Eric Worrall writes: Carbon Capture and Storage, the most terrifying technology in the green arsenal of deadly stupidity, has once again reared its ugliness on The Conversation.
![CCS_DP[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/ccs_dp1.jpg?quality=83)
According to Howard J. Herzog, Senior Research Engineer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
“Pumping CO2 underground can help fight climate change. Why is it stuck in second gear?
To deploy CCS on the scale required is a monumental task. We need to store billions of tons of CO2 annually. However, this is the level of effort needed to address climate change. Similar efforts will be needed with other climate mitigation technologies, such as renewables, nuclear and efficiency. There is no silver bullet; we need them all.
As of now, however, CCS is used very little, nowhere near the scale required to make a meaningful dent in emissions. Why? The reasons have less to do with technology maturity and more to do with government policies and the commercial incentives they create.”
Herzog makes no mention of potential risks of concentrating large quantities of CO2. Why do I think CCS is so terrifying? The reason I am frightened of CCS is, the world has already experienced what happens if a large quantity of CO2 is abruptly released.
In Africa, in 1986, an abrupt release of an estimated 100,000 – 300,000 tons of CO2 killed 2,500 people up to 25km (15.5 miles) from the source of the release.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos#1986_disaster
Concentrating large quantities CO2 in one place is dangerous. A similar release to the Lake Nyos disaster, near a major city, however unlikely, however elaborate the safety precautions, could potentially kill millions of people. The CCS concept involves the concentration of billions of tons of CO2 per annum in thousands of locations near major industrial centres. Can anyone imagine nobody will ever make just one mistake, with an operation on that scale? Just one release of a minute fraction of this concentrated CO2 could be as devastating, in terms of loss of life, as the detonation of a small nuclear bomb.
I suggest there is a very good reason CCS is “stuck in the slow lane”. The reason, in my opinion, is that it is total lunacy.
People are worried that pumping water underground can cause earthquakes. If you take a ton of coal, turn it into CO2 gas and pump this underground, it creates a lot of pressure underground, far more than a ton of water. I think the potential for creating earthquakes would be far higher with this technology.
The cost to capture, transport, and pump the CO2 has never been properly admitted. It is very high.
If you want to frame your argument so greens will understand the risk you must tell them about the potential animal life that could be lost with an abrupt release.
The real disaster will be if CCS is adopted, as it will require huge amounts of energy (and money) to make a dent in the supposed CO2 “problem”, and that’s why it’s not economical.
CCS efforts aren’t necessary anyway, as CO2 has nothing to do with the weather and the climate – it is a result of, not a cause of the climate. CCS is a whole lot of “make-work” for nothing and the entire idea should be dropped immediately.
Also, DRAX is a WASTE of good American trees – unnecessary and malignant.
Obama and his green-handlers knew long ago CCS wouldn’t be economical — “necessarily bankrupt them” as he said.
There’s so much green-paranoia about coal that a CCS plant would be, size, capital investment and maintenance-wise, mostly “pollution-control” w/the actual steam plant a minor aspect. Picture a normal-size car hauling an 18-wheeler-sized pollution-control trailer behind it.
Use the CO2 by injecting it into the deep underwater reservoirs of methane hydrates, freeing the CH4
and storing the CO2 in a clatharte which is more stable than was the clathrate containing the CH4.
Using this method, we could shorten the next ice age because the CO2 would be released into the atmosphere as the zone of stability of the hydrate was breached as the sea level falls due to ice accumulation on land.
The perfect solution. /Sarc
80% of US energy is fossil fuel/carbon based (EIA). It’s not just about coal. How about CCS for your car’s tailpipe? Or for your NG fired water heater? Coal content can vary widely, but typical hydrogen content ranges between 5% and 10%. Methane, CH4, is 25% H straight away. NG produces half the CO2/Btu because of H2’s high energy content.
They came for coal first, but they won’t stop there.
And everyone can do their part wearing carbon capture masks too. We’ll make them a tax deduction! (err..ahh.. ‘penalty’?)
Obviously if it is fact that the majority of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to natural sources rather than anthropogenic emissions, mandated policy to spend trillions and trillions of dollars on green scams that do work and carbon sequestration, that is very, very expensive, a waste of energy, and that is not scalable, with the objective/reason investing in the schemes that do not work and that are too expensive, is to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions, is madness not a good idea.
Salby and Humlum’s finding that the majority of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to natural sources rather than anthropogenic emissions is a game changer for the climate wars.
The explanation physically as to why their finding is correct, is that there is a much larger source of low C13, carbon dioxide into the biosphere and there is hence also a much large sink of CO2 in the biosphere.
