All they needed was unlimited money and it would have worked…
From the BBC:
Labour’s shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex said: “Today’s move highlights the dead hand of the Treasury in scuppering moves towards a greener energy mix.
…
“Without those guarantees the government’s commitment to energy, the environment and green jobs will be increasingly viewed as all talk, no action.”
Dr Dixon of WWF Scotland said the news was “massively disappointing”.
He said: “If technical and economic hurdles can be overcome CCS has the potential to help reduce emissions at thousands of coal power stations around the world.
“However, almost four years after launching its funding competition, plans for CCS in the UK have descended into farce.”
Juliet Swann, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The UK government failing to support the application to its necessary extent from the outset is not just an indication of their hypocrisy over climate change, but also shows how little interest they have in investing in Scotland.”
Full story at the BBC
Yes, we dont hear much about that HUGE project in Norway lately. At Mongstad.
You wouldnt belive how much money they have wasted on it already.
The prime minister called it Norways Moonlanding Project. Moonlanding indeed.
I think it is more of a Belly Landing. A very expensive green Belly Landing.
If only it were the case that someone in the government had realised the folly of it all. At least there’s somebody prepared to at least ask questions about value for money by some measure, even if it’s not the measure of effectiveness in improving our lives and our environment.
Good to see a balanced and impartial choice of talking heads aproached by the Beeb for comment, as ever…
Funny, I just got done reading this, which sounds like a new way for billionaires to waste money in order to feel good about themselves. Want to make a real difference with $1 billion? Give 10,000 decent middle class families $100,000. Better than making rich fruads even richer.
—
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/07/the-business-of-cooling-the-planet/
—
Love the option of nukeing the moon, that’ll solve the problem! Suuure it will.
This shows perfectly the repellent bias of the BBC. All their renta-quotes are from green special interest groups, not one of whom represents the poor put-upon energy bill payer. Still at least we’ll have freezing grannies to look for this Xmas, while Cameron’s daddy-in-law harvests his windfarm millions from their corpses.
Perhaps Mr Huhne would be more suited to lead a research project on the flying capabilites of Sus Domestica aka pigs.
The greens should leave well enough alone. To publicly approve carbon capture is a mistake as the energy companies will happily pump carbon into the earth (probably for free) with the guarantee that they can still pump out oil and gas.
At least the BBC was honest enough to call it a scheme.
Friends of the Earth, et al: When you undertake a fool’s errand, it’s bad form to denigrate those who decline to accompany you, wouldn’t you agree?
The UK is broke but the eco-lobby want to spend £1bn ($1.5bn) to run a pipeline 260km (160m) along the seabed to pump CO2 into a deep-sea well. Utterly bonkers – like something out of Gullivers Travels.
The only good side I can see to the country being broke is that more and more of these barmy schemes will have to be cancelled or postponed.
The reporting I watched on Channel 4 News was just as biased with no balance to the report and, of course, nobody mentioned shale gas.
I like the way the Friends of the Earth mouthpiece describes pouring unlimited funds into a bottomless pit as “investing”. ;->
We still have the problem of a Country run by Moss Bros suited Eton School boys for the benefit of their inlaws, but the saving grace of the UK is a core of career Civil Servants who grind out economics reports on a daily basis about all the latest schemes and bandwagons that their vaunted leaders are signed up to and sometimes, even the single shared brain cell used by all the British politicians wakes them up to the fact that this just won’t b***dy work. But, the brain cell will not let them go so far as to admit it..
Greenpeace opposes carbon capture.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/new-greenpeace-report-labels/
I would assume that their opposition indicates they think it might actually work.
Meanwhile, the oil industry has been capturing and storing CO2 for years.
http://www.statoil.com/en/technologyinnovation/protectingtheenvironment/carboncaptureandstorage/pages/carbondioxideinjectionsleipnervest.aspx
It was a stupid idea right from the start. i await with baited breath when they accept the inevitable that Britain is sat on enormous amounts of shale gas. Chris Huhne should never have been made responsible for the UK’s energy policy.
And in a double wammy the carbon capture story on BBC radio news tonight was next to this story about fuel poverty.
“Rising energy bills causing fuel poverty deaths”, so the savings by abandoning carbon capture ought to help to prevent further fuel cost rises caused by green policies, and maybe save a life or two.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15359312
maybe the usual BBC editors are on holiday.
Hahahaha this coming from a green zealot activist. Oh the hypocrisy of the hypocrisy from a hypocrit.
So we have nut jobs here protesting a pipe line…..
…but in the UK they were planning on building a 260km pipe line to pump liquid CO2 emissions, under pressure, to deep wells in the bottom of the North Sea
There is a total disconnect with all of this mess………………………
Given a completely unlimited resource I reckon I could solve the world’s financial problems. If anyone stumbles on one, let me know…
It was tried in Queensland with government support up to $500million and failed. It is another green wet dream, with the money better spent on other more worthy projects. It is about time the world took leadership and management of nations back from the green children.
CCS could theoretically be an interesting technology, but it is politically nonviable.
Greens want to get rid of coal altogether, not put a band-aid on it. For them, the only clean coal is the coal that stays underground.
Industry wants cheap power, so they are only willing to politically support CCS if it is cheap. Nobody thinks it will ever be cheap.
The only reason to support CCS is as a way to forestall efforts at creating a CO2 tax and to politically justify building new coal plants today.
ANH: “The reporting I watched on Channel 4 News was just as biased with no balance to the report …”
The report on (UK) ITV News was in a similar vein. There was a given assumption that excess CO2 was going to cause climatic problems, with no mention of any of the doubts which have been expressed by the scientific community, nor any of the statistics showing flat global temperatures over the past decade in the face of increasing atmospheric CO2.
The outside commentators brought in spoke about the loss of potential jobs and the ‘blow’ to the governments green campaign. Chris Huhne (environment and ‘climate change’ minister) said how disappointed he was.
The reason given for this scheme being stopped was that the cost would be £1.3billion, whereas the government was only willing to pay £1billion.
But it is awful isn’t it?
Every mainstream politician who wants to get elected and every mainstream scientist who wants to get funded has to profess to be a disciple of the religion of man made global warming caused by CO2 emissions. To question this is modern day heresy.
I think Huhne only stopped it because Greenpeace told them it won’t work. Greenpeace has all the experts; they’ve even written the IPCC report. ( /sarc would be misplaced )
Next on the chopping block: “Project Bard.” They had great hopes for duplicating the works of Shakespeare, but now they have to find homes for the twenty-seven chimpanzees, not to mention all of those surplus typewriters.
