From the GFZ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Helmholtz Centre , probably too little too late, as CO2 sequestration projects worldwide are closing.
Conclusion of an international project for the geological storage of carbon dioxide
![CO2CARE-Projekte[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/co2care-projekte1.jpg?resize=640%2C296)
Potsdam, 07.11.2013 | At the final conference of the EU project CO2CARE – CO2 Site Closure Assessment Research – at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences from 04 to 06 November 2013 more than 60 experts from academia, industry and regulatory authorities from 13 countries discussed technologies and procedures for a safe and sustainable closure of geological CO2 storage sites.
Since 2004, GFZ investigates in an international research network the geological storage of the greenhouse gas. “Our work at the Ketzin site has shown that and how geological CO2 storage on a pilot scale can be done safely and reliably,” summarized Axel Liebscher, project coordinator and head of the Center for Geological Storage (CGS) at the GFZ, the results of the meeting.
“The knowledge gained in the project CO2CARE and newly developed procedures and technologies are a key step forward to implement the requirements of the EU Directive (DIRECTIVE 2009/31/EC) for geological storage of CO2 in national CCS laws and to ensure a safe and sustainable closure of geological CO2 storage sites.”
The CO2CARE EU project, coordinated by the GFZ, combined experimental laboratory and field research as well as numerical simulations in an integrated approach and tested and developed technologies and methodologies. The result is that the three main requirements of the EU Directive for the transfer of responsibility to the appropriate regulatory body can be met: modelled behavior conforms with the observed behavior of the injected CO2, there is no detectable leakage, and the storage site is evolving towards a situation of long-term stability.
The key component of the CO2CARE project is the site-based research with an international portfolio of nine CO2 storage projects. In addition to Sleipner in Norway and K12-B in the Netherlands, the Ketzin pilot site operated by GFZ is one of three sites for which in the framework of CO2CARE the closure and the transfer of responsibility to the regulatory authority was theoretically developed. At the Ketzin pilot site the storage of CO2 was terminated in August 2013 after more than 5 years of successful operation. Axel Liebscher: “By now the post-injection phase has begun and the Ketzin pilot site will be the first site which will be closed within a scientific project. The results of the CO2CARE project will be implemented here directly.”
Due to the continuing increase in world energy demand, especially in countries such as China, India and Brazil, and the use of fossil fuels the CCS technology will continue to play a central role in the global reduction of CO2 emissions. For Germany, it is especially also an option to avoid so-called process-related emissions from steel, cement and chemical industries. “Only if we can also demonstrate the safe and permanent closure of CO2 storage sites in addition to the safe operation, CCS is able to develop its potential,” Axel Liebscher concluded.
More information can be found under: http://www.co2care.org.
Maybe we should bury it under Yucca Mountain?
CO2 storage gets my vote as the most stupid large-scale human endeavor, ever. With the pyramids, etc., at least you inspire something in your contemporaries and get long-term tourist dollars.
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
No sites in New York City? Way to inspire confidence is to eat your own dog food. The UN should be flooding the basement with the stuff since they claim it is both necessary and safe.
It sure is. You use a process known as photosynthesis.
After CO2 kills everything won’t we all just become fossil fuel again?
I’ve heard that your can do something similar by growing trees – probably just fancifull nonsense I suppose.
So wait greens don’t like fracking because you pump various things into the ground. And greens don’t like storing nuclear waste in underground facilities. But pumping CO2 into the ground i great?
I guess these experts have never seen the white cliffs of Dover?
Actually, safe CO2 storage has been known for a very long time. It’s called Calcium Carbonate and is the source for all of the great limestone and chalk beds throughout the world. White Cliffs of Dover, anyone?
Claim: Safe long term storage of CO2 is possible.
Too right – store it in plants! Any other idea is just plain stoopid!
LamontT: You hit the nail on the green’s ideological head/ Talk about hypocritical!
The other dichotomy is that greens (& politicians) want us to CONSERVE energy, but CCS uses massively MORE energy (which of course creates more CO2). Just doesn’t add up!
Wasn’t all the carbon on the planet once above ground and loose in the environment as part of the carbon cycle?
Safe? Doubtful. It would be far safer to simply take the $$$ that would be spent on CCS technology and operations and store it underground. Same result, too.
I would suggest the best place to put it, but Anthony would delete my comment.
