, and that means efficiency, conservation, recycled energy, natural gas, wind, solar PV, concentrated solar thermal with storage, geothermal, biomass... read full at Climate Progress


Update
And China calls CCS just too expensive...

Is China getting cold feet about clean coal? It certainly sounds that way. Bloomberg reports:

"Carbon capture and storage, particularly for China is not one of the priorities–the cost is an issue," [said Su Wei, director-general of the climate-change unit at China's National Development and Reform Commission] in an Aug. 4 telephone interview from Beijing. "If we spent the same money for CCS on energy efficiency and the development of renewables, it would generate larger climate-change benefits."

Wow. Even though so-called clean coal is still embryonic, there's increasing consensus in the U.S. that making it viable is crucial to meeting emissions goals and keeping the lights on.

That's doubly true for China, where coal is a bigger-and much faster-growing-part of the energy mix. In fact, MIT recently argued that China must not only build new clean-coal plants, but retrofit existing coal plants at great expense if the world is to have any hope of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.

And the idea that China must embrace clean coal has become a staple of U.S. policy as well, from vice president Joe Biden's famous rope-line comments during the campaign to Energy Secretary Steven Chu's more recent pronouncements. In fact, China and the U.S. just agreed to cooperate on clean-coal research.

Even with China's big push on low-carbon electricity sources-especially renewables and nuclear power-coal will still account for at least 60% of its electricity in 2020.

If carbon capture and storage is simply too expensive to handle the challenge, will "cleaner" coal have to do the trick? And what will that mean for global efforts to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions?

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Feb 26, 2012

Putting 1 million tonnes of CO2 a mile under Illinois... A horrible gamble that costs trillions and does not work.

A scheme to inject 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide under Decatur, Illinois seeks to rai...

ecoGizmo- A bold undertaking to store one million metric tonnes (1.1 million short tons) of carbon dioxide in a sandstone reservoir 1.3 miles (2.1 km) below Decatur, Illinois, is well under way. The project began last November, and has so far injected more than 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide, almost one tenth of the target. The University of Illinois, which is leading the Illinois Basin - Decatur Project (IBDP), hopes that the scheme will demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of carbon sequestration, as well as raise public awareness of the process's potential environmental benefits... Continue Reading Putting 1 million tonnes of CO2 a mile under Illinois

Also the executive director of the International Energy Agency, is supporting that $2.5 to $3 trillion should be invested in carbon capture and storage (C.C.S.) projects from 2010 to 2050, or 6 percent of the overall investment needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

The agency recently unveiled a roadmap at the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum in London to give policymakers and industry leaders milestones and steps for reducing emissions. The roadmap includes plans to build 100 C.C.S. demonstration projects by 2020, and increase that to 3,100 projects by 2050. Read full from EcoSeed

Nevermind that:


EPA and "policy" experts not buying it? Better read more about it here:

Dec 26, 2008

CARBON SEQUESTRATION: WHAT'S THE POINT?

What's wrong with this plan? In a nutshell:

1) The plan entails as many as 100,000 separate CO2 disposal sites in the U.S. alone. This would require creation of a hazardous-waste-CO2 disposal industry as big as, or bigger than, the oil industry.[1]

2) Creating and running an enormous CO2 hazardous-waste disposal industry would roughly double the cost of fossil-fueled electricity. But this would make solar energy cost-competitive, so why not invest in renewable solar power now instead of investing in a dead-end CO2- waste disposal industry?

3) It would take decades to build this huge new CCS industry -- but we need solutions to the CO2 problem soon. Solar power plants can be built much faster than this experimental CCS plan could develop.

4) The coal industry calls coal-with-carbon-capture "clean coal." But in reality coal-with-carbon-capture emits 60 times as much CO2, per kiloWatt of electricity, compared to a wind turbine making the same electricity.

4) CCS itself would require lots of energy. For every four power plants, we would have to build a fifth power plant just to capture and store CO2. This would waste even more coal and oil.

5) Every engineer knows that avoiding waste is far better than managing waste. So CCS is fundamentally bad design. [For example, see the widely-endorsed Principles of Green Engineering.]