It “may” have worked with unlimited money. That tells me it wasn’t a sure thing even then!
“If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet,” Mr. Huhne said.
If a frog had wings, he woundn’t bump his @$$ every time he jumped.
Don’t worry, UK, the U.S. has committed U.S. taxpayers to bail you out:
http://dailybail.com/home/holy-bailout-federal-reserve-now-backstopping-75-trillion-of.html
I wonder if Mr. Huhne considered eliminating his department and transferring those funds to work on the technical problems at Longannet.
AW just an idea for the sticky posts maybe link the first post to “other posts below etc,,” at the sticky post. cheers VG
“If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet,” Mr Huhne said.
If there was a completely unlimited resource then they may have been able to pipe the CO2 to the moon.
We got a hint at the Conservative party conference when George Osbourne downgraded the UK’s ambitious CO2 policy so it would not exceed that of any other EU member state.
We are still waiting for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide if Chris Huhne is going to become an ex-minister due to some possible fiddling of a speeding ticket. They were supposed to decide by the end of last month but there seems to be some delay.
“Without those guarantees the government’s commitment to energy, the environment and green jobs will be increasingly viewed as all talk, no action.”
If only it were all talk and no action.
“zac says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:17 pm
….Chris Huhne should never have been made responsible for the UK’s energy policy.”
Yes he should, how else could you make green energy policy look so stupid and untrustworthy so quickly?
Interesting;
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/10/csiro-boss-is-director-of-carbon-sequestration-company/
zac says:
” i await with baited breath”
Wow, what did you have for dinner?
If the financial crisis halts the AGW gravy train, which media outlet will take it’s red and green shirt off first? CNN, BBC and ABC must all be watching and calculating when is the best time to jump horses. They all want to be the first with the news and none of them wants to be the last to report what is going on. There must be a threshold which will trigger these MSMs to jump, and it must be financial somehow. But which will be first?
Smokey says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:52 pm
“Don’t worry, UK, the U.S. has committed U.S. taxpayers to bail you out:
http://dailybail.com/home/holy-bailout-federal-reserve-now-backstopping-75-trillion-of.html
”
Oh. Thanks. Guess we can keep Greece afloat then for the time being.
“If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet,” Mr Huhne said.
If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride.
Meanwhile that idiot, Huhne, is getting his knickers in a twist about fracking and shale gas.
Seems some minor earth tremors (mag 2.5 and 1.3- instrumentally detected) warrant a “moritorium” on a potential 200 trillion cuft of gas.
I thought we had a financial crisis?
Talk anot “fiddle while Rome burns”.
““If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet,” Mr Huhne said.”
Yes that is a very odd statement. Britain has at least 900 years of coal resources and unquantified shale gas. So will Mr Huhne also reject those strategic energy resources on technical grounds?
Juliet Swann, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The UK government failing to support the application to its necessary extent from the outset is not just an indication of their hypocrisy over climate change, but also shows how little interest they have in investing in Scotland.”
====
Invective with a guilt kicker, doesn’t impress the unwashed masses anymore.
We have access to more data than you can imagine, try again.
They don’t call him Crazy Hoon for nothing.
CCS will not make for inexpensive energy. As a kid I watched a train go to our nearby coal fired power plant everyday hauling 100 train cars of coal. When it is burned there is twice as much CO2 produced (~200 train cars as liquid CO2) as there was coal to start with, If you could store years worth of that much CO2 safely (which you can’t) there is no way you could do it cheaply… thus energy from coal would be expensive… which is why the greenies liked the solution to start with. Coal with CCS is utterly inane from both a cost and safety aspect.
And, of course, CCS is completely pointless.
What Drives Global Warming?
A purely data-driven modelling approach finds:
I.e., AGW is horse pucky all the way down.
This so-called ‘energy minister’ (Huhne) was also on TV ‘sympathising’ with hardpressed energy consumers and defending his position by insisting customers should ‘shop around for the best deal’ – totally glossing over the £100’s of ADDITIONAL payments the UK consumer is saddled with to pay for HIS pet green projects. Grrrrrr……
This was then followed up by our local TV station (BBC Scotland) reporter, “on the scene”, spouting that CO2 was ‘pollution’……. fume……….
The BBC not once indicated any other stance – showing them up as the BIASED, left-wing corruption that they have (nearly) always been.
Latitude says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:24 pm
So we have nut jobs here protesting a pipe line…..
…but in the UK they were planning on building a 260km pipe line to pump liquid CO2 emissions, under pressure, to deep wells in the bottom of the North Sea
There is a total disconnect with all of this mess………………………
Yeah, what if the pipeline broke and all that CO2 escaped?
At least the UK government has finally seen the economic and technological folly of CCS.
Those in the White House revived a CCS project that was abandoned by the previous wise administration because it was overrun and not getting anywhere. Maybe they should learn from others failures.
No, this dispuresment of taxpayer and Chinese dollars goes to the corrupt political machine in Chicago.
Another Solyndra??
“The US Department of Energy (DOE) this week announced investments of $41 million in 16 post-combustion carbon capture projects.
The funds will be invested in projects that aim to reduce the cost of carbon capture, by developing advanced post-combustion technologies that can be applied to new and existing power plants.”
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/4436/
At least there is an upside to having a broke government. And anyway, what is the problem with emitting CO2 anyway, it’s not like it changes the climate or anything is it?
DAVE G
Saw that too.Made my blood boil, blaming draughty houses and lack of insulation as the major cause of fuel poverty.Nothing to with the green energy cost £200+ per house hold per year and rising and selling off of our energy providers and then the privertised energy companies selling off land on which they had for stocking piling oil, gas, for winter,which was always done when it was in national ownership.
Am I the only one who noticed that the folks involved repeatedly called the CCS project a “scheme”?
Or does “scheme” have a more positive definition in the UK than here in the US?
Ponzi scheme, pyramid scheme, etc.
Scam, an attempt to swindle, as in scheming.
Latitude says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:24 pm
So we have nut jobs here protesting a pipe line…..
…but in the UK they were planning on building a 260km pipe line to pump liquid CO2 emissions, under pressure, to deep wells in the bottom of the North Sea
There is a total disconnect with all of this mess………………………
==============
Good point.
24% of my gas bill is for “government environmental policy”.
Probably electricity is the same.
As for:
“Yes that is a very odd statement. Britain has at least 900 years of coal resources and unquantified shale gas. So will Mr Huhne also reject those strategic energy resources on technical grounds”
The answer is “yes”, he will reject them on any grounds he can have others think of….cheap, plentiful energy is not what any politician wants in the UK.