Richard Howes says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Besides saving lots of money, there are other benefits to letting CO2 into the atmosphere. it acts as a plant fertilizer and increases yield. It also reduces stomata in leaves and thereby reduces H2O loss via respiration, an important effect during droughts.
It was once believed that CO2 would help alleviate winter temperature extremes by warming the atmosphere and also provide for a longer growing season which also increases crop yields, but that happy expectation has been abandoned as AGW theory collapses like a house of cards. Too bad, because a warmer world is a better world and the greatest catastrophe for humankind is the onset of another Ice Age.
What about sequestering it in Antarctica with the aid of windmills? What happened to that great idea?
Underground or underwater as carbon dioxide hydrate clathrate?
Quote of the decade as far as I am concerned:
Richard Howes says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
I think beer is the safest way to store CO2.
(As long as there is a designated driver.)
How about this: We need to store it now for future use during an ice age. WUWT!?
Thanks for all of the articles and comments.
@Bruce Cobb says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:46 am
“Safe? Doubtful. It would be far safer to simply take the $$$ that would be spent on CCS technology and operations and store it underground. Same result, too.”
=================================================
Not to mention cheaper, with all the traders, middlemen, and bureaucrats cut out of the loop.
Hmmm… bury money… Shovel-ready jobs!
Keep your eye on the mailbox for a thank you note from the Prez, Bruce.
Capture it, refine it, convert it into biofuel and then burn it again and again. CO2 can be converted into a number of fuels & chemicals via bacterial fermentation, photosynthesis & other processes. Search the term “conversion of carbon dioxide into fuel” for some examples.
“Just doesn’t add up!” — ilma
‘Chewbacca dioxide.’ Which rather well explains everything so far.
Actually, the oceans store CO2 very well. Contrary to alarmists beliefs the ocean absorbs most of the emitted CO2.
If frakking is allegedly dangerous because it might allow small amounts of frakking fluids and ground water to migrate into unwanted zones, then the claim about CO2 storage from this group makes little sense. The net impact of frakking is to make *more room* in the formations of interest, to remove things that are already there- the gas and liquids inthe frack zone formation.
CO2 injection does the opposite: It forces CO2 into a space already occupied, either requiring the remocal of native waters, oil and gas, or simply displacing them under pressure. the existing liquids and gases present will go somewhere. And the water will be reacting with CO2 uder pressure, forming acids which will have the ability to change the strength of native rocks over time.
Both aspects of this mean that over time there is no way aquifer pollution on much larger scales than any ever even alleged from frakking will occur as deep brines, high sulfide, and other mater
So, what’s the capacity for CO2 storage in Frio, TX, and Wallula? And how many miles of underground pipeline do we need to direct all CO2 to one of those places? Given the hysteria over Keystone, what happens when we want to pump a killer pollutant like CO2 (it’s cahhhhbaaahhhn pollution, doncher know) all over the country?
The last few air permits for combustion sources (green energy from landfill gas), I’ve had to include by EPA directive GHG sequestration in the BACT analysis.
“Carbon (dioxide) sequestration” makes as much sense as paying one group to dig a hole –
and then paying another group to fill it back in.
Stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon, look at the view, the vertical rock faces are limestone, formed in shallow seas, the youngest is 600 million years old. The limestone formations extend hundreds of miles north. I’d say this type of sequestration is a no brainer.
The longest project running is the Weyburn-Midale Canada oil field CO2 injection project. It has doubled oil production from the field. Word is they are paying $100/tonne for the CO2 but it is still profitable (paying to take it that is versus getting paid to get rid of it which CO2 markets are based on).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyburn-Midale_Carbon_Dioxide_Project
A coal fired power plant nearby has recently been retrofitted for Carbon capture ($1.4 billion cost) and the captured CO2 will also be piped to the oil fields for enhanced recovery. It will be on-line soon.
http://www.saskpower.com/our-power-future/work-currently-underway/boundary-dam-integrated-carbon-capture-and-storage-demonstration-project/
There are 4,000 coal plants world-wide. The cost to convert all of them would be massive and very few of them would have nearby declining oil fields and the geology required to make it cost-effective, let alone profitable, but there are some.
The technology exists – just store it in cartridges:
http://www.co2cartridges.co.uk/index.php
(Do I have to use the sarc tag)
Those trying to “sequester” carbon dioxide in anything other than soil are trying to reduce the carrying capacity of the Earth for Life. ALL life begins by biochemical reduction of carbon dioxide.
