The Norwegian company Aker Clean Carbon may be closed. Its value is set to zero. The market for carbon capture and storage is dead according to their CEO.
Guest Post by Geir Hasnes, Norway
Article in today’s net edition of Norwegian Teknisk Ukeblad (Technological Weekly).
Aker Clean Carbon may be closed
This article brings important news especially damaging for the Norwegian politicians and believers in carbon capture and storage because Norway has put itself as the avant-garde of this totally useless technology and spent untold billions of dollars on it. The moon-landing that crashed that is referred to in the article refer to Norwegian prime minister Stoltenberg’s way of comparing the development of a technology for carbon capture and storage as equivalent to the US project of putting a man on the moon. The price tag of the Mongstad moonlanding project became too high and untold obstacles kept popping up continuously during the project until it crashed last year.
Below is a quick translation of the articles as it appeared at http://www.tu.no/industri/article293599.ece
Aker Solutions gives up efforts to clean CO2 emissions.
By NTB and Mona Strande Published: 11/04/2011 at. 7:42
The market for the company’s technology for capturing and storing CO2 is “dead”, according to chairman Øyvind Eriksen. He confirmed that the closure of Aker Clean Carbon is one of the options.
No full-scale
– The market has disappeared for several reasons. It relies on support from public authorities. Today, the assumption of support from the government and the consensus among energy companies no longer exist. There is in reality no full-scale projects for the ACC to pursue, he tells “Dagens Næringsliv” (Norwegian financial newspaper, literally translated “Today’s Business”).
The company has lost enormously because the so-called moon landing at Mongstad crash-landed.
In addition, the British government decided to withdraw from plans for a full-scale project in Scotland: they were prepared to go in with one billion pounds in the project, but now, the operator Scottish Power believes that the bill will be closer to 13.5 billion. Then the costs became too high, and the authorities said no.
Zero value
In Aker Solutions’ accounting for the third quarter, which was presented on Thursday, the value of Aker Clean Carbon is written down to zero. Aker Solutions had an operating profit before depreciation of NOK 322 million in the third quarter, down from 733 million in the same period last year.
if only my goverment could get its head out of its ass and use our beloved oil money on actually reacing the moon…
co2 is not our enemy!
Buzz B says (November 4, 2011 at 2:10 pm): “If CCS is dead, that pretty much means the future of coal is dead. Right?”
No, coal is still very useful without “carbon capture” and there are plenty of people smart enough to know that. A lot of them speak Chinese or Hindi.
Mange takk Norge. Det er aldri for sent til å være fornuftig.
CCS is a huge business. Per this site:
http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/institute/media-centre/media-releases/carbon-capture-storage-projects-progressing-report-finds-0
“The Global Institute’s flagship annual report identifies 74 large-scale integrated CCS projects around the world, 14 of which are either operating or under construction.”
The DOE site on CCS: http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/sequestration/index.html
Here’s whats going on in the U.S.:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/refshelf/project%20portfolio/2011/FocusAreas/Geologic%20Storage/2%20-%20Project%20Map.pdf
Fred from Canuckistan says:
November 4, 2011 at 2:00 pm
I think that’s a great point and that pops into my head every time someone says think of the children/grandchildren.
CCS ain’t dead in Illinois.
Excerpts from:
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/09/12/12climatewire-ethanol-carbon-sequestration-plant-holds-les-18588.html?pagewanted=all
“A leading agriculture company is about to put the United States on the map with the world’s biggest carbon sequestration projects.
In coming months, Archer Daniels Midland will ramp up construction on an initiative to grab carbon dioxide emitted from an ethanol facility and inject the gas underground. The Department of Energy announced the project’s groundbreaking at the company’s facility in Decatur, Ill., in late August.”
The overall cost of ADM’s project is $207.5 million, with most of that — $141 million — supplied by the Department of Energy as part of President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package.
======
As an Illinois resident, I must say, I have not yet been “stimulated”.
Nor do I care to be.
As Gary Hladik points out, the plant world figured this carbon capture thing out aeons ago so eco loony policies such as this shove it back underground stuff are the product of minds that can be clearly seen to be dumber than the weeds.
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
November 4, 2011 at 3:04 pm
“…surely Australia is THE place to do a genuine green carbon capture scheme.Aus is pretty well a desert….”
