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The Inaugural Golden Fleece Award – for Flagrant Fleecing of Community Resources
The Carbon Sense Coalition has awarded its Inaugural Golden Fleece Award to Kevin Rudd and coal industry leaders for “flagrant fleecing of community savings in futile ‘research’ on Carbon Capture & Sequestration – a costly and complex process designed to capture and bury carbon dioxide gas produced by burning carbon fuels such as coal, oil and gas”.
It is obviously possible, in an engineering sense, to collect, separate, compress, pump and pipe gases, so new “research” is largely a waste of money. Engineers know how to do these things, and their likely costs. But only foolish green zealots would think of spending billions to bury a harmless, invisible, life-supporting gas in hopes of cooling the climate some time in the century ahead.
About 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced for every tonne of coal burnt in a power station. To capture, compress and bury it could take at least 30% of the electricity produced, greatly increasing the cost of the limited amount of electricity left for sale – more coal used, increased electricity costs, for ZERO measurable benefits.
We have come to expect stupidity from politicians, but coal industry leaders who agreed to waste money on this should be sued by shareholders for negligence. Maybe they were just drooling at all the extra coal they would sell in order to produce the same electricity?
Kevin Rudd wins this award for “a Flagrant Fleece of $400 million taken from tax payers to fund the fatuous Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.” There is little to show for the millions already spent except a lot of receipts for high class salaries, consultants, travel, entertainment and “operational expenses”.
Pumping gases underground is sensible if it brings real benefits such as using waste gases to drive oil recovery from declining oil fields.
Normally, however, CCS will just produce more expensive electricity.
This result is not needed as politicians have already invented dozens of ways of doing just that.
Viv Forbes,
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition
Rosewood Qld Australia
2.5 Tonnes of CO2 for 1 Tonne of coal ?? – now that would be interesting !!
….and unless done on a massive (aka Chinese) scale, it is pointless. It’s pointless anyway, but….
Spending other peoples money is so easy.
Mr Rudd probably wont understand. It will go to his head. This is a compliment.
“To capture, compress and bury it could take at least 30% of the electricity produced, ….”
I bet “30%” is too small. Maybe more than 50%, or even close to 100%.
I think Kevin should be rescued from his precarious existence at a very nice house situated dangerously close to rising sea levels in Queensland and given a nice new safe home somewhere else, far away from the sea.
Given his enthusiasm for burying CO2 perhaps Lake Nyos in Cameroon would be appropriate…
Spending other people’s money isn’t pointless….it keeps so many govt. apparatchiks employed.
@’2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced for every tonne of coal burnt’. The two Oxygen atoms in the CO2 were in the atmosphere anyway, so only one ton of matter is added to the atmosphere. Recently the concentration of CO2 has increased by say 30 parts per million but only 1/5 is added mass ie 6 parts per million.[12/(2*16(O) +2*14.)]
The surface temperature is a function of the mass of gas (any gas) in the atmosphere above the surface (or any altitude in the atmosphere) due to gravity, conservation of energy and the ideal gas law, (see Venus, Mars, Stars {Type1) I think}). The added matter has only a 6 parts per million effect on the surface temperature, The amount added is so small that the approximation is linear, so the effect is (6/10^6) * 273 deg C = 0.0016 Deg C. That cannot be measured outside the laboratory.
A guy I went through university with is up to his ears in this scam at CSIRO. Tells me all I need to know about CSIRO. Some years ago I had cause to contact the Queensland mob at Kenwood about some technology they claimed to have. Didn’t go far after I asked some pointed questions which they didn’t bother to reply to.
Pathetic. CSIRO is a social welfare organisation for the otherwise unemployable. aka sheltered workshop.
From the UK. Although our Chancellor or the Exchequer seems somewhat sceptical about wind generation, he has put more of our money into CCS. I guess this is as a sop to the warmists. Utter waste of taxpayer’s money.
An unique Australian ABC program for the young was The Argonauts, with programs on nature literature and music.I always loved listening to Tom the Naturalist, no double entendre intended.
One of the awards for contributions was the Golden Fleece,after all this was part of the Argonaut’s historic quest, the fleece of a sheep used to separate out alluvial gold in a stream.
When one achieved the Golden Fleece award the next step was the Golden Fleece and Bar,no double entendre intended.Next came the Dragon’s Tooth.
Since projects involving CO2 are at best described as the work of whimsical minds, the use in Australia of such an award is entirely appropriate. There is scope for a pantheon of awards as the whimsy enfolds the winners.
I personally would like to see a CCS scheme go ahead so that future generations will be able to look back on it and say ‘that was one of the stupidest ideas in the history of mankind’.
CCS was tried in the UK at a Scottish pilot project. They had £10m to spend, drilled a hole and failed to inject any CO2. The project has been terminated.