Those here love science and our main goal is to restore scientific objectivity to the study of climate and weather. We are also concerned about the world’s economies because the ceaseless attacks on energy have damaged those economies at their foundation.
But my goal is to save the world. I am fighting for human and mammalian and avian health and longevity, which are probably improved by more carbon dioxide, for plants to feed endangered species, and for everything else alive.
Every living thing needs carbon dioxide.
As usual the words safety and reliability appear but not cost. It is the way of the lobbyist world.
Richard Howes on November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
That was my first thought, too.
Besides the positive benefits noted above we would also have an
Out of sight, out of mind situation.
🙂
Safe long term storage of CO2 is possible
Yea. It is these new fangled things called Reefs.
Geez….. All this research on nanotechnology and corals have been sequestering CO2 for half a billion years.
Richard Howes on November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
Why don’t we safely store it in the atmosphere? Seems a bit cheaper.
Farmerbraun says : Yep! And it’s freely available there to those who wish to make a withdrawal for transformation and subsequent sale , to the betterment of themselves and others! 🙂
Unless storing the CO2 produces some sort of real economic benefit (as opposed to the fake carbon quotas, permits, credits, or whatever they’re being called) then it’s not a good idea.
The world’s economies are already wasting far too many billions of dollars, euros, etc on carbon strangulation of our economies. We can’t afford that sort of nonsense, and obtain zero benefit from it.
Gunga Din says:
November 8, 2013 at 10:02 am
I think beer is the safest way to store CO2.
(As long as there is a designated driver.)
Gunga Din,
Uuuhhhmmmm…… I’d like to help with the beer CO2 storage proposal.
Where can I sign up as a designated drinker?
MtK
Two posts in a row about how to solve non-existent problems very expensively.
We don’t need to capture CO2 in order to store it. We need to learn how to recycle it. Nature is adapted to recycle CO2 at very low concentrations. If we are going to improve on this, and use much less area, we must learn how to do it with higher concentrations of CO2. And that means first capturing it, and then converting it to things like hydrocarbons and carbohydrates.
I remember seeing a movie once in which it depicted the emperor of Ancient Rome crying over some tragedy. A servant or slave immediately fetched a small glass bottle with a curved opening. The curve perfectly matched the lower eyelids of the emperor so that the bottle could be placed there and his highly valuable tears could be collected and saved once he stopped crying and the bottle was stoppered.
Sounds pretty stupid doesn’t it? Well, just imagine society about 2,000 years from now producing some sort of holographic operatic entertainment depicting people in the here and now trying to somehow save for all time the very same CO2 that they exhale with each breath they take.
Now the immediate foregoing thought certainly doesn’t detract from the imbecilic stupidity of capturing an emperor’s tears but there’s no denying that capturing the same thing as our very own breathing is orders of magnitude stupider. So I think that we’ll have plenty more to be embarrassed about in the presence of our successors than the Romans may have had with us.
I’ve seen several articles lately about converting CO2 into Methanol. It appears there are several variants on different innovations with promise. Perhaps the chemists here have some insights into feasibility:
Too Green to Be True? Highly Effective Method for Converting CO2 Into Methanol
Another claim to innovation in the area is Princeton:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/95/96G16/index.xml?section=featured
Do you think this will get funding? I might want to invest in this nice little earner.
Some dogooders don’t think CCS is a good idea.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/05/2891671/carbon-capture-storage-earthquakes/
Assuming that it is economically and chemically feasible and commercially viable, I agree that the only reason for capturing CO2 emissions would be for conversion of the gas into biofuels for commercial use. Any other reason is sheer idiocy.
All too often human stupidity is our own worst enemy.
P.S. Using it for fracking is economically and commercially sound as well.
It gets another vote from me.
@Bill Parsons 11:15 am
From your link:
This is what happens when you look at the CO2 “hole” and not the process “donut.”
We ought to store CO2 in the atmosphere and in the ocean. Oh… we do?
Ok then. Never mind.
Maybe a bit of CO2 in beer too then. (personal reasons)
Let us debate about whether to build a tower to heaven in Babel. Another archaic, dumb idea.
The process in question begs only one question:
Why the hell would you want to?
(My apologies to those of you who have mistaken my French for some other language–I’m only following what the Prez does!)
The longest project running is the Weyburn-Midale Canada oil field CO2 injection project. It has doubled oil production from the field.