6) Instead of solving the CO2 problem that we've created, CCS would pass the problem along to our children and their children and their children's children. Basically buried CO2 could never be allowed to leak back out. We should take responsibility for our own problems, not pass them to our children to manage.

7) Scientists paid by the fossil fuel companies say the CO2 will never leak back out of the ground. What if they're mistaken? Then our children and grandchildren will inherit a hot, acid-ocean, ruined world.

8) Sooner or later we're going to run out of fossil fuels -- all of them -- so eventually we have to adopt solar power. CCS just delays the inevitable -- a huge waste of time and money.
 
We should skip CCS and go solar today.
 

May 15, 2023

U.S. EPA Proposes Greenhouse Gas Emissions Limitations for New and Existing Electric Generating Units

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") yesterday announced a proposed rule to limit greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions from electric generating units ("EGUs"). The proposal seeks to drastically reduce emissions of GHG and conventional emissions while promoting the use of carbon capture and sequestration ("CCS") and hydrogen co-firing technologies. This proposed rule is part of the Biden Administration's larger regulatory effort to transition the American economy toward "low carbon" technology.

The proposed rule treats new EGUs differently based on level of output and targets certain existing fossil-fuel-fired combustion turbines (both simple cycle and combined cycle).

The proposed rule contains three primary parts: (1) strengthening CO2 standards for new gas-fired combustion turbines, based on three new categories; (2) providing emissions guidelines for existing gas plants that have a capacity of 300 MW and operate at a more than 50 percent capacity factor; and (3) covering existing steam generation units—mostly coal—by requiring those EGUs to choose between new control technologies or retirement.

Consistent with Clean Air Act Section 111, the proposed New Source Performance Standards and emissions guidelines "reflect the application of the best system of emissions reduction [("BSER")] that, taking into account costs, energy requirements, and other statutory factors, is adequately demonstrated." To this end, the EPA's newly proposed rule also seeks to repeal the Affordable Clean Energy ("ACE") Rule, stating, among other rationales, that the BSER therein are no longer appropriate for existing coal-fired EGUs.

The proposed rule would create different standards based on three categories of new gas EGUs and enhance standards for certain existing gas EGUs.

New and Reconstructed Fossil-Fuel-Fired Stationary Combustion Turbines:  EPA proposes three subcategories for new gas plants, based on how heavily a plant is used. For new low-load "peaker" units—defined as operating at below 20 percent capacity factor—EPA proposes as BSER the use of a "lower-emitting fuel," such as natural gas or distillate oil.

For new intermediate load units—defined as operating at between a 20 and 50 percent capacity factor—EPA proposes a phased standard. The first phase establishes as BSER the performance of a highly efficient combustion turbine. The second phase establishes BSER as co-firing 30 percent (by volume) of "low-GHG" hydrogen by 2032 and 90 percent by 2035. The second phase requires continued use of highly efficient generation. The EPA is soliciting comments as to whether intermediate-load units should be subject to a more stringent third phase that would require higher levels of hydrogen co-firing by 2038.

For new baseload combustion turbines—defined as operating at above a 50 percent capacity factor—EPA proposes as BSER one of two pathways, either co-firing with "low-GHG" hydrogen starting at 30 percent in 2032 and ramping up to 96 percent by 2038, or by achieving a 90 percent CCS rate by 2035.

Existing Fossil-Fuel-Fired Stationary Combustion Turbines:  EPA's proposed standards for existing gas plants would only apply to existing EGUs with a 300 MW capacity and at least a 50 percent capacity factor. BSER for these units is based on either the use of CCS by 2035 or co-firing 30 percent (by volume) low-GHG hydrogen by 2032 and co-firing 96 percent low-GHG hydrogen by 2038. The proposed rule does not purport to set new standards for smaller or less frequently used existing gas plants.

The proposed rule requires existing coal-fired EGUs to choose between new control technology or retirement.