That would take peoples minds off the FACT that we are ruled by a three-party system of unrelenting expenses thieves who have no idea about anything.
The recession and the energy crisis are keeping them from the fate they deserve, it is only because people are thinking about how to live, that they are still living.
650 crooks occupy the house of commons.
AND they keep telling us we must stop living beyond our means, on one hand we must “spend in the shops”, and on the other hand we “must pay the credit cards and loans off”
Not only are they crooks, but they are stupid crooks.
As long as “global warming” (AKA climate change: Climate disruption) can stagger along they are ok…..when people finally figure out that they have been taken for fools to bolster a political elite then they are in trouble.
Hopefully very soon.
We may end-up sequestering the CO2 in the house of commons.
No amount of money spent – wisely or not – is too great in this endeavor of promoting green technologies over dirty hydrocarbons. Why? Well, we’re saving the planet and humanity – or so says Gore et al.
Simply put, though, the hemorrhaging of cash intentionally drives up the delivery cost (and disposal cost in Longannet’s case) of the dirty hydrocarbons, allowing the inherently more expensive green (yet ostensibly Nature friendly) technologies to seem appealing – cost wise anyways (technology be damned). As heavily-regulated entities, utilities are both forced by regulation and compelled by subsidies to participate in the green technology silliness. However, the regulators know full well (because they approve the assessment of surcharges and control the disbursement of grants) that the cost is borne overwhelmingly by the ratepayer and taxpayer (a/k/a you and I), respectively.
Longannet is yet one more example of the green and noble socialists remaining co-dependent on the dirty and greedy capitalists in a bizarre yet symbiotic relationship. In other words, “We are the 99% – except when the swell-ness of sustainability beckons and we become the 1% eco-elites.” The only other instance in which I’ve witnessed such rampant, unabashed, intellectually-driven ignorance has been within the political correctness movement – another wonderfully successful chapter in the deliberate social manipulation of humanity on a global scale.
So unlimited money is the reason??
All they need is just one Unicorn that can crap out gold bricks.
Shouldn’t be that hard to find.
Copenhagen, 2009, Charlie’s Bar.
Discussion with a geologist working for an oil outfit. They love the idea of cheap (free?) co2. And very unlikely that it will stay put. Good idea to put a molecule (one carbon, two oxygen atoms) out of commission?
Was sidetracked with issue of Gore and his “millions of degrees” remark. (He thought that Gore was “one of the good guys.”) No longer the case.
Proposal:
Mr Huhne and Mr Fox to Afghanistan outpost, on their own. They could send us a postcard. We could decide not to read it. Better to send the Taliban a thank you note.
Sorry, but Huhne, Fox, Cameron, Clegg, Obama, Holdren and all the rest give me nausea. All respect for the people fighting and dying in Afghanistan. Utter contempt for these political pygmies.
The sooner The Huhnatic gets booted out, the better. Come on, CPS, it’s high time to finger him – good and proper!
If technical and economic hurdles can be overcome, my bicycle can fly — with a pig in the passenger seat. Staying dry even in the rain. And warm.
The utterly delusional character of these silly folks becomes more obvious by the day.
Smokey says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:52 pm
“Don’t worry, UK, the U.S. has committed U.S. taxpayers to bail you out:
http://dailybail.com/home/holy-bailout-federal-reserve-now-backstopping-75-trillion-of.html
This is actually very serious business because of leverage. International investment banking looks great when times are good. Then when times are bad it wipes out the domestic bank that owns it. The US government should never have let the domestic banks engage in international banking.
Now the domestic banks are trying to shift the risk to the FDIC. Unfortunately this could bankrupt the US financial system overnight if the EU defaults. If you think 10% unemployment is bad, think again. Without credit most business cannot operate. Bankruptcy wipes out the small businessman and depression follows. The only survivors are the big guys who mop up the crumbs for pennies on the dollar, hoping that one day the good times will return.
“Britain has at least 900 years of coal resources and unquantified shale gas.”
Not if the EU and UK government has anything to do with it. Coal runs out in 2015 according to the EU, and you must shut down your power stations.
Leave coal in the ground? Is it not known to the Greens that coal leaches toxic hydrocarbons into the surrounding (non-coal) earth, slowly poisoning wells and contaminational all groundwater? It is full of evil chemicals and heavy metals!
We have to get rid of it! Make them dig it up and BURN it to prevent water contamination of the Oglalla Aquifer! It is pure poison and surely we have a responsiblity to Mother Earth get rid of this waste, this evil underlay that threatens the very existence of a drinkable water supply.
Declare all coal deposits a threat to humanity. Pound the drums! Call the people to arms! Bring shovels and picks!
We have to clean up these hydrocarbon-laced filthy deposits before they CATCH FIRE! You know, coal is combustible and it is just lying there! Sometimes it catches on fire all by itself! Whole countries could go up in an uncontrolled conflagration of coal! We must dig it up and pump it into the sea, or perhaps dump it all in a deep ocean trench. We just gots to do something and it is going to be expensive, but we have to do it for the children! Think of the children! Do you want your children living in a land that has contaminated earth right under their houses, off-gassing evil methane and oily, sticky substances leaving behind God-knows-how-high concentrations of contaminated carbon?
Slowly but surely, day by day, you are being poisoned by underground COAL! We all gots to do something…..
/over-sarc
“If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet,” Mr. Huhne said.
It amazes me how someone like Mr. Huhne can enunciate so clearly, with their tongue that far in their cheek??!!
On noes! No CCS? Oh my heart it doth bleed. And what does the BBC do? Does it consult an honest to goodness scientist? No. It immediately runs to rabid AGW activist organisations WWF and FoE for doom quotes. Just like a fly to excrement…
If there were an infinite resource, then we would have money to burn instead of gas, and that would put it back to square 1. Tis a futile gesture however, pumping gas underground, and expecting it to stay there.
Before you know it, if the gas was down there, someone would pipe it back up and sell it.
“If there was a completely unlimited resource…”
There was, but then global warming shrunk it.
Disko Troop says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:07 pm
But, the brain cell will not let them go so far as to admit it..
Much as a housefly cannot escape from something approaching from two sides simultaneously. Kind of like walking and chewing gum a the same time. The pols cant sh*t and wind thier watch.
“If technical and economic hurdles can be overcome (enter appropriate ‘green’ technology) has the potential to help reduce emissions at thousands of coal power stations around the world.”
Can someone pay me $1 for every arts major green freak who thinks a technological breakthrough is just a press release away? It all seems so easy. Reversing (perceived) climate change…more efficient PV panels…electric cars everywhere…no more third world countries…Just a few “technical and economic hurdles” to overcome; specifically we don’t have the knowledge and without the knowledge, no amount of money thrown at the project will make any difference. Clowns!