I’m guessing there’s no underground aquifers nearby. Water injection should be at maintaining pressure. But if they wanted to use gas to maintain well pressure, why not use compressed air? CO2 special chemical properties ?
The CO2 to methanol story made me remember an old Wizard of Id cartoon from the early ’70s, era of oil embargo gas lines.
Three guys hanging from shackles in the dungeon;
guy #3 in a lab coat with glasses, passed out.
Guy #1: “What’s he in for?”
Guy #2: ” He found a way to turn oil into food.”
So let me get this straight – nuclear waste which is vitrified in glass then embedded in concrete, will not be stable is buried in stable geological strata. Not safe.
BUT – the GAS CO2 can easily be buried permanently. Safe.
Plant trees
“Due to the continuing increase in world energy demand, especially in countries such as China, India and Brazil, and the use of fossil fuels the CCS technology will continue to play a central role in the global reduction of CO2 emissions.”
I notice there are zero map dots for China, India and Brazil. I wonder why not.
Just another …COS
GlynnMhor says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:01 am
“Unless storing the CO2 produces some sort of real economic benefit (as opposed to the fake carbon quotas, permits, credits, or whatever they’re being called) then it’s not a good idea.”
Researching the storage of CO2 provides a real economic benefit to the parasites in the German Green Research complex.
And a real economic damage to German taxpayers like me.
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is the most viable use of CO2 that is captured economically. Unfortunately, there are only a few processes that produce economic quantities of CO2. One is the Ethanol industry that converts a significant fraction of starch into CO2 during fermentation. The other is at a Coal-to-Liquids facility that gasifies coal and produces large quantities of CO2 that must be removed from the synthesis gas before the syngas is used in other processes. CO2 generally sells for about $20/ton for EOR.
EOR has been an established method for extracting additional oil from reservoirs for at least 40 years and is only limited by the availability of CO2 and the applicability of EOR to a given reservoir. Most EOR is done with natural sources of CO2 such as Sheep Mountain. The oil industry would welcome additional CO2 availability, but coal fired power plants are not amenable to carbon capture technology. Although it can be done, CO2 capture from coal fired power plants is both costly and reduces overall power production efficiency by 5-8% (from about 36-38% overall efficiency to 25-29%. So it is not economically viable to waste so much coal in this type of facility.
I say, pump the CO2 into the same location as the CRU #3 emails. That way, We will never be troubled… again.
Sorry… I couldn’t resist. GK
cnxtim…plant trees. Almost right.
What you do is plant trees, let them grow, chop them down and bury the suckers.
Problem solved.
Why not use it to fill the bubbles in bubble-wrap, then make it a crime against humanity to pop those bubbles ?
If the biosphere has been greening in recent decades then isn’t some storage already being done for us? If you really think the trace rise of the trace gas is a problem then why not plant more trees in available and previously deforested areas? Parts of Australia could do with a seedling planting scheme.
The reason they are not interested is because this is a con. They want to create huge bureaucracies and jobs for the boys. They want to feel important, they want to feel they are saving the world. That a load of horse bollocks.
drama greens are vehemently against fracking cause all that fracking using deadly chemicals cause earth quakes YET they don’t bat an eyelid to pumping billions of tons of the most noxious gas known to mankind in to the ground!?!?
How the hell does that kind of reasoning work?!?!?
Regards
Mailman
Store it in corn plants and make biofuel from the corn. If there’s any left over, feed it to starving people who are freezing to death owing to the expense of heating fuel.
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I’m sorry. Upon further (unsubsidized) research I’ve found that converting CO2 into the even more potent greenhouse gas methane is counterproductive.
Subsidizes are needed for further research.
(In the mean time I suggest you keep the greenhouse windows open.)
CRS, DrPH wrote (re CO2): “Capture it, refine it, convert it into biofuel and then burn it again and again. CO2 can be converted into a number of fuels & chemicals via bacterial fermentation, photosynthesis & other processes.”
The problem with these schemes of re-using CO2 is that they take more energy to perform than can be obtained afterward by burning the resulting fuel. It’s a classical problem in chemical engineering.
Ian M
CCS has to be the most hare-brained idea ever devised by humans. They want to sequester oxygen (along with carbon)? Which is what they would be doing when storing carbon dioxide.
Help me out someone – how do you get from this data:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/34/7ty.png/
the idea that there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere?? (not enough, OK, but too much???)