Hmmm….you have a point. Collecting the CO2 in Norway…ship it to Australia, and let it out.
That would take care of the desert!
I must admit I am feeling some schadenfreude at their loss. It was a frivolous waste of resources with no tangible benefit. I am delighted their scheme has failed. It wouldn’t have done much beside just pandering to the paranoid and giving justification to the looniest activists.
Ursus Augustus: “… minds that can be clearly seen to be dumber than the weeds” are not responsive to ridicule. In the immortal words of Liberace they’ll cry all the way to the bank.
Jay Davis says:
November 4, 2011 at 2:35 pm
The time and money diverted and wasted by the AGW scam is the reason I believe someone should be held accountable – if not criminally, then financially. Al Gore is first on my list.
_____________________________
The president of World Bank and JP Morgan Chase Bank and ALL the stockholders followed by several other banks…. Do not forget Tony Blair and the rest of the Politicians too. Then you can start on the universities and the mass media…..
Nuremberg Trials anyone?
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
November 4, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Linking Gary Hladik and Dr Burns above – surely Australia is THE place to do a genuine green carbon capture scheme.
Aus is pretty well a desert that, as I understand used to be covered in forest. Also, it is quite sunny there and generally the Southern Hemisphere is quite windy.
So, plant a few wind turbines & sunshine cells and use them to desalinate a bit of water and pump it inland.
Initially grow a bit of grass, let it turn into scrub and henceforth forest. How long before it makes its own ‘forest climate island’ (UHI in reverse) and becomes self sustaining. Maybe use a wind mill or 2 to fix a bit of nitrogen for fertilizer to speed things up a bit…..
_____________________________
Use the politicians for fertilizer and the University types on treadmills to provide reliable energy for when the solar cells/windmills fall.
If you think I am blood thirsty, think of the babies starved due to the land grab and the old/ill who died of hypothermia all in the name of “Saving the Planet”
http://www.africanglobe.net/2011/10/millions-face-starvation-across-africa-as-land-grab-by-foreigners-intensifies/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/8837091/At-least-2700-a-year-die-in-freezing-homes.html
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
November 4, 2011 at 3:04 pm
That’s a nice chunk of joined-up thinking Pete.
Unfortunately there is no way that some greedy parasite would be able to use your scheme to tap into a large stream of Taxpayer-funded largesse. Therefore it will never get off the ground.
Sorry, mate…
German States Block Carbon Capture Law
Plans in Germany to test underground carbon dioxide storage to combat global warming have been blocked by the country’s upper legislative chamber. The Bundesrat, which represents the 16 federal states, rejected a bill on Friday that had already been passed by the German parliament, the Bundestag, in August. The law would have allowed testing for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at former gas storage facilities. The federal government wanted to put the technology to the test until 2017 in two or three locations, with a maximum capacity of three million tons of CO2 a year.
Critics point out that carbon dioxide is toxic in high concentrations, arguing that the escape of gas from underground storage facilities cannot be ruled out. In recent years several attempts at an agreement between the federal and state governments have failed. Storage sites require specific geological conditions found mainly in the German states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, where there have been violent protests against the technology.
09/23/2011
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,788110,00.html
jorgekafkazar says:
November 4, 2011 at 2:58 pm
APACHEWHOKNOWS says: “…“The only good Carbon Credit is a stone cold dead Carbon Credit.””
Ouch! (I think that may go over a lot of people’s heads, here.)
Yeah, but it is better than:
I’ll give you my Carbon Credit when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”
🙂
Uh, picture Al Gore standing on a hill with his hand raised holding a Carbon Credit Certificate
saying “I’ll give you my Carbon Credit when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”
Perhaps with a Polar Bear climbing the hill behind him?
Ah, if I only had Josh’s talent.
Politician’s will never get punished for their stupid plans. They always fall back on, “We were doing it to save the planet” or some other such thing and then they seem to always get away with their schemes. Most of their schemes seem to have money as a goal whether for themselves or their friends and cronies.
When ever something like this comes crashing down , as it always was going to , its worth remembering that when you spend a lot a money someone , somewhere got a lot of money so someone is at least happy.
Gary Hladik says: November 4, 2011 at 1:41 pm. “The best way to “capture carbon” is to plant trees, cut them for lumber, “sequester” the lumber in houses and buildings, and plant more trees.”