Putting the climate debate, and thus need for mitigation aside, there are few if any scientific agencies out there, government or otherwise, who model carbon mitigation as being cheaper without CCS. IEA, IPCC, EU, EPRI, US DoE, Stern, Garnaut, Natural Resources Canada, China NDRC, WRI, RITE…the list goes on. Furthermore, there are few if any technical challenges, only regulatory challenges. In comparison to the ‘technical problems’ at Longannet, Statoil has been running a commercially viable 160km subsea CO2 pipeline for several years at Snohvit. By referencing technical challenges Huhne has diverted attention away from the fact that the only thing holding back Longannet is money, not science. Granted, CCS is more expensive than coal without it because CCS does cost money, and without any regulatory drivers it is a poor investment; just like wind, just like solar, just like anything but dirty coal. So go ahead and celebrate the demise of CCS in the UK because its unpopular to spend the money on the technology, but unless the government decides to abandon carbon mitigation entirely, prepare to pay even more money for less results with renewables.
The UK and indeed the EU as a whole is in deep financial trouble caused in large part by its insane fixation on the eco green CAGW fraud. Massively damaging red tape and rules and regulations, the insane and completely useless jihad against a harmless trace gas known as CO2. Future historians will wonder at the nature of the CAGW nightmare and how with Europe collapsing the MSM failed to highlight the root causes of the economic collapse.
At some point there will be an inquiry into the cost of the CAGW fraud and what part it played in the collapse of the West as the supreme economic and industrial bloc. The MSM has not even started to investigate the reasons behind the collapse, who made the mistakes and who got rich off the back of the fraud of the modern age. The question that is not being asked is this, ‘how much has the CAGW fraud actually cost the West in real terms, in terms of GDP and by how much has the CAGW fraud affected growth?
At what point will these questions be asked and who will ask them? What is certain is that the political are 100% responsible for the imposition of the CAGW fraud backed up by a stooge MSM who have spread the green nightmare.
Wouldn’t unlimited money be worthless? GK
Steve from Rockwood says:
“At least the BBC was honest enough to call it a scheme.”
BennetT,
“Or does “scheme” have a more positive definition in the UK than here in the US?”
—————————————————————————
In Britain a “scheme” can be positive or negative or neutral – in other words synonymous with “plan” rather than “plot”.
However, if someone is “scheming” (verb or adjective) or a “schemer”, it is invariably negative.
And no, it doesn’t make much sense but just seems to have evolved that way.
A billion dollars for 1/10,000 of a degree?
I did some number crunching on this issue since in Alberta, Canada, they still want to spend about a billion dollars on one carbon capture project. At the present time, humans emit about 90 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every DAY. I DO NOT believe this to be the case, however let us assume there will be the IPCC average number of 3.000 degrees C increase in temperature due to our emissions if we do nothing. So if a billion dollars is spent to capture 1 million tons a YEAR, this amounts to a fraction of 1 in 32,850. So if nothing is done, let us assume the temperature will presumably go up 3.0000 degrees C, but if a billion dollars is spent, the temperature would go up by 2.9999 degrees. Or to put in another way, if we take the temperature of 10,000 cities now and then again in 100 years from now, 9,999 cities will have the same temperature and one city will be 1 degree C colder if a billion dollars is spent.
From the UK’s Martin Lewes, a very popular a financial wizard…
Solar panels are popping up everywhere but we’ve heard strong industry rumours (no gurantees) the rules may soon change, slashing the potential gain for newbies.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/#solar
It was only a matter of time.
Yes. It means “project” — e.g., “the ground-nut scheme.” They’d have called their A-bomb project “The Manhattan Scheme.”
ferd berple says:
October 19, 2011 at 7:03 pm
“Britain has at least 900 years of coal resources and unquantified shale gas.”
“Not if the EU and UK government has anything to do with it. Coal runs out in 2015 according to the EU, and you must shut down your power stations.”
This is the same EU that has not had it’s accounts signed off by the auditors for 16 years due to “irregularities”. The same EU that brought in the euro and is spending our money to stop it’s inevitable demise. The same EU that insists we buy petrol in litres, food in grams and prosecutes anyone who does not comply. The same EU that forced us to uphold the Human Rights Act so rapists, murderers and career criminals cannot be deported.
People in the UK are heartily sick of the EU and the sooner we leave the better.
Ferd, I am pleased that someone on the other side of the Atlantic sees through EU propaganda, I just wish our government would.
You know what I would like to see? How about one of these plant managers or some gutsy politician call the bluff of the eco-zealots and say something like this:
Mac the Knife says:
October 19, 2011 at 7:37 pm
It amazes me how someone like Mr. Huhne can enunciate so clearly, with their tongue that far in their cheek??!!
Or his head up his …
When it’s a farce to begin with it can hardly descend into one; perhaps only a deeper farce.
Considering the vast sums available to bribe the energy companies into this farce I am surprised they have given up.
G. Karst: Priceless…
“All they needed was unlimited money and it would have worked…”
Nothing is easier than to have an unlimited supply of money. Just print it.
Oh, it generates hyperinflation? Never mind…
There is a 1 BILLION pound government grant for this project.
Obviously not enough.
“A plunge in carbon prices may create a funding gap for power stations that plan to trap greenhouse gases from smokestacks for permanent burial underground, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-06/co2-plunge-may-create-funding-gap-for-carbon-capture-pwc-says
It would appear that carbon dioxide that is to be captured and stored is worth something on the carbon credit markets. (which are not doing so well).
FAO Warmista trolls – re Statoil and their CO2 pipeline.
Its not a CO2 capture process as such – the CO2 they’re getting rid of comes out of their gas wells along with the methane and they need to ‘lose the stuff’ so that it doesn’t freeze up and clog their liquefying plant. They’re not doing it to save The Planet otherwise they wouldn’t be sucking the natural gas out of the North Sea in the first place. Would they? Huh?
And and and. The Norwegians can afford to do it.
Why can they afford to do it?
Ans= Because they’ve got loads of cheap energy to power not only the process but their entire entire economy. Get a load of that too.
And what are they doing with a lot of the gas revenue?
Ans= Saving it into a massive pension pot to look after their old folks. Compare that to the UK where everyone (poor and old folks disproportionately) are paying huge subsidies to wind-farm and solar panel owners.
Madness.
Good Point G. Karst. I was about to suggest £1.3 billion of quantitative easing, printed on Royal Bank of Scotland paper, loaded on to a truck and sent up the M6 corridor addressed to Juliet Swann with instructions to build her own sequestration plant and never ever ask for money to subsidise her country again.
