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.
i’ve got an absolutely brilliant plan for sequestering CO2.
liquify it, load it onto rockets and launch them into space….
yes, i know that is sheer genius. it’s not easy remaining modest when you are as smart as i am, but i manage fairly well. %-)
u.k.(us) said:
November 4, 2011 at 3:45 pm
CCS ain’t dead in Illinois.
[snippage]
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
—————————————————
ADM must have been obama campaign contributors like Solyndra were.
Clearly the blame lies with the trees.
[pic] http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/m16ac/scumbag_trees/
If their carbon sequestration business wasn’t so unaccountable then the carbon broker’s profits would fix up the planet. 🙂
Allencic says on November 4, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Thank God! Another small stake through the heart of this zombie that won’t quite die that is AGW. Let’s hope this miserable sumbitch dies a horrible death once and for all.
You need to watch more zombie movies. Zombies aren’t killed by driving a stake in the heart (that’s vampires). Zombies only die when the brain is destroyed. You have to blow their brains out or cut off their heads. Now that’s what needs to happen with the warmist community. The CAWG “brains” need to stop communicating with the body, or vise versa. (Either way works for me.)
However, I do appreciate your overall sentiment regarding this monster! 🙂
Enjoy,
wermet
Lucy Skywalker says:
November 4, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Mange takk Norge. Det er aldri for sent til å være fornuftig.
Lucy, the company went bust because the UK Government removed the green subsidies. So it was the UK that finally realised that the cost was too high. That norwegian company was more than happy to be on the receiving end…..
And that is the lesson about subsidies and protectionism; A few chosen (Aker Clean Carbon) gets a lot of money which many (UK taxpayers) must pay for….
“The market for the company’s technology for capturing and storing CO2 is “dead” “.
“Market” ? I think he meant “subsidies”. A free market would be much better; It would automatically be “sustainable” ……over time….
KnR says:
November 4, 2011 at 4:43 pm
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.
—————
I doubt if anyone is happy. Al Gore, who made megabux doesn’t strike me as a “happy guy”.
He seems rather bitter, I think.
the issue of carbon leaching out seemes to be a problem in the american area that did try it.
they canned it i remember.
Today in Aus..once again r williams a 40yr abc radio national sinecurejob holder..ran a story on some UK trial costing millions in some uni there, raving it up.
thought they just canned another one apart from the scottish one? recently as useless..
we have too many true believers in positions of some power and persuasion..not that many follow them, but they do have the ability to ruin economies and lives until we can remove then via voting.
roll on the elections.
Every geologist I know tells me that co2 pumped underground under pressure will find a way to leak to the surface again. Of course, then its avaialble to be pumped underground again I guess. The trouble here is that CO2 is odourless heavy and tends to collect in low quiet places. If you live near one of these CCS facilities, don’t sleep in the basement, you might not awaken some day. This is no joke.
Common & financial sense, is finally starting to penetrate the beaurocratic depth’s of some minds.
In the UK, Logganet’s carbon capture’s been sunk.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-15511590
It seems that £1billion was insufficient a bribe and the £1.5billion asked for, was too much for even the Huhnatic to stomach.
The feed-in tarrifs for solar pv is to be halved, for installations completed after 12th December.
The companies who sell these, like the ones who’ve advertised free supply & install contracts, where they get to “keep” the electricity generated over & above that consumed by the household, are up in arms about it and so are those who’ve not got their systems.
I point you towards the wonderful Jo Abbess.
http://www.joabbess.com/2011/11/01/letter-to-my-solar-installer/comment-page-1/#comment-101423
The poor woman’s “… at risk of missing all the benefits of the full rate Feed in Tariff,”…
Bugger saving the planet, give me the money!
> robertvdl
On the “projected” success of a Summit Power CCS plant selling the CO2 to oil drillers:
http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/community/blogs/authors/adamaston/2011/11/03/fighting-coal-plants-fighting-carbon-capture-and-re-use
“The irony of all this, and the reason why it’s so hard to build a power plant that captures carbon, is because the least profitable revenue stream we have is from electricity. You get much better returns on your CO2 and your urea than you do on your electricity.”
OK, so the oil drillers are ALREADY BUYING sequestered CO2 from, as someone else pointed out, Linde or Air Products or the like. Since Summit is selling into an existing market, their wonderful CCS plant results in precisely ZERO net CO2 reduction. Once the CO2 oil drilling market is saturated, the price falls and the economics and any possible CO2 reductions are out the window. It is similar to the concept (but opposite in result) of using waste vegetable oil to power diesels – it works until people actually start doing it in volume.
Not to mention the siting issues with transporting coal to the plant, CO2 through “pipelines” to the oil fields, electricity through grids to consumers and urea, I suppose in tank cars. I can’t imagine many sites that make all four of these viable, especially if one supposes widespread use of the technology which would quickly saturate local markets.
By the way, all of this wonderfulness is PROJECTED. No construction has started yet.
It’s not dead Jim, I mean Alex. It just goes by a different name – OWS, ACORN (they have a new name now, too, btw) and the NEA, just to name a few.
Here in the UK with its ‘greenest government ever’ (interpret that as you will), the propotype carbon capture and storage scheme in Scotland was dumped after spending £1 billion on it. But – and I do hope you’re all sitting down – our dearly beloved Secreatary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, said it would have worked, ‘if…. (just a reminder to make sure you’re sitting down) ….we had unlimited resources….’
There, you see..? Anything is possible – given an infinite supply of money..!!