No, Gary, that is a short-term, temporary arrangement. There are very few wood homes 400+ years old. The vast majority have rotted, burned, been eaten by termites. Carbon sequestration needs to last forever.
So far, there has been no single, viable, large scale, long term (1,000 year plus) man-made carbon dioxide mitigation scheme proposed, with the standout exception of nuclear power expansion.
Good citizens should follow the increasing failures of companies and methods for mitigation and sequestration and resolve not to become carpetbaggers to take cash from schemes based on fraudulent designs.
From fighting coal plants to fighting for carbon capture and re-use: Q&A with Laura Miller (Part I of II)
Posted: 03 Nov 2011.
“Miller has spent the past four years pushing plans to build the 400-megawatt Texas Clean Energy Project in Odessa, not far from the New Mexico border. When completed, TCEP will be the cleanest coal-fueled power plant in Texas.
In an era where cancellations of CCS projects in the US are outnumbering successful start-ups, TCEP has come a long way. Despite the bitterly polarised politics around energy, Summit’s $2.4-billion project won bi-partisan support in Texas’ state-house.
Its secret? Summit’s process offers something to supporters of both green energy and fossil fuels. It captures and reuses CO2 emissions, which pleases the Greens, and it sells the CO2 to the oil industry, which boosts oil recovery from ageing wells. In December, TCEP was granted an air permit with no opposition.
Summit was awarded $450 million from the DOE to scale up this process.
How does the process work?
You take the coal, you make a syngas. Then, with the gas, you make multiple products. You burn the gas to make electricity, but you also take quite a bit of the syngas and make urea fertiliser. So you have a separate manufacturing facility on the site next to your power generation.
The process also removes almost all of the bad sulphur. And we’re using a low sulphur coal to start with. We capture more than 99 per cent of the sulphur and put that into a separate manufacturing facility on the site to make sulphuric acid, which is also sold. Sulphuric acid is used in the farming community and by industry.
Finally, we capture 90 per cent of the CO2 off the syngas, compress it into a liquid form and put that in a pipeline and move it to oil producers, who send it down into wells to drive out more oil.”
http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/community/blogs/authors/adamaston/2011/11/03/fighting-coal-plants-fighting-carbon-capture-and-re-use
Geoff S;
The best place for carbon sequestration is in the atmosphere. Unfortunately the diatoms and corals etc. have been turning it into limestone for eons. So it’s best to take that rock, heat with coal furnaces to release the trapped CO2 and make concrete, and build nice Dome Homes with it.
Takk selv, og ikke minst takk til Anthony…
Winds are changing 🙂
Norway is also challenging the UK regarding their ambitious renewable policy.
“ENERGY costs could soar because a key supplier is threatening to stop selling gas to the UK if the Government continues chasing renewable sources.”
“The Norwegian company Statoil currently provides around a quarter of our gas from the North Sea. But Energy Secretary Chris Huhne’s pledge to make Britain Europe’s fastest-growing renewable energy producer could persuade the firm that there are more profitable markets outside the UK. Statoil has said that if the conditions of sale are not attractive here it will sell its gas elsewhere.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/280187/Green-energy-policy-is-jeopardising-gas-supplies-to-the-UK
The Norwegian government is Statiol’s biggest owner.with about 80% of the shares…..
Gary Hladik says:
November 4, 2011 at 1:41 pm
The best way to “capture carbon” is to plant trees, cut them for lumber, “sequester” the lumber in houses and buildings, and plant more trees. There you go: “green” jobs that produce a product beneficial to mankind.
Agree totally with you Gary. If anyone does believe that CO2 needs removing from the atmosphere, then this is the way to do it. Of course the trees can be left to grow and capture even more carbon, but trees don’t make the same political statements as windmills and pointless grandiose carbon capture schemes.
The best place for carbon sequestration is in the atmos….above.
YES…and then take it down and increase the growth rate of crops
and forests. This is happening now, after 70 years of going from
310 to 390 ppm. Helps feed the seven billion. And even more will
help even more. So spend nothing on CCS..!
So, Nature basically ‘mooned’ the project.
When it crashed, viola: A Mooned CCS Landing.
Another massive waste of taxpayer money, another set of execs make a profit, and another Green project goes bust.