It is notable that the BBC never allow comments on any of their climate B*S statements any more. Today’s doozy is back on the climate refugee meme. Government Chief Scientist no less. When ever they allow the comments they are shot down in flames in under 500 characters within the first ten posts.
Utter lunacy – you could not make it up!
It is high time to send a clear message to the UK government – scrap the Climate Change Act that mandates all of this nonsense:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035
(the epetitions on Hillsborough and an EU referendum have worked, at least as far as forcing a proper debate in Parliament)
I guess the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in a big conspiracy, huh? If you think so, fine – but first do some proper research – talk to scientists at Universities for example. If you think temperatures have been ‘flat’ for the past decade you are completely missing the point. Climate change is just that – change, but overall an increase in temperature long-term. If you have a snowy day tomorrow, doesn’t mean suddenly it’s all a big scam. And even if you don’t ‘believe’ – why on earth would you think disrupting the chemical makeup of our atmosphere is such a great idea? Can you tell me with absolute certainty we can change our atmosphere with no consequences? Humans are so unintelligent it would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
1 “Dr Dixon of WWF Scotland said:…“If technical and economic hurdles can be overcome CCS has the potential to help reduce emissions at thousands of coal power stations around the world.”
Inaki Relanzon of WWF said: “With so many unknowns surrounding CCS, would it really be sensible to invest significant sums in this technology.”
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_solutions/carbon_capture_storage/
2 “Juliet Swann, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “The UK government failing to support the application to its necessary extent from the outset is not just an indication of their hypocrisy over climate change…”
If Friends of the Earth now support CCS it must have been hypocrisy on the part of FOE to sign the Greenpeace report, False Hope, which opposed CCS.
Perhaps there is a way to capture and store, beneath the oceans, all the hot air that comes out of these pressure groups.
Dammit, just Notes and Tipsed the Independent’s coverage of this story, you’re way ahead of me. To save having to go there to read it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/1631bn-flagship-green-scheme-is-cancelled-2373203.html
I’ll repeat my comment on the whole stupid business, too:
Obviously better that we the people should freeze to death of a winter, rather than allow for too little profit. (/cynical realism)
Indeed this was a giant boondoggle. All kinds of psuedo “professors” and their apparatchiks make heaps of cash from this enormous piece of gimcrackery. No commercially viable CCS plant has ever been built. All CCS plants in operation around the world today, are used to provide CO2 to be used in Improved Oil Recovery (IOR), where the Oil Company uses CO2 that it would otherwise have had to pay to generate in any case by burning methane gas. Even so, the CCS process is more expensive, and of course in IOR most of the CO2 comes back out the hole again with the oil, and also the extra oil recovered by this method creates even more CO2 when it too is burnt.
See the webpages on the UKIP Scotland Blog about the Longannet Plant and Videos Featuring the “Carbon Professor” of Edinburgh University, as he squirms and wroglles, to try and explain what went wrong. See the Scottish “Government” Cabinet Minister who has been promoting this bogosity and flummery. What now for Alex Salmond’s “World Beating Climate Targets” ?
In Chronological Order : The dismantling of a Carbon Fraud
http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/longannet-carbon-capture-storage-debacle/
http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/monckton-reports-on-the-climate-change-scare-machine/
http://ukipscotland.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/longannet-carbon-capture-scheme-scrapped/
Next for Shaving Please !
🙂
Labour’s shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex said: “Today’s move highlights the dead hand of the Treasury in scuppering moves towards a greener energy mix.
You mean there is someone even even more stupid than Huhne?
This is great news. The energy costs of implementing CCS are not affordable in a world of finite fossil fuels. http://www.sbe.hw.ac.uk/documents/01-Owens_-_published.pdf
Surely such stupidity in public office is treason? Until we start punishing rather than pensioning our politicians for playing to the loudest gallery, there really is no hope we’ll get away from these scams and the accompanying burden of public debt.
Sue Thompson says: “…”
To save you time, ask sensible polite on-topic questions, however contrary to the opinions of most people here, and you will get sensible polite answers. However, if you come on this site with flannel like “I guess the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in a big conspiracy, huh? ” you will be ignored or risk being treated with the contempt which your post displays for the sophistication of the average poster here.
‘Unlimited funds…’…??
What planet IS he on..?
Trouble with this plan was our Morlock leaders would have nowhere to go once they retire and are kicked out of their current cave the houses of parliment.
At least our generation has the plus of going down in history as one of the most stupid.
Next startup venture to be funded with Obama money – Pay OWS protesters to inhale and hold their breath!
This is the trouble with all pie-in-the-sky projects of this type. A concept is funded and put into action before real engineers are called in (a how-hard-can-it-be idea). A feasibility study worth maybe only half a million would likely have shown such a scheme to be unworkable. I’m sure the power plant engineers knew this from the start – any of you engineers out there who had any part in this got a comment?
At last! The eco-nut jobs are running out of other peoples money. The end is near for their employment! Too bad they can’t be imprisoned for crimes against humanity. pg
And across the North Sea in Denmark:
Vattenfall’s application to carry out carbon storage at a site northwest of Aalborg, Denmark was denied by the government. They will “await the outcome of carbon capture and storage projects in other countries before approving the process for use in Denmark.”
If they await the outcome of Scottish CCS projects, they might be waiting a long time…..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-15/denmark-denies-vattenfall-s-vedsted-carbon-capture-application.html
Huhne’s comment about a completely unlimited resource is unbelievable.
The whole CCS idea is a dream – they should stick to working on their crap to gold converter – it is much more realisible and would show true value for money for £1bn.
The whole UK energy policy is a joke and is led / supported by a bunch of ignorant buffoons.
From View from the Solent on October 19, 2011 at 3:33 pm:
Now that’s just silly. How could beggars pay for the carbon credits to offset the methane releases?
Here in the UK people are already dying because of fuel poverty. Some 2000 last winter for starters.
Looks like the “cure” is alot worse than the disease!
And what is the Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) for this project?
Even worse than this eco-loony governent are the labour party. At least the Conservatives are doing what they have always done – look after the interests of the rich and well connected. Transferring money from working people to the pockets of wealthy landowners is traditional Conservative. Supporting big business with tax payer handouts is traditional Conservative.
But Labour are supposed to be the party of the working people. Where are the Labour politicians standing up in parliament to demand an end to this shameless exploitation of working people? History will judge today’s labour party to be traitors to their country.