Carbon capture efforts are just another form of crony capitalism. I’ll bet a lot of the money disappeared in the accelerated effort to “prove” carbon capture. What a great scam. Start companies that are expected to fail—wind, solar, carbon capture, or electric cars—and then they fail after having large piles of start up funds from the taxpayers. It’s nearly impossible to figure out where all of the money went. How does a electric car company such as Tesla burn through a million dollars a day when they are not even making car, just developing them? That’s insane. Somebody has a very large offshore account now.
Klem is right. There have been fatalities in hotels where people have gone down into the beer cellar when there has been a leak in the gassing system for the beer on tap. The gas for the beer distribution system is a mix of nitrogen and CO2, and one can drown in it. Coca cola systems use pure CO2, I think. One can also run into trouble with nitrogen systems where they are used to fill transmission lines. Should be more canaries! Or, more seriously, use of blood oxygen sensors, which can work on a fingertip, and probably an ear lobe; prices have come down below $25.
“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.”
That’s a piss poor analogy. The US accomplished the mission it set out to do.
AlexS says:
November 4, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“Oh yeah Fred. I usually think that about Communism – the enormous wastage of 70 years x millions of persons that believed it, brain power that could have much better use and i am not even counting for the damage that it made over the world just the uselessness of it all – , now i have to add the Warmists to the list. ”
Freud, Marx, and Darwin. Two down, one to go.
Looks like we have to take a little detour through climate science first though.
Mark and two Cats says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:08 pm
“ADM must have been obama campaign contributors like Solyndra were.”
===========
At risk of insulting your intelligence, I offer the following.
President Obama is a product of the corrupt politics entrenched in the state of Illinois.
To wit:
http://www.chicagonow.com/jane-of-all-trades/2011/06/half-of-illinois-governors-have-gone-to-jail-since-the-1970s/
“In light of the recent jury verdict on the Blago trial, I got to thinking about the corrupt politicians.
Since the 1970’s, Illinois has had 8 governors. Four of these governors have gone to prison on charges related to corruption. ”
—-
Of course the corruption emanates from Chicago, where our current President cut his teeth.
Rant/
All you people like to do is “talk” to each other…that’s obvious…!
And accomplish nothing..! Top to bottom…same people..!
You missed the real thing up there by that Acorn guy..!! (me)
Stop spending MONEY on CCS…!!
We want more CO2 in the atmosphere.
We want more CO2 in the atmos.
We want more CO2…
The crops grow faster.
The forests grow faster.
The crops feed more people.
Etc…Etc…etc…etc…
Remember those 7 billion..
Remember..
Carbon Capture and Sequestration is dead because the EROEI < 1.
Prime example of how when something is WRONG (or unscientific) at the outset…becomes a complete catastrophe of logic, wasted money, and wasted human resources…in the end.
Will we ever learn?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Pete in Cumbria UK. Actually Australia is classed as two thirds desert but that’s because of the expected annual rainfall. But the deserts or interior have always been subject to heavy down pours periodically, and then within one weeks, flowers start to form, seed and then die off. Frogs and amphibians who have laid hidden for years, wake up and breed. This means they have evolved like this over millions of years, like our eucalypti and some natives, need a roasting before germinating. Actually if you look at Australia, most habitations and cities are near rivers or on the ocean fronts. There are some huge pastorial areas up North bigger than England. As precipitation patterns are such that the further in land one goes from the sea the rain fall lessens generally. As far as tree cover, before the last ice age ended, Australia had less trees than it did later. Mind you they have cut lots down since. Also recall at the Top End, there are distinct dry and then wet seasons, from monsoons and cyclonic storms. Unfortunately trees need rain to grow until their roots find underground water supplies, and fresh water is and has been always at a premium in Oz. Particularly during an el Nino. And we do get snow too and frost. But that’s why Australia has most of its population living near the sea or along rivers. Like in other places in the world. We have artesian wells in the Centre, but they go thousands of feet underground, and when it is pumped out, you don’t need to heat it it’s bleedin’ hot already. We had a bore once in NSW on a small rural property, but raw it tasted like a mixture of Epsom salts and cod liver oil.
Yuck. Full of lime and iron. Ok for stock and veggies. But the rainwater tanks were precious to us.
Evolutionary theory is better supported than any scientific theory with the possible exception of quantum mechanics Dave.
Your equation of Darwin with Freud, whose ideas were at least quasipseudoscientific — apart from the large fraction of balderdash — is very far off.
Equation of Darwin with Marx is outright slanderous. Darwin advocated no revolution, called for no mass movements, and in fact ignored Marx’s attempts to open a collegial relationship. There have been no murderous “Darwinist” tyrannies, with none in the offing, and evolutionary theory has no particular political import.
Darwin’s work — and Mendel’s — opened a wide road to a better life. Medicine owes everything to evolutionary theory. Why do you think, for one tiny example, there’s objective justification for a mouse model of human disease? And guess why it works.
In fact, without evolutionary theory, there would be no objective reason to think that a treatment effective in curing any one person’s disease would help anyone else.
No babies with the bathwater, please.
wermet says:
November 4, 2011 at 11:18 pm
CAWG has brains?
Interesting to read a post claiming the electric portion of a coal ->syngas plant is the least profitable. Good argument for the coming replacement of coal with Low Energy Nuclear Reaction appliances. It’ll take a while to get the cost down to coal’s nominal $.07/kWh but eventually end user costs will drop below $.01/kWh. Best part is it spells doom for CCS of any kind since pumping the plant fertilizer into the ground will not make oil more competitive with LENR. We can thank the United States Navy and the Naval Research Lab for pioneering this effective new energy technology that will put the AGW doomers to sleep — forever. We wonder though… Will Algore EVER apologize for trying to bamboozle us??
Very active ones. So does CAGW. Plotting, planning …