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
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.