Sue Thompson says:
October 20, 2011 at 1:56 am
“I guess the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in a big conspiracy, huh? If you think so, fine – but first do some proper research – talk to scientists at Universities for example. If you think temperatures have been ‘flat’ for the past decade you are completely missing the point. Climate change is just that – change, but overall an increase in temperature long-term.”
No Sue, it’s not a conspiracy, as everything happens in the open. A better term would be group-think. Climate Change, to correct you, would of course not be restricted to warming, as the planet has often cooled in the past. What you mean is the postulated Antropogenic Climate Change. Now, that is of course based on the assumption that rising CO2 leads to a warming. But over the last 10 years, CO2 has risen relentlessly, but temperatures have not gone up further. There are scientists who have analyzed the time series of CO2 and global temperature and shown that there cannot be a direct causal link.
As to your remark that it is not a smart thing to “change the chemical composition of the atmosphere”, you should know that CO2 occurs naturally, and is at 0.3 to 0.4 percent perfectly harmless to people and animals; even beneficial to plants. During the history of the planet there were far higher CO2 concentrations yet life flourished.
Gary Pearse says:
“I’m sure the power plant engineers knew this from the start – any of you engineers out there who had any part in this got a comment?”
National Grid (UK) was the key electric utility player at Longannet. I left National Grid (US) in July 2009 (in part) because I grew weary of its incessant “championing” for all things green. So bad was its need to fly the green flag that only eco-friendly hybrids were deigned worthy of parking in close proximity to the LEED-certified, US headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. The filthy, gas-guzzlers were banished to the outer limits of the “car park” – http://www.nationalgridus.com/aboutus/a3-1_news2.asp?document=4733 .
Having audited the company’s environmental and safety activities (domestically and globally) from 1997 to 2004, I believe that National Grid’s management (UK initially with the US aligning later) was well aware that the science surrounding climate change had not (and likely never has) been “settled.” Their decision to pursue and promote climate-change initiatives (like Floe the hapless Polar Bear – http://www.nationalgridfloe.com/ ) was based solely on political and business expediency and not on the science.
In light of this, I suspect that National Grid pursued development of the CCS technology at Longannet with the same political and business considerations being foremost. Indeed, the company’s latest global, green initiative is the promotion of the heavily-subsidized “net metering” initiative. The Distributed Generation Representatives know full well that only a handful of their customers will be able to sell their excess green generation to the utility (given its inherent unreliability); however, the installation, metering, and grid connection costs are funded squarely on the shoulders of all National Grid’s ratepayers (in that locale), as well as the taxpayers via national rebates – http://www.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/home/energyeff/4_net-mtr.asp .
And yet, the eco-elites smile warmly on such funding manipulations because it quietly yet efficiently pushes their agenda of green energy without the regulatory accountability often associated with the reliable delivery of energy.
Yet another reason why the ‘Man in the Muhne’ is so woefully lacking in his position as the UK government’s minister for energy and climate. The idiot has not a cluhne; “…the pipeline may be too long…” – there’s nothing there to attach said pipeline!
Charles S. Opalek, PE said on October 20, 2011 at 11:24 am:
Wrong metric to use for government-funded projects, you need to use VROMA (Votes Received on Money Allocated). That’s what became dismal enough to get this project canceled.
UKIP Scotland and Pete in Cumbria; I would like to correct some of the false information you are spreading.
Pete: Statoil, at both their Sleipner and Snohvit CCS projects, use solvent technology (an amine solution known as MDEA). Longannet would be using an amine based solvent technology as well. However, as a result of the much higher partial pressure of the CO2 from natural gas streams it is cheaper to apply the technology then when applied to coal-based flue gases. Regardless, in the case of natural gas streams, the CO2 must be removed because it is inert and therefore degrades the heating value of the natural gas they wish to sell. However, they do not have to transport and reinject for long-term storage. They do this because Norway has a carbon tax, a regulatory mechanism that makes storing the CO2, as opposed to venting it, an economically viable decision. Your second point is completely invalid, they are doing it because they must separate the CO2 to sell the gas, and they are storing it because it would cost them more not to. Your third point has nothing to do with CCS.
UKIP: Sleipner, Snohvit and In Salah are all long-term large-scale non-EOR (IOR is generally used to describe secondary oil recovery methods i.e. waterflooding) CCS projects. In Salah (located in Algeria), in fact, has no economic driver, BP and Statoil are running the project at a cost to them. However it is true that processes with CCS cost more than processes without it and this is why projects may rely on EOR to make the process commercially viable.
Whether it is necessary or not to reduce carbon emissions is not what I am arguing here. Simply that, unless governments choose to scrap their carbon mitigation agendas entirely, having a full portfolio of technologies that includes CCS provides the most efficient and cost-effective route.
Mike says:
October 20, 2011 at 3:40 pm
“In Salah (located in Algeria), in fact, has no economic driver, BP and Statoil are running the project at a cost to them”
Is this pure altruism, or pure bunkum ? I smell a rat, having read their explanation at the website of the Salah CCS project. This small paragraph tucked away at the end of the explanation of their process tells a tale……..
“The goal was to locate the wells to allow CO₂ to be pumped into the storage formation some five kilometres ‘down-dip’ – a position within a sloping, or ‘dipping’, strata situated below the top of a geological structure – from the gas-water contact. The natural gas is extracted from the ‘up-dip’ gas accumulation – located higher in the slope of the same structure.”
It seems to me that if you can have Enhanced Oil Recovery, then can you also have Enhanced Gas Recovery by using the same method, ie. pumping CO2 into the bottom of Gas bearing Strata ? Yes you can ! This has been done for years and is what I believe is actually happening in Algeria. They can tell you it is just to save the planet, but I think this is bogus, and of course it is funded by the CDM from the EU and the USA. It isn’t a charity project, and does make money.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/2a4.pdf
Worse still if they were actually causing a reduction in atmospheric CO2 in the region, then they ARE contributing to the desertification of the region. Is that good for local farmers ? I don’t think so. Take off your “green spectacles” Mike, please, for your own sake and that of Humanity.
The problem with carbon capture has always been that you need a handy geologic formation to put the CO2 in, typically within 10 miles. High pressure pipelines are very expensive. Also, if CO or sulpher compounds are present the risk factors increase geometrically.
The In Salah formation is tight gas meaning the pore network that contains the gas is very small. By injecting kilometers away, because it is very difficult for the CO2 to flow through the small pores, although the injection is downdip in the same formation, there is very very little communication between the gas and the injected CO2 (a pressure increase on the order of several psi after multiple years in a reservoir of 3000-4000 psi). I never said they were doing it because they are concerned environmentalists, simply that they are doing it at a cost to them; it is more of a test or experiment. Accepting that CCS might be required in the future and the remote and barren/flat location of the facility provided an excellent opportunity to test InSAR satellite monitoring as well as other CCS related advancements.