“Bill Parsons says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:15 am
I’ve seen several articles lately about converting CO2 into Methanol. It appears there are several variants on different innovations with promise. Perhaps the chemists here have some insights into feasibility:
Too Green to Be True? Highly Effective Method for Converting CO2 Into Methanol”
Alright, one more time. On an economic basis, converting CO2 into methanol will NEVER be a good idea. It only makes sense if CO2 MUST be recycled and you need a source for a transportable fuel. In terms of an energy source, CO2 is nothing more than a dead battery. You will NEVER get any more energy out of burning the methanol back into CO2 than it took to convert the CO2 into methanol in the first place. In fact, because you never have 100% efficiency you always get LESS energy out than what you put in regardless of what catalyst used. Would be much more economical to use the energy that is required for the conversion to directly do real work instead.
If CAGW were real, and there was an absolute need to prevent the CO2 concentrations in the atm from going up, then recycling CO2 might be an option, but NOT because of the economic benefit.
Summarizing: In the absence of CAGW or we have run out of fossil fuels, converting CO2 into a hydrocarbon to be used as fuel source will always be a total waste of money.
Ian: “The problem with these schemes of re-using CO2 is that they take more energy to perform than can be obtained afterward by burning the resulting fuel.”
Learn to Green: “Use a solar reflector”
/flees
Thanks, Ian! Not so, our group at University of Illinois has proven that we can convert a synthetic fossil fuel-flue gas into algae biofuel for less than $2.00/US gallon at full scale. That includes all of the carbon capture, photosynthesis, oil extraction, refining etc.
We can also directly convert carbon dioxide into methanol or methane by bacterial fermentation. We’re still tweaking that one.
Stay tuned, I can’t spill the beans yet. BTW, I’m a former consultant to a major industrial gases company & worked on harvesting carbon dioxide from huge US ethanol plants, refining it and selling it to the carbonated beverage industry. The stuff has value, but the missing part is how to improve collection and refining. We think we know how. Cheers, Charles the DrPH
I am a Swede.
We have been paying CO2 duties since 1991. Today it is 1.85 USD per gallon for petrol or diesel. This is three times the estimated cost for CCS. Over the years I have payed 46,000 USD to the state to take care of my cars CO2 emissions and now i find it was all bogus?
Dr Bob is saying above that oil companies could have earned both in capturing the CO2 and in production rate if they have gotten the money!
I say, politicians all over the world need to reconsider their duties!
The real worry with any of these CO2 sequestrations is that they are aimed at reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere…….. just when we are starting to get up up away from the subsistence level its been at for many thousands of years.
It is SHEER STUPITY on so many different levels !!
FEED THE PLANTS,………………LET NATURE PROSPER .
This was a prototype last time I saw it.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428348/what-to-do-with-co2-from-coal-how-about-make-bakin
CRS: ” Not so, our group at University of Illinois has proven that we can convert a synthetic fossil fuel-flue gas into algae biofuel for less than $2.00/US gallon at full scale.”
Which is excellent, btw. But the relevant question is whether your EROEI is north of 1 or not.
As a more general remark on industry, cogeneration, and flue gas usage: The larger issue involved is that old-school coop style markets are long gone for industrial products. So there’s a lack of a good market place as well as transport infrastructure for such byproduct captures.
It provides a rather chicken and egg problem of the same sort you see with battery cars and charging stations. Though there’s perhaps some good investment oppos for outfits that would handle distribution and installation costs for various outfits.
Who are these numpties trying to kid; ever seen an old oil or gas well (full of scale and corrosion after 20 to 30 years), and somehow a well used to pump carbonic acid into a saline acquifer isn’t going to rust away to dust and start leaking?
what did Einstein say about the difference between genius and stupidity again?
Isn’t limestone a good way to store CO2? That’s where most of it went. CaCO3 where do you think most of that CO3 came from?
In spades. Net energy producer, ROI less than two years. We’re excited down here!
To CRS, DrPH
Thank you!
It is pleasing to see that there are scientist that are working on solutions to problems instead of exaggerations of them. And since price of petrol to end user is more then 9 USD per gallon in Sweden, I don’t think that the price discussions above are significant in the long run.
Keep up the good work!
Has it been ask and tested that over time will the pressure of co2 from below eventually saturate all sub-soil basically killing the sub-surface soil bacterial life rendering it dead? How big of an area will this effect if found true? Oppositely, methane under pressure underneath can seep and is already oxidized and fixed by certain bacteria as energy in the presence of oxygen from above in depleted gas formations. Show me one organism able to metabolize co2 without sunlight.