CCS has yet to be proved anywhere. Whilst pumping any gas into the crust at high pressure is no problem the failures come when we expect this gas to actually stay there. Given that CO2 is a life giving gas whose ability to alter climate has yet to be proved I find the whole thing a total waste of hard earned taxpayer cash. For the same money you could fit every African village with fresh, clean running water.
They would also have been burying oxygen, which seems a bit of a shame, (a waste of good oxygen in fact, like the aforementioned Mr Rudd). Wouldn’t it have been better to have fed the CO2 to little green plants, so that they could put the carbon away somewhere useful, and we could have our oxygen back?
Australia has a history of exploiting taxation incentives, like digging in an old goldmine, never producing anything but keeping your employees occupied and taking the taxpayers development incentive till times improve and you can get back to “normal employment” – Government has a special talent inpromoting such schemes as they mask their inability to fix what is wrong in an economy.
Geoff says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:06 am
2.5 Tonnes of CO2 for 1 Tonne of coal ?? – now that would be interesting !!
Indeed, the other ton of CO2 from coal burning (equivalent is 3.6 ton/ton) probably escaped to space?
Nevertheless, no need for capturing, plants do like more CO2…
What many Warmists don’t realise is that the fossil fuel industry is happily on board with co2 reduction and capture schemes. The oil industry has been pumping co2 into wells to extract residual oil for over 30 years. Why not get paid to do it?
We see above that the coal and now the natural gas industry is now in on it too for ‘Enhanced Gas Recovery’. The fossil fuel industry and carbon sequestration are like two peas in a pod. They were made for each other and the public has to pay for these mad schemes through higher energy prices and fuel poverty.
Excellent start. Highlight the waste of money and resources due to AGW policy demands and fear mongering.
Considering the way AGW promoters waste money, my bet is a monthly golden fleece award will be justified.
I live in Australia and there is a election in Australia date 14th sep 2013 and we all hope that we kick there BUTT the Gillard GOV’T is killing Australia we all hate them the greenies and the communists will be kicked out of Australia with there 24$ carbon tax
@ur momisugly Lew Skannen:
“I think Kevin should be rescued from his precarious existence at a very nice house situated dangerously close to rising sea levels in Queensland and given a nice new safe home somewhere else, far away from the sea.”
There’s a thought. Not far from the Brisbane River (but more likely on one of the high bits?).
Having dumped $600m worth of green projects (with the assistance of the former Premier’s partner who put it all together), the Queensland government now has a draft State Planning Policy, which includes “progressive sea level rise from 1990 levels to an additional 0.8 metres … an increase in cyclone maximum potential intensity by 10 per cent” by the year 2100. Based on IPCC AR 4 and “more recent work” by CSIRO.
In other words, bunk.
(Tide gauges aren’t showing much of significance and cyclone frequency and intensity records show nothing unprecedented either.) This won’t solve the problem of 100+ years of bad siting of towns, but will very likely result in planning blight on a very large scale along the coastline.
We have until 12 June to comment.
“Given his enthusiasm for burying CO2 perhaps Lake Nyos in Cameroon would be appropriate…”
LOL. Very pertinent. However, not funny for anyone downstream If the crater wall lets go,
Comment on Wikipedia:
“Today, the lake also poses a threat because its natural wall is weakening. A geological tremor could cause this natural dike to give way, allowing water to rush into downstream villages all the way into Nigeria and allowing much carbon dioxide to escape.”
As if the two risks are equal and the same? They are already unsequestering the CO2. Maybe Kevin could help unsequester the lake water …
I love it when the lefty greenies turn and eat their own. I truly enjoy it. It makes my day.
So – burying gas at high pressure underground is a good idea..?
So – what if the geologists have missed a teensy weensy pinhole in the rock strata, and it all leaks out..?
So – what if it leaks into ground water – and you get soda water coming out of your tap..?
So – what if it starts creating earthquakes..? Will they be NICE earthquakes, rather than NASTY ones which fracking might possibly cause..?
Amr Marzouk says:
April 19, 2013 at 12:10 am
“Spending other peoples money is so easy.”
Yup. This is pretty much how the climate science industry works…
Nippy says:
April 19, 2013 at 1:10 am
@’2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced for every tonne of coal burnt’. The two Oxygen atoms in the CO2 were in the atmosphere anyway, so only one ton of matter is added to the atmosphere. Recently the concentration of CO2 has increased by say 30 parts per million but only 1/5 is added mass ie 6 parts per million.[12/(2*16(O) +2*14.)]
Please explain this: [12/(2*16(O) +2*14.)]
What is the 12? Why 2*14?
Thanks
Geoff writes
=======
2.5 Tonnes of CO2 for 1 Tonne of coal ?? – now that would be interesting !!
========
Combining one tonne of carbon (coal) with oxygen to produce CO2
Atomic weight of carbon = 12
Atomic weight of oxygen = 16
So molecular weight of C02 = 12 + 32 = 44
So mass of CO2 produced with one tonne of coal = 1 tonne (C) + 2 *16/12 tonnes (O2) = 3.7 tonnes (CO2)