EGR is theoretically possible, however, unlike oil, gas does not undergo the favorable chemical reactions with CO2 and as such EGR works by simply pushing the gas out (pressure maintenance). The cost of acquiring and handling the CO2 has thus far left EGR as too uneconomic to see any uptake as there are much cheaper ways to maintain reservoir pressure.
I do not wish to enter into a debate on the regional effects of CO2 on farmers, however, I would like to point out that the In Salah project would never lead to a decrease in atmospheric CO2, it simply prevents an increase.
M2Cents: There is certainly validity to some of your statements. However, there are over 6,000 km of CO2 pipelines currently in operation (mostly for EOR purposes), including the aforementioned CCS-specific (non-EOR) 160km subsea pipeline at Snohvit. CO2 pipelines and transport are established technology and the impurities simply pose a cost optimization problem between spending to remove them and building the pipeline to accommodate them. But I can’t fight the fact that transport is a non-negligible cost and distance from suitable storage can be an economic hurdle when retrofitting existing facilities.
Given that there is currently no economic driver dictiating the cost limitations of a CCS project your assertion that a project must have suitable storage within 10 miles is entirely arbitrary and unfounded.
Mike says:
“In Salah (located in Algeria), in fact, has no economic driver, BP and Statoil are running the project at a cost to them.”
I agree with Axel in that your comment, Mike, is either disingenuous or grossly naïve. Admittedly, it’s a bit tongue and cheek, but a quote from the character Nicky Parsons in the 2004 movie “Bourne Supremacy” comes to mind:
“It’s not a mistake. They don’t make mistakes. They don’t do random. There’s always an objective. Always a target.”
The same can be said of a publicly-traded electric and gas utility – especially when it’s involved in developing a new technology. Rest assured and much unlike a government agency, a utility’s management team is not going to risk its own money on an unproven, green technology. Quite sensibly, that would be irresponsible – sensibility being a trait sometimes lacking (and sadly so) in government agencies whose titles include the terms “climate” and “change.”
A utility will commit to a green technology only when there are earnings to be had or its risk has been subsidized – significantly. Even Statoil, one of the key partners at In Salah acknowledged that it’s not risking the company’s money:
“We don’t know what the regulatory environment will be going forward – that is why nobody (in industry) is doing CCS on their own. Governments have to take the lead to get this going and get a framework to make CCS realistic over time,” Executive Vice President Jon Arnt Jacobsen, Statoil – http://www.greeningofoil.com/post/Lowest-cost-CO2-technology-still-too-pricey.aspx .
So, you can pretend that there’s no economic driver for these utilities, and they’re voluntarily covering the bills, but the reality is far from it. Even the International Energy Agency acknowledged that utilities need a financial incentive (i.e., economic drivers) to become involved in CCS projects:
“…[C]ommercial power plants and industrial facilities will not invest in CCS because it reduces efficiency, adds cost and lowers energy output. While some regions have enacted carbon regulations that create a price for CO2, the benefits of reducing emissions are not yet sufficient to outweigh the costs of deploying CCS. As a result, there is a need to fund near-term demonstration projects and to also provide additional financial incentives for CCS in the medium- to long-term.” – http://www.iea.org/papers/2009/CCS_Roadmap.pdf .
Please try not to mislead and confuse the readers on this issue by making assertions like the one that started this post.
In Salah is running at a cost to BP/Statoil (and Sonatrach) with no economic driver. Fact. No confusion, no misleading. If you can find evidence to the contrary, please provide it and I will gladly describe In Salah as it is. But when a company says one thing and existing evidence attests to those claims; conjecture and conspiracy stated as fact is what is misleading and spreads confusion.
To further clarify, In Salah is a natural gas seperation process, which means the CO2 would be seperated regardless (as they couldn’t sell their gas without doing so). As capture is typically the most expensive aspect of the CCS process, by only factoring in the the cost of injection, the added expense to the project is not great, but it is an expense nonetheless that has been shouldered by industry for research. Industry will not finance a billion dollar project with no economic viability, I agree and stated as such earlier, but it is conceivable for industry to spend $5m/year or so to operate a project for research purposes. Indeed, many companies have contributed much more than that to numerous small-scale pilot projects around the world.
CCS costs money, yes; and that is why it is not happening except in a few specific cases. But if nations are going to mitigate carbon, CCS provides the cheapest and most energy secure route. So unless you guys have a lot of faith in wind and solar to handle our current energy needs in the near future (or you guys convince the politicians there there is no need) CCS allows for the best opprotunity for nations to meet their already largely unrealistic future carbon targets. So its wise to, at the very least, have it on the table as an option.
If you would like links backing up anything I say, I would be glad to post confirmation after confirmation.
Andrew Harding says:
October 19, 2011 at 11:36 pm
…..People in the UK are heartily sick of the EU and the sooner we leave the better.
Ferd, I am pleased that someone on the other side of the Atlantic sees through EU propaganda, I just wish our government would.
_________________________________
Oh there are a lot more of us here in the USA who see through the EU propaganda. I just wish we would stop electing politicians educated at the London School of Economics.
If you really want to get sick read, General Pascal Lamy, World Trade Organization Director, singing the praises of the EU as the intermediate step towards “Global Governance”
http://www.theglobaljournal.net/article/view/56/
You do not have to look at the science of CAGW all you have to do is follow the trail of money and power to smell the stench of corruption.
Sue Thompson says:
October 20, 2011 at 1:56 am
I guess the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in a big conspiracy, huh? ….
________________________________
Go read Donna Laframboise’s new exposé book on the IPCC, then get back to us about a “Conspiracy”
If you do not have Kindle: https://read.amazon.com/
Kindle e-book: http://www.amazon.com/Delinquent-Teenager-Mistaken-Climate-ebook/dp/B005UEVB8Q/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top&tag=wattsupwithth-20
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delinquent-Teenager-Mistaken-Climate-ebook/dp/B005UEVB8Q/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318550553&sr=8-1-spell
Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B005UEVB8Q
France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B005UEVB8Q
Mike says:
“In Salah is running at a cost to BP/Statoil (and Sonatrach) with no economic driver. Fact. No confusion, no misleading. If you can find evidence to the contrary, please provide it and I will gladly describe In Salah as it is.”