EPA relies heavily on CCS and the co-firing of "lower-emitting" fuels to address existing coal-fired generation. The proposed rule would allow operators of existing coal-fired EGUs to forego installation of CCS or certain other emissions control technologies if they commit to near-term retirement of their facilities. The proposed rule would not require any reductions for coal plants closing before 2032, or for plants that commit to retire before 2035 and have a less than 20 percent capacity factor. Existing coal plants that remain online longer than the applicable 2032 or 2035 deadline, but still intend to retire before 2040, may co-fire with natural gas to avoid CCS or other control equipment requirements. Those coal plants intending to remain online through 2040 and beyond must be modified to curb their emissions by 88.4 percent, a level based on achieving 90 percent carbon capture and storage by 2030. This regulatory scheme reflects EPA's view that it is most efficient to deploy CCS technology with EGUs that will operate over a longer period.

Please read full at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP:

https://www.michaelbest.com/Newsroom/313703/US-EPA-Proposes-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions-Limitations-for-New-and-Existing-Electric-Generating-Units

Mar 6, 2009

Economist - Carbon Capture and Storage is mostly hot air

Wow the "The Economist" must read my blog... nearly word for word ;-)

Money for nothing - Carbon capture and storage: Trouble in store

From The Economist

The problem with CCS is the cost. The chemical steps in the capture consume energy, as do the compression and transport of the carbon dioxide. That will use up a quarter or more of the output of a power station fitted with CCS, according to most estimates. So plants with CCS will need to be at least a third bigger than normal ones to generate the same net amount of power, and will also consume at least a third more fuel. In addition, there is the extra expense of building the capture plant and the injection pipelines. If the storage site is far from the power plant, yet more energy will be needed to move the carbon dioxide.

Estimates of the total cost vary widely. America’s government, which had vowed to build a prototype plant called FutureGen in partnership with several big resources firms, scrapped the project last year after the projected cost rose to $1.8 billion.

America does not have a carbon price at all yet. A bill defeated last year in the Senate would have yielded a carbon price as low as $30 in 2020, according to an official analysis. So CCS might not be financially worthwhile for years to come.

Analysts assume that the price of emissions will rise, as governments impose tighter restrictions, and that the price of CCS will fall, as engineers learn how to do it more cheaply...when the technology is mature, some time after 2030.

Experts argue that it is impossible to be certain that carbon dioxide will not eventually leak out of the ground. Carbon dioxide forms an acid when it dissolves in water. This acid can react with minerals to form carbonates, locking away the carbon in a relatively inert state. But it can also eat through the man-made seals or geological strata intended to keep it in place. A leakage rate of just 1% a year, would lead to 63% of the carbon dioxide stored in any given reservoir being released within 100 years, almost entirely undoing the supposed environmental benefit.

Spills would also be a health risk, since carbon dioxide is heavier than air, and so can build up in low-lying or poorly ventilated spots. Earlier this year, Zurich Financial Services said it would offer insurance for CCS plants and storage sites while they were operating, and for a limited time thereafter.

Politicians are pinning their hopes for delivery from global warming on a technology that is not quite airtight... Read the full article from The Economist

Jan 20, 2009

Clean coal won't be viable - industry

A company called ZeroGen wants to build a coal-fired power plant that will bury most of its emissions underground, using Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology.
 
But ZeroGen's demonstration plant, planned for central Queensland in 2012, could be in trouble.
 
The company has written to the Federal Government saying emissions trading will pose a "barrier'' to the development of CCS.
 
The letter says the scheme is too soft, so the incentive to invest in CCS is not strong enough.
 
"Australia's 5 per cent carbon reduction target accompanied by a weak carbon price will be nowhere near sufficient to generate the scale of investment needed to make clean coal technologies economically viable,'' the letter says.
 
The company also wants to be allowed to pump carbon emissions into the air for free.
 
Under the Government's plan for emissions trading, due to start next year, a coal-fired power plant using CCS won't have to pay for emissions buried underground.
 
ZeroGen says its demonstration plant is high-risk and expensive, so it shouldn't have to buy permits at all.
 
"The Rudd Labor Government's promises to support clean coal technology have been exposed as a sham,'' Mr Turnbull said.
 
"Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and there is therefore no single low-emission technology of more importance to Australia than Carbon Capture and Storage.''
 
The Opposition would not be drawn on what the Government should do to boost CCS.
 
A spokesman for federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said ZeroGen could apply for $500m in Government funding for CCS.
 
He did not comment further on ZeroGen's concerns.
 
Last year, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh provided $100m for ZeroGen's feasibility study.
 
The Australian Coal Association kicked in the remaining $25m for the study, which is expected to be finished this year.
 
Read Full From Source news.com.au

Sep 25, 2009

$3.4 billion funneled in stimulus dollars to carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's department has funneled $3.4 billion in stimulus dollars to research and develop the technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

But to give you a sense of the challenge, here are his estimates of the scale of the challenge: 6 billion metric tons of coal burned every year, producing 18 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide and requiring an underground storage volume of 30,000 cubic kilometers per year with untold consequences on subsurface pressure, mineral composition and the like...

Haszeldine and his colleagues therefore call for a quick infusion of massive funds on a global scale, something Steven Chu appears to have at least started in the U.S. And the energy secretary hopes to see major results within a decade.

But is carbon capture and storage really necessary? After all, some studies have shown that major emitters like China or the U.S. could get all their energy from renewables, such as wind or solar.

Chu, for one, doesn't buy it. "It is highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal any time soon, ... read full from ScientificAmerican

Note on source ...Keep in mind doesn't think 'peak oil' is a problem
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Haase - While I already covered the "simple inarguable problems" with the (CCS) carbon capture and storage (link here) , crap like this will make anyone a nuclear energy advocate... it's just nuts.
EPA and "policy" experts not buying it? Better read more about it here:
...it may be easy to read, but many find it hard to understand. Energy czars persuade the persuadable to continue a future built by destroying finite resources "the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce".
Labels:

Jul 7, 2010

Carbon sequestration will never stop global warming

Boing2 - Rather than developing new kinds of power (which might favor new companies and regions) or new patterns of use (which might require effort on the part of individuals), we simply contract with firms who take all our carbon and lock it away underground for millennia. What could be simpler?

Carbon dioxide sequestration isn't a great global warming solution unless we develop less leaky equipment or commit to regular re-sequestering, according to a paper published in Nature Geoscience. If the containers used don't leak less than one percent every thousand years, atmospheric carbon would have to be monitored carefully and resequestered on a regular basis over tens of thousands of years in order to match the effects of reducing carbon emissions. Otherwise, sequestration would only slow the warming, not stop it.


Haase - While I already covered the "simple inarguable problems" with the (CCS) carbon capture and storage (link here) , crap like this will make anyone a nuclear energy advocate... it's just nuts.

Even if you ignore those facts, these are inarguable: it will raise emissions, energy costs and coal consumption.

...it may be easy to read, but many find it hard to understand. Energy czars persuade the persuadable to continue a future built by destroying finite resources "the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce".

But don't let that stop them from dumping billions into the program - $3.4 billion in stimulus dollars to research and develop the technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Aug 6, 2008

Coal - Unstoppable future....

Does coal have a future?
Despite environmentalists' concerns, energy companies say they are racing to meet demand for coal, especially in developing countries where the fuel is cheap and plentiful even in a year where coal price rises have outstripped those of oil.
 
For protesters, the shiny black lumps of fossilized wood and plants are contributing to drastic climate change. For traders, coal is an energy no-brainer which offers a ray of hope for 1.6 billion people living without electricity.
 
They're probably both right.
 
By mid-century, the world may have an extra 3 billion people and four times the wealth but somehow it must also at least halve carbon emissions from its main energy source -- fossil fuels -- to rein in dangerous global warming, scientists say.
 
Power generation accounts for about two-fifths of global emissions, from burning fossil fuels, of the main man-made greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and coal for most of that.
 
"You've got to say -- 'Right, here's the line in the sand, we're going to stop it here because it's madness to continue',"
 
"It doesn't paint a very good picture of the future for carbon emissions but there is no other real choice -- coal is one of the few fuel sources which has a real capacity to expand," said Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities research at Merrill Lynch.
 