Seems like a bad, bad idea to me. Still say if anyone it will be the “environmentalists” that contaminate and ruin the Earth. Just go to some of their meetings and soak up the crazy talk.
Some excellent, some funny, some slightly serious and some very apt posts there guys and gals
Take a bow!.
From my perspective as now retired south eastern Australian grain farmer.
The world’s plant breeders and plant geneticists and researchers along with the world’s farmers have to produce the food to feed over 8 billions and climbing to close to ten billions of humans by 2050 and beyond.
We / they will need all the help they can get to achieve this and increasing CO2 is one of the fastest, best, cheapest and easiest ways of at least going some of the way to achieving that goal.
And that is only an almost frightening just a half a life time into the future.
Since 1990 it is estimated that around 20% of the increase in global crop yields are due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The “CO2 Science” site in it’s “data” tables has some good researched data on the increases in plant bio-mass and therefore yields in grain crops with increasing levels of CO2.
[ As an aside; One good food crop plant breeder who right now is starting to create and breed another of the ever improving varieties of grain and food crops that will feed the 8 billions plus of humanity in 2025 / 30 is worth hundreds of climate scientists when the future of humanity is being considered.
It takes about 12 to 15 years from the start of a grain food crop variety’s breeding program sequence before that new and improved grain variety reaches the customer as bread, pasta, starch, gluten, noodles, animal feed and etc and etc.
In our totally blind stupidity we now pay even totally incompetent climate scientists much more than we pay a good plant breeder.
Whose hands would you place your future in?
A food crop plant breeder, more CO2 and a full belly and health and a comfortable life style far into the future
Or
The climate alarmist scientists, less CO2, less fossil fuel energy and an empty belly, starvation and death all around you but the satisfaction that you have done your bit to “Save the Planet”? ]
I have said this before many times.
I will say it again here.
The world’s plant breeders and farmers will more than adequately feed the increasing numbers of mankind into the future if the world warms and CO2 increases.
If the global climate cools but CO2 still increases, then perhaps, operative word is “perhaps” the world’s farmers will be still able to feed the increasing global population, just!
If the world cools and mankind through rank stupidity tries to reduce atmospheric CO2 and succeeds then all bets are off for the world’s farmers in a colder climate and with less of that absolutely essential plant food CO2 may not be able to grow enough of the world’s food crops to feed mankind’s increasing numbers.
And that means hunger and possible starvation on a scale unmatched in human history.
A cold world and failed harvests are synonymous throughout the annals of history and millions, hundreds of millions have died throughout history when famine has struck.
Just get out of the bloody way and let Nature look after all that supposedly so dangerous and absolutely essential plant food called Carbon Dioxide, just as Nature has always done for the 4.5 billion years of Earth’s known existence.
CRS: “In spades. Net energy producer, ROI less than two years. We’re excited down here!”
Fantastic to here. You’ll have to use light the Koch signal and let the Wattmen know where to keep eyes peeled for it when you’re out from under NDA.
Jim Cripwell says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:07 am
We don’t need to capture CO2 in order to store it. We need to learn how to recycle it. Nature is adapted to recycle CO2 at very low concentrations. If we are going to improve on this, and use much less area, we must learn how to do it with higher concentrations of CO2…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They are called green houses…. I am building one does Obama want to pay me to take CO2 and turn it into food?
Thank you, Gunnar! I’m very fond of Sweden, my step-daughter Jessica lives in Vittinge!
I’m an optimist, we can solve anything when we put our minds to the task. Best, Charles!
My favorite method of CO2 storage is a nice juicy steak…
Robert of Ottawa says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Isn’t limestone a good way to store CO2?….
Not if it is wet. Water plus CO2 is how caves are formed.
CRS, DrPH says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:07 pm
After all I have said about the idiocy of so many of today’s “scientists” for the way in which they are destroying the historical image of science as a beacon and a hope for a better future, it is very uplifting to my lifetime’s belief in Science to find some scientists who are positive, forward looking and intent, and acting on it, to hopefully make our’s and humanity’s future even better.
It seems that we once again have the stark differences being shown here between the unreality of the hypothesis based alarmist mentalitism of climate alarmist science and the always solution seeking, pragmatic engineering based science that looks to a better future for all..
Thank you Sir.
ROM says: @ November 8, 2013 at 3:13 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Excellent! Too bad the world’s elite are more in favor of capturing the world’s food supply than they are in feeding people.