The estimated $100M USD it costs to sequester the CO2 is incremental and extended over the lifetime of the project; these costs are not assumed at once but rather as the fields are developed. And the estimated revenue from the In Salah gas fields is valued at $2B+ USD. Lastly, the global energy markets (and their associated unit pricings) have varied greatly since In Salah began CCS operations in 2004 – http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/sb24/in-session/application/pdf/sbsta_may_20th_in_salah_wright.pdf .
Therefore, the actual incremental costs (although it’s been pegged at $6 USD per metric tonne) are difficult, at best, to determine with certainty. What can be determined is the reason “why” a business entity (or entities in the case of In Salah) would want to sequester CO2.
In Salah’s partners (i.e., Sonatrach, StatoilHydro and BP) created a five-year, $30M USD Joint Investment Project (JIP) with funding support from the European Commission and US DOE. Funding is also provided by the following partners – http://www.insalahco2.com/index.php/en/co2-storage-at-in-salah/partners.html :
BGP (Geophysical)
British Geological Society
CGG Veritas (Geophysical)
Enafor
Enageo
Halliburton
Imperial College London
Institute Francais de Petrole
Lawrence Livermore National Lab
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Liverpool University
MacDonald Dettwiler Associates
Pinnacle
Schlumberger
Tele-Rilevamento Europa
URS (Australia)
And get this… the cost of the JIP just happened to align with the amount of third-party funding associated with the CO2 Assurance Project (Phase 2), which focuses on monitoring the effectiveness of the CO2 sequestration process:
“Part of the In Salah JIP will be EU funded under FP-6 within the CO2ReMoVe project. The In Salah CO2 Storage Assurance project has been proposed (by USA, Australia, UK and EU) for CSLF approval… The [Phase 2] project has already received initial funding from the US Department of Energy and the Norwegian Research Council and plans to build on this with EU funding under FP-6 within the CACHET project.” – http://www.co2net.eu/public/newsletters/InCA2_May05.pdf .
And why do they need to have such assurance monitoring conducted? Aside from quantifying the risk of releasing a CO2 death bubble within the region – http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/10/rcsp/presentations/Tues%20am/Karen%20Cohen/Wright.ISG%20CO2%20JIP%20US%20DoE%20RCSP%20ARM%20Oct%205%202010%20Wright.pdf , the JIP wants to qualify the CCS project as complying with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) criteria:
“They are finding additional revenue support through EOR or through existing climate policies… In [other projects], there is anticipation of developments in carbon markets, such as the carbon offset markets driven by the UNFCCC’s CDM process in the case of the In Salah project. Together, these drivers help to create a business environment for CCS applications.” – http://cdn.globalccsinstitute.com/sites/default/files/the_global_status_ccs_2011_5_business_case.pdf (p.102).
Thus, the funding to verify the success of CCS at In Salah is provided largely by third-party entities (including governmental sources) under management of the JIP. The JIP (as part of a larger, global initiative) is attempting to convince the UN to approve CCS as a CDM, which would allow for In Salah’s incremental costs associated with CO2 sequestration to be reimbursed via multi-national, carbon offset schema.
Yup, the benevolent JIP is running In Salah with no economic driver… That makes perfect sense to me. But… keep in mind, if CO2 increases fail to influence the global mean temperature anomaly in a meaningfully dangerous manner, then CCS and the multitude of other carbon-related vehicles and instruments are nothing more than a means of creating money from air – but only for a handful of businesses.
In the words of Governor John Lynch (D-NH) as to why repeal of his state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (ReGGI) warranted a veto:
“I am vetoing this legislation because it will cost our citizens jobs, both now and into the future, hinder our economic recovery, and damage our state’s long-term economic competitiveness.” – http://newhampshire.watchdog.org/8942/john-lynch-vetoes-rggi-repeal/ .
CCS (like ReGGI) has the potential of becoming an economic gravy train for those who have a vested interest. Preventing CCS as a CDM (a planet-saving solution according to its proponents) will be akin to eliminating ReGGI – a quixotic task, at best for those with reality and practicality as their “economic” drivers.
Some things you say are right, some things you say are wrong. Let’s take a look.
First, yes, the In Salah Gas project is profitable for BP/Statoil/Sonatrach; that doesn’t change the fact that they are spending company money on an added-on storage research project.
Next, the CO2 Capture Project (CCP) is not the In Salah project. Your quote and assertion that large parts of In Salah are funded by outside partners is wrong…your link discusses two different projects. CCP2 (Phase 2) is, however, funded largely by sources other than the In Salah proponents. Although pertinent to our conversation is that 70% of the $50 million funding CCP receives is from industry. Wrapping up In Salah, a quote from the link you posted to the In Salah website that you chose to not include:
“The JIP is funded and resourced primarily by BP, Sonatrach and Statoil; they receive no direct commercial benefit from its operation.”
List all the members of the JIP that you want, but that statement right there confirms everything I’ve said. Either they are blatantly lying, or this argument is over.
Moving on, you keep trying to suggest that In Salah is run by benevolent environmentalists. All I have ever stated is that In Salah is being run at cost to industry and the argument has diverted from the value of CCS to the funding of the In Salah project, which realistically has no bearing on the value of CCS. Even if it were being run completely on the CDM (CCS isn’t in the CDM yet, by the way) or by government funding, it doesn’t change the fact that it has been a very successful example of how geologic storage of CO2 is possible and safe.
Quantifying the risk of releasing a giant CO2 death bubble? If this was a likely risk, why aren’t people concerned about living above oil and natural gas fields? Why does the public support natural gas storage sites that are actually designed for rapid depletion. If a giant gas bubble was released from a geologic storage site, explosive natural gas is a much greater worry than inert CO2. It is a discussion that is had as a “cover all bases” mentality. Just because risks are identified doesn’t mean it is a risky project. Large-scale CO2 injection has been occuring for 40 years without notice or incident.
I’ll nip it in the bud now; lake Nyos does not pertain to a CCS project. It highlights the toxicity of CO2 in large concentrations, however, the CO2 release from lake Nyos was on a cause and scale that has no parallel with CCS. The small handful of locations around the world that have conditions conducive to such a phenomenon occurring are easily identifiable and avoidable.
From a purely economic standpoint CCS is stupid. All carbon mitigation is. From a “we need to reduce our carbon output” standpoint, however, CCS is a necessary technology option. As I mentioned before, unless carbon mitigation is completely eliminated from future agendas and I realize that this is the goal of this website, CCS will make things cheaper, more effective, and more secure. The failure of CCS would not be a loss to ‘warmists’ as it has no bearing on their argument and no bearing on them setting future agendas. The failure of CCS will simply cost economies more GDP for less mitigation if a ‘green’ agenda is adopted.