FUTURE
Despite such apparent setbacks, coal's future looks safe.
 
In the United States utilities are building 28 coal-fired plants and another 66 are in early planning, as gas price hikes motivate new interest.
 
In developing nations, growth is rampant. Poor grid access coupled with frequent blackouts, rapid economic growth and plentiful fuel are driving a frenzy to build new power plants which take just 21 months to build in China.
 
Over the past three years, China has added each year new coal plants equivalent to Britain's entire electricity-generating capacity. India has approved eight "ultra mega" plants which will add nearly half again to its present generating capacity.
 
Even in the oil-rich Middle East, the United Arab Emirates ordered the Gulf's first coal plant last month.
 
The biggest brake on these plans is not climate protests but a shortage of steam turbines, with a three-year backlog in the U.S. and Europe following exceptional demand and a 12-18 month lag between order and delivery in China, say utilities.
 
 
BAD'er FUTURE
Confronted by this scramble, politicians and scientists are reviewing an untested technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS) which could trap and bury underground, in disused oil wells and coal seams, the carbon emissions from coal plants.
 
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) says CCS equipment must be fitted to all the world's coal plants to halve carbon emissions by 2050, widely held as a minimum climate change goal.
 
But the agency's own scientists express personal doubts that this is achievable.
 
"I don't think in my lifetime I will ever see more than 50 percent of the coal-fired plants in China being fitted with CCS," said 45-year-old Sankar Bhattacharya, senior IEA coal analyst, adding that many of China's new power plants will be in centers of population far from potential CO2 storage sites.
 
CCS is untested for good reason. The technology will add about $1 billion to the capital cost of a power plant, not including efficiency losses which will demand a quarter more coal burn just to maintain output, and extra water for steam to make up the lost power.
 
Read full here (Reuters) - By Gerard Wynn and Jacqueline Cowhig

Jul 17, 2008

Insane - US Unveils Plan to Bury Carbon

Reuter- WASHINGTON - The United States unveiled plans on Tuesday to bury climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions deep underground to keep the greenhouse gas from further heating up the atmosphere.

The burial process, known as carbon capture and storage or geologic sequestration, has long been part of the Bush administration's strategy to combat climate change without imposing any economy-wide limit on carbon emissions.

But this is the first time the US government has proposed requirements on how to do it. No federal rule is expected until late 2010 at the earliest, according to Benjamin Grumbles of the Environmental Protection Agency.

HAASE - Why is this insanity? This is a short term REACTIVE fix that will deplete economy and finite coal & oil reserves... It allows us to continue pushing off inevitable conservation and technology programs required for a sustainable future. 

I have listed the top five "simple inarguable problems" with the (CCS) carbon capture and storage plans 
 
ONE - Raises the energy consumption of a coal plant by an average of 32 percent (together, CCS will probably raise energy consumption by as much as 50 percent).
FOUR -  A carbon capture and storage infrastructure requires HUGE infrastructure consisting of pipelines that rivals the existing oil and gas network.
 
While I already covered this in detail (link here), crap like this will make anyone a nuclear energy advocate... it's just nuts.
 
EPA and "policy" experts not buying it? Better read more about it here:
 
...it may be easy to read, many find it hard to understand.  Energy czars persuade the persuadable to continue a future built by destroying finite resources   "the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce
 
 
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Aug 5, 2009

Energy Market and Economic Impacts of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009



EIA Executive Summary notes below and full linked here
The reports highlights the 'VAST and nearly impossible new energy' assumptions and 'technological fantasies' being made under this program. Report reflects what a insignificant amount of gross global emissions this will reduce and the massive increase in cost, unsustainable bio harvesting offsets and the lead indicator of the nuclear option.

H.R. 2454 ACESA - All will reducing nearly nothing at the cost of nearly everything....

Key EIA Findings

Given the potential of offsets as a low-cost compliance option, the amount of reduction in covered emissions is exceeded by the amount of compliance generated through offsets in most of the main analysis cases (Figure ES-1).