The Race for the World’s Farmland
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/land-grab-the-race-for-the-worlds-farmland-0
“The world is experiencing a grain rush. With increasing frequency, food-importing countries and private investors are acquiring farmland across the developing world. This new publication marks one of the first efforts in the United States to bring together perspectives from international organizations, farmers, and investors alike about a trend often referred to as a new phase of the world food crisis.”
Assuming permanent or semi permanent sequestration is actually possible, it could be a really serious mistake. We actually have no clue what the long term ramifications of removing carbon from the carbon cycle, possibly until the demise of Earth, may be. We are already relatively low on CO2 versus geological time. Talk about tipping points.
R Taylor says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:25 am
“CO2 storage gets my vote as the most stupid large-scale human endeavor, ever. With the pyramids, etc.”
I would think, that pyramids are much, much more useful – at least they generate significant income for Egypt, Mexico and where else this monuments of time are from tourism.
But otherwise I fully agree. One can hardly imagine more futile nonsense, which anyway will not get ever used at large scale – I mean global scale – because CAGW hype, fossil carbon reserves and therefore the confederacy of dunces called EU itself could fade out long before of any possible economic viability of such absurdities as CO2 anthropogenic sequestration in most of the world. There simply aren’t resources available to do it even if it would be for any good – which it obviously isn’t in any case.
But it is not just laughable absurd stupidity, it is still very possible that global turmoils of unprecedented scale will inevitably arise in the wake of the fossil carbon resources ultimate depletion (if not fully replaced by technologies of at least same potential already during our lifetimes) which advances fast, will preferentially affect large carbon (in fact most important fossil carbon resource, covering more than half of world fossil carbon consumption is coal, which is elemental carbon) and hydrocarbon consumers as so called first world economics and can lead to very unstable and most dangerous geopolitical situation which could be of such desperation that it can very possibly result even in wiping out life on this planet in total global war for last fossil carbon resources, long before atmospheric CO2 content can possibly achieve its infamous doubling (which is given the known fossil carbon resources rather unlikely to ever happen) and before such absurd things as pumping CO2 into ground could possibly have any larger effect on its atmospheric content – even if such effect would be desirable, which it obviously isn’t in any case.
We definitely need carbon in the atmosphere for it to be sequestered naturally in the natural carbon cycle and with the added value of the surplus energy – delivered by Sun – needed to split CO2 into carbon and oxygen (aided by photosynthesis) which is the most energy consuming process for most common non-harmful gases in the nature (ΔHf0=-393.5 kJ/mol) – even much more than splitting water vapor in oxygen and hydrogen (ΔHf0=-241.8 kJ/mol) and maybe that is the reason why nature or possibly evolution, or God, whatever you like, chose hydrocarbons (created from atmospheric CO2 by splitting it into carbon and oxygen using solar energy and stabilize carbon by binding it to hydrogen while returning oxygen into atmosphere) as chief energy carrier in biosphere. So CO2 must rest there available in largest amounts possibly achievable (which are anyway low).
In fact nothing is perfect and part of the carbon dioxide is sequestered by nature irreversibly, so its content available for biosphere depleted slowly during the geological times. Without human intervention in form of fossil carbon and hydrocarbon resources use its natural level would further slowly tend to lower and lower sustainability of the natural carbon cycle. In fact the return of irreversibly sequestered carbon in form of coal, oil and natgas by burning them into the system by sophisticated human activity (which btw. directly caused the fastest progress in human civilization ever) actually was and is desirable for both man and the nature.
And this was common knowledge more or less on the level of high school education in the times when I was in that age, before it was taken over by vicious orwellian environmentalism, which in fact wants to replace this truly vital common knowledge by unreal schemes which aren’t favorable neither for man nor for the nature but only for personal gain of few.
More scientists playing “how-hard-can-it-be- this-engineering?”. With the golden age of science apparently over and fraying in frustration and desperation into strings and dark matter, I suppose it is natural to encroach on the successful terrain of engineering, the creator of the nuts, bolts and wires of modern civilization. Similarly, social scientists smell the blood of the once lofty hard sciences and are confidently moving into the killing fields of science, publishing climate science papers and prescribing what we should be doing to stave off climate disasters. When we reach the post normal engineering stage we are on the path to extinction for sure. At this stage, Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, two creators of the concept of post-normal science, will be fancying a project where the citizenry design and build a bridge over the Mississippi, learning by doing.