The primary source of new carbon dioxide into the biosphere is super high pressure liquid CH4 that is extruded from the core of the planet as it solidifies, this super high pressure liquid CH4 moves through the mantel and causes the ocean floor to split and move, explaining why the oldest ocean floor on the planet is roughly 200 million years old. The primary ‘new’ source of CO2 into the atmosphere is not volcanic eruptions, it is CO2 that is emitted from the continents. There are microbiological organisms that live 5k to 10 km below the surface in the continental crust, that live on CH4 that is pushed through the mantel. The microbiological organism converting a portion of the CH4 that is moving through the mantel to CO2. (They exist and have evolved to consume CH4 as there is a slow constant movement of CH4 through the mantel.) There is an immense amount of liquid CH4 beneath the continents. A portion of the liquid CH4 that moves the ocean floors is left behind when the ocean crust is pushed below the continental crust. This liquid CH4 is the reason why there are bands of mountain ranges on the edge of continents and why there are immense CH4 discoveries in these mountain ranges.
An observation (there are more than 70 other observations to support the assertions in this comment, see the late Nobel prize winning astrophysics’ book ‘The Deep Hot Biosphere The Myth of Fossil Fuels, published in 1999’ for 50 observations/paradoxes that support the deep core CH4 mechanisms/theory , I am working away on a succinct summary of the 70 observations and a Coles notes explanation of the mechanisms and further logical support of Salby’s and Humlum’s assertion for presentation in this forum) to support the above assertion, is the fact that there is as much carbon in methyl hydrates on the ocean floor as in all ‘fossil’ deposits on the continents.
The amount of methyl hydrate on the ocean floor was recently incorrectly reduced as there is a factor of ten times insufficient biological residue falling (ocean biological systems are highly evolved so the majority of falling biological material is consumed before it reaches the ocean floor.) to the ocean floor to convert to CH4 and there are no known micro organism on the ocean floor that do or could convert the non existing residue biological material to create CH4 to create the massive deposits of methyl hydrates on the ocean floor.
A second observation to support the CH4 extruding up from the core through the mantel, is the massive methyl hydrates deposits in the Arctic permafrost. The methyl hydrate will only form if the temperature is always less than around 6C and under high pressure. There is no biological source in the Arctic to convert to CH4 and there is no micro organism that exists in the permafrost to convert the biological material to CH4, due to the cold temperatures. The cold temperature is required or there would be no methyl hydrate. The methyl hydrate formed as there is always CH4 that is moving through the mantel and formed after ice epoch 1.8 million years ago occurred which result in arctic temperatures to form permafrost. (Do you see the paradox?)
An observation to support the assertions that there is:
1) There is a much larger new source of new CO2 (super high pressure, liquid CH4 that is extrude from the core which then moves through the mantel) into the atmosphere than volcanic eruptions
2) There is a much larger sink of new CO2 in the biosphere.
Is the fact that there is not a spike in atmospheric CO2 after a super volcanic eruption that takes thousands of years to dissipate.
What causes under your theory, the _recent rise_ in CO2? What has changed – other than humans burning coal? Why now?
You have answered a question I have had since seeing a film about Titan. Where did all of that methane come from? How could all of that gas that they claim is a result od rotting plant life be there? I think it could not possibly be from plant life .
Another terrorists’ WMD target…could be a dream come true.
Here is a Friday Funny cartoon capturing the essence of Carbon Capture and Storage …
Being Social
http://www.maxphoton.com/give-me-your-opm/
[OPM = “other people’s money” .mod]
[URL=http://s2.photobucket.com/user/mikeishere/media/Capitalism-Socialism-b.gif.html][IMG]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/mikeishere/Capitalism-Socialism-b.gif[/IMG][/URL]
Sorry.. direct – http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/mikeishere/Capitalism-Socialism-b.gif
The colours should be the other way around. America is the only place where red=capitalist and blue=communist
I just had a ~wonderful~ idea taken from Mao’s “Four Pests” campaign – put a bounty on termites! How about a “Penny a Pound” ? We waste over $2.5 billion in direct research ever year “studying the problem” so why not stop studying and just DO SOMETHING? (The laid-off climate scientists can still work too – catching termites.)
Let’s see… that comes out to paying for 250 billion pounds of dead termites per year. The estimated global weight of termites is only about 8000 billion pounds so we’ll have GHG’s under control in less than … a half century!
(I’ll leave it to someone else’s imagination what to do with the dead termites.)
[Dry them in (solar-powered) open bins? Then burn them. .mod]
If you put a bounty on termites you will have more of them. People will raise them for the bounty.
Yeah but that will par for just about any government program I can think of …
Stupidity is,…. protesting against “containment” in Yucca Mountain …. and rallying for “containment” underneath major population centers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
Bu, bu, but that radiation stuff lasts for millions of years!!!!! /sarc (and the half-life of Carbon12 is……..)
My idea is to plant forestry whereever there is a suitable open space on mother earth and then fell the trees and use the wood for houses. Any debris is then ground into dust and injected into the cavities currently envisaged for CO2. These deposits will not accidentally explode and kill millions of people. I am sure this idea will solve all “climate change” problems from say 10 years from now and then forever./sarc off
The disconnect of the greens knows no bounds.
“Fracking is evil because it puts chemicals in the ground that will leak into the ground water!” “CO2 caused ocean acidification.” “Putting CO2 in the ground is a good idea.”
They tell us that the chemicals used for hydrolic fracturing will leak to groundwater. They tell