The vast majority of reductions in energy-related emissions are expected to occur in the electric power sector. Across the ACESA main cases, the electricity sector accounts for between 80 percent and 88 percent of the total reduction in energy-related CO2 emissions relative to the Reference Case in 2030. Reductions in electricity-sector emissions are primarily achieved by reducing the role of conventional coal-fired generation, which in 2007 provided 50 percent of total U.S. generation, and increasing the use of no- or low-carbon generation technologies that either exist today (e.g. renewables and nuclear) or are under development (fossil with CCS). In addition, a portion of the electricity-related CO2 emissions reductions results from reduced electricity demand stimulated both by consumer responses to higher electricity prices and incentives in ACESA to stimulate greater efficiency in energy use.

If new nuclear, renewable, and fossil plants with CCS are not developed and deployed in a timeframe consistent with emissions reduction requirements under ACESA, covered entities are expected to respond by increasing their use of offsets, if available, and by turning to increased natural gas use to offset reductions in coal generation. While natural gas generation is expected to fall below the Reference Case level in most ACESA Cases, in the ACESA No International/Limited Case natural gas generation is 68 percent above the Reference Case level by 2030, due to the assumed limited availability of international offsets, new plants with CCS, as well as new nuclear and dedicated biomass capacity (Table ES-1).

Emissions reductions from changes in fossil fuel use in the residential, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors are small relative to those in the electric power sector. ...Beyond reductions in direct fuel use, the reduction in electricity demand, which ranges from 4.1 percent to 14.7 percent below the Reference Case level in 2030 across the main policy cases, makes an important contribution to the overall reduction in electricity-related emissions.

GHG allowance prices are sensitive to the cost and availability of emissions offsets and low-and no-carbon generating technologies. Allowance prices in the ACESA Basic Case are projected at $32 per metric ton in 2020 and $65 per metric ton in 2030. Across all main analysis cases, allowance prices range from $20 to $93 per metric ton in 2020 and from $41 to $191 (2007 dollars) per metric ton in 2030 (Figure ES-3). The lower prices in the range occur in cases where technological options such as CCS and adoption of new nuclear power plants can be deployed on a large scale before 2030 at relatively low costs, the use of international offsets helps to hold down compliance costs, and/or optimism about future technology availability holds down the near-term incentive to bank allowances for use beyond 2030 (ACESA Basic, ACESA High Offset, and/or ACESA Zero Bank cases).

Higher allowance prices occur if international offsets are unavailable, particularly if it is also the case that low- or no-emission baseload electricity supply technologies cannot be expanded beyond the Reference Case level (ACESA No International and ACESA No International/Limited cases).

ACESA increases energy prices, but effects on electricity and natural gas bills of consumers are substantially mitigated through 2025 by the allocation of free allowances to regulated electricity and natural gas distribution companies....10 to 77 percent above the Reference Case level - across all six main policy cases.

ACESA increases the cost of using energy, which reduces real economic output, reduces purchasing power, and lowers aggregate demand for goods and services. The result is that projected real gross domestic product (GDP) generally falls relative to the Reference Case. Total discounted GDP losses over the 2012 to 2030 time period are $566 billion (-0.3 percent) in the ACESA Basic Case, with a range from $432 billion (-0.2 percent) to $1,897 billion (-0.9 percent) across the main ACESA cases (Table ES-2). Similarly, the cumulative discounted losses for personal consumption are $273 billion (-0.2 percent) in the ACESA Basic Case and range from $196 billion (-0.1 percent) to $988 billion .... Full EIA report linked here

Jun 30, 2008

Low Tech Magazine Nails problems with CO2 trading and storage...

All high-tech carbon storage strategies described in this article are no solutions, they are just attempts to limit the problem. Let’s hope that the next appeal of the International Energy Association and of the Science Academies of the world (an awful lot of brains there) will contain a trace of innovative thinking.  (Article Link)
 
Short answer to:

Why introduce yet another expensive, energy-intensive and risky technology if there are so many other and better ways to solve the energy crisis? If we chose to build a completely new infrastructure of pipelines comparable to that of the existing oil and gas industry, why not build something like an extensive underground tubular freight network instead? This would be a real solution, which would considerably lower transport energy use and CO2-emissions.