I guess one benefit of massive CO2 storage in rocks will be to block any attempts at fracking that would otherwise provide “dirty” $3.50/mcf natural gas. (sarc/off)
Geological carbon capture and sequestration is a disaster, since it will remove the element carbon from the biosphere permanently. Carbon cycles itself endlessly in our planet – carbonates, chalk, fossil forms, sediments, biomass, etc. All life depends upon this. Eventually, the carbon becomes reintroduced into the biosphere and is reused over and over. To lock this resource away in deep geologic structures is ridiculous, future generations would have to try to get to the stuff eventually.
Power plants, cement kilns and other large point-source generators of carbon dioxide would be smart to start selling shares of their emissions! When the final engineering problems for conversion of carbon dioxide into polymers, fuels etc. are resolved, there will be a run on the stuff that will make heads spin.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! We’ll all be broke if they keep this bs up.
Possible, but pointless. And pricey.
Skipping over all the Technocratic Engineering approaches, and dismissing all the Sequestration-Cannot-Possibly-Matter-To-Reality arguments….
How many of you remember a tale from 1971: “Denver Is Missing,” by D F Jones…?
I keep thinking of that, whenever I envision CO2 being pumped into underground pockets at Horrendous Pressures.
How can anyone possibly imagine that *any* gas can be kept underground for a truly indefinite period??
I’m surprised the climate kooks don’t want to bottle it up and send it over to Mars for terraforming, the prime directive be damned ( economics too ).
Yeah I know, there is 95% concentration CO2 on Mars already, but they now say that it just needs more.
Claim: Safe long term storage of CO2 is possible
Nature already does that for us. We only have to give it to her by venting it into the atmosphere.
Moose says:
“Nature already does that for us. We only have to give it to her by venting it into the atmosphere.”
Sure but nobody makes any money off it and nobody get’s taxed, so that won’t work.
As a chemical engineer I must admit that so stupid ideas like CO2 storage are hard to find.
Friends…fellow sceptics…it is now getting too funny for words. Only two options worthwhile and they are leave it alone in the atmosphere or convert to beer. Anthony, please conduct e a poll…haha!
CRS, DrPH says:
November 8, 2013 at 7:15 pm
“When the final engineering problems for conversion of carbon dioxide into polymers, fuels etc. are resolved, there will be a run on the stuff that will make heads spin.”
Yeah, it actually is possible to make best fuels from carbon dioxide and water by reverse burning, only what is needed is energy. Which could be long time ago provided by liquid fuel nuclear reactors, which we have fuel for whole remaining existence of this planet. Only problem is the politics and that it must be quick – there’s not much time left, the fossil carbon and hydrocarbon known and probable reserves are there just for couple of decades wiith current consumption.
Pumping too much CO2 into one underground reservoir could conceivably risk another Lake Nyos disaster, if the containment in the reservoir were to fail (Lake Nyos was the lake in Africa that suddenly released huge volumes of trapped CO2, smothering about 1,700 people in the surrounding area). Not only costly, but supremely irrational and just plain stupid.
@tumes – No, fracking has revealed at least 200-300 years’ additional supply of natural gas and oil, and at least that much coal was already known to be on hand. That gives us rather more time to develop fuels- particularly hydrogen – that are sustainable (unlike wind, solar, or biomass which will NEVER provide enough energy to power a modern industrial civilization.
I see that they have cleverly misspelled their acronym: “CO2 Site Closure Assessment Research” should be CO2SCARE. Truth in advertising.
“Potsdam, 07.11.2013 | At the final conference of the EU project CO2CARE – CO2 Site Closure Assessment Research –”
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A common type of municipal water softening is lime/soda.
Hardness in water is primarily from dissolved calcium bicarbonates.
Lime converts the very soluble bicarbonates to very insoluble carbonates.
Some of the carbonates do dissolve and will likely settle out and form scale in the distribution system. To prevent this, the remaining carbonates (most will have settled out and been removed in the treatment process) are converted back into bicarbonates using CO2.
The lime comes from limestone (primarily calcium carbonate) that has been mined, crushed and burned to drive off the CO2. (This leaves calcium oxide, “lime”.)
Where I live the CO2 used to convert the remaining calcium carbonate back into calcium bicarbonate comes from the production of ethanol.
Who would have thought that promotion of the bio-fuel ethanol to reduce CO2 actually produces CO2?