Why not channel the huge amount of money needed for the development of CCS to countries with tropical rainforests, so that they have a very good reason to protect them fiercely? Stopping deforestation, especially in tropical forests, would contribute more to the fight against global warming than carbon capture technology could ever do. Tropical forests store enormous amounts of carbon and they are not prone to natural forest fires.

"Halting deforestation in tropical forests would contribute more to the fight against global warming than capture technology could ever do."

 
Long answer to the problem the Carbon Capture and Trading Scams below:
Capturing CO2 from the smokestacks of power stations with the intention of storing it in underground reservoirs, oceans, rocks, consumer products, chemicals or fuels has gained a lot of credibility recently.  Yet capturing, transporting and storing carbon dioxide raises energy consumption considerably and brings with it serious health and environmental problems. The benefits, on the other hand, are shadowed in doubt.

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"A 50 percent increase in energy consumption is the last thing that the world needs."

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Attractive idea 

The idea of carbon capture and storage (CCS) – first introduced in the 1970s - is attractive at first sight. Capturing CO2 from smokestacks has been a common practice for many years, for the purification of natural gas or at ammonia production facilities for instance. Injection and storage of carbon dioxide is happening already in the North Sea, in Algeria and in Texas. In these cases, CO2 is injected into oil and gas reservoirs in order to extract more fossil fuels than would otherwise be possible, a process called Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). For some of these applications, carbon dioxide is transported by pipeline or by ship.

A complete CCS infrastructure has not been demonstrated yet (all CO2 used for enhanced oil recovery is commercially produced or originates from other sources than power plants, and present capture techniques do not capture CO2 for storage but emit the gas in the atmosphere). Yet, since all the individual parts exist, this does not seem to be an obstacle either.

 

Energy penalty 

The problem at hand is that the process of capturing, transporting and storing carbon dioxide requires a vast amount of energy. If this energy were to be derived directly from fossil fuels the benefits of the CO2-savings by capture and storage will be offset by the very same energy intensive process. If the energy were to come from renewable sources the technology is rendered unnecessary as it would be much more efficient to generate electricity directly from the renewable source.

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"If fuel use of electricity generation rises by 50 percent, the same goes for air pollution from coal plants and for the ecological consequences of coal mining. Storing the CO2 does not solve that."

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Capturing CO2 from smokestacks is the most energy-intensive part of the process. According to the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), which devoted a comprehensive study on the technology 3 years ago, capturing technology (including compression for further transport and storage) raises the energy consumption of a coal plant by an average of 32 percent.

A coal plant equipped with CO2-capture technology would thus need 32 percent more coal and other resources like water, chemicals and reagents to produce the same amount of electricity than the same power plant without this technology. Carbon capture technology forms a symbiosis with coal as a fuel (“clean coal”), since burning coal emits twice as much greenhouse gasses than burning gas. Capturing CO2 from a gas power plant requires less energy but is of not much use.

 

Pipeline infrastructure

This 32 percent does not include the energy needed to mine, process and transport the many thousands of tonnes of extra coal, and it does not include the energy needed for the construction of the capture, transportation, storing and monitoring infrastructure either.

It is insufficient to simply place the smokestacks of a coal plant upside down as suitable underground reservoirs do not necessarily lie beneath the world's power stations. A carbon capture and storage infrastructure requires a transport infrastructure consisting of pipelines (and tankers) that rivals the existing oil and gas network.

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Manufacturing and installing these thousands of kilometres of stainless steel pipes will require a substantial amount of energy. Also, the transport by ship or pipeline itself requires energy, and so does the injection of the CO2 in underground reservoirs and the monitoring of the whole transport network (today’s pipelines are patrolled by plane every two weeks).

Everything taken together, CCS will probably raise energy consumption by as much as 50 percent.

There are losses during transport, too. According to the IPCC these are 1 to 2 percent per 1,000 kilometres of pipeline transport and 3 to 4 percent per 1,000 kilometres of ship transport (the ship's fuel use included). Carbon dioxide is also not the only harmful effect of power generation. Burning coal brings serious air pollution and produces waste, both of which will also rise by at least 30 percent. The same goes for the ecological damage of coal mining, which is devastating. Storing the CO2 can never prevent this.  

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Turning CO2 in plastics

 However, even though the amount of chemicals and plastics we produce is enormous, as a carbon sink they are all but meaningless.

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The Myth - "If all polycarbonates and polyurethane would be produced by means of CO2 this would only store the emissions of 3 coal power plants."

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According to the IPCC, producing all polycarbonates and polyurethane by means of carbon dioxide would store 3.3 million tons of CO2 – comparable to the annual emissions of just 3 coal power plants. China is building one coal plant per week (in large part to produce cheap goods for us to buy) and there are more than 100 coal plants on the drawing board in the US.

What makes this approach even more useless is that these consumer products and chemicals have a relatively short lifespan, from a few months for fertilizers to some decennia for plastic products. When the fertilizers are used, or when the DVD’s end up in the incinerator, the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere.

 

Burning algae 

Using CO2 as a feedstock for algae and then turning it into biofuel - another idea that is hyped these days - faces the same problem. It only delays CO2-emissions for a very short time. The carbon dioxide is converted into fuel which is further burnt in a car engine.

It is impossible to capture CO2 from car engines since the gas is too heavy (your car would gain serious weight while driving, and it would have to pull a trailer to store the large volume of carbon dioxide).

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 "Turning CO2 into algae could be an interesting strategy if we bury the algae instead of burning them in our car engines. However, that’s not on anyone’s mind."

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One could argue that at least the CO2 is recycled and that we are using the by-product of electricity generation to make fuel – which means that we don’t have to dig up more fossil fuels to make gasoline. However, this argument does not take into account the fact that much energy (and water) is lost in the conversion process.

Firstly, there is again the energy penalty of CO2 capture from the smokestacks, on average 30 percent. Next, you have to build a huge infrastructure to produce algae (since their energy efficiency is 100 times smaller than that of solar panels) and furthermore there is the energy that gets lost during the process of turning algae to fuel. If there is net energy gain in the end, it will be small.

Turning CO2 into algae could be an interesting strategy to reduce CO2-emissions if we store the algae underground instead of burning them in our car engines (thus avoiding the energy-intensive process of converting them into fuel). However, that’s not on anyone’s mind. 

 

Atomic waste, meet your rival

Carbon capture technology is expected to become more energy-efficient in the future. But that would make the whole scheme hardly more attractive. Storing carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs (the only realistic option) is risky, not unlike the storing of atomic waste.

CO2 can escape. High concentrations of the gas are lethal to plants, animals and humans. Eventually the gas thins in the atmosphere but during escape concentrations can build up fast, especially since CO2 is denser than air. At concentrations above 2 percent in ambient air, carbon dioxide has a strong effect on respiration (the normal concentration in fresh air is 0.033 percent). At concentrations from 7 to 10 percent, it kills.

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"If CO2 escapes from storage reservoirs, the whole energy-intensive operation of capturing, transporting and storing it was all for nothing."

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Small impurities in the gas make it lethal at even lower concentrations. Similar amounts in the soil kill vegetation and make groundwater unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. And of course, if CO2 escapes from storage reservoirs, the whole operation of capturing, transporting and storing it was all for nothing. The result is a considerable rise in emissions, because of the energy penalty involved (the energy use of the whole process can go down, but it will never come close to zero).

 

Real solutions, please

Why not put into force a regulation that prohibits the construction of any more power plants that burn non-renewable energy sources? There is already an enormous energy capacity in the world, why don’t we chose to do it with the energy plants that we have? This would at last make energy efficiency useful (because progress in energy efficiency is now always again nullified by new and more energy hungry products and services). Still want more energy? Build a solar plant or plant a windmill.

These are just 3 ideas that would be effective without the need to adapt our lifestyle (which is, of course, also the attraction of "clean coal"). They would not solve everything, but at least they would be very welcome steps into the right direction, the direction of a solution.

Read full here by Kris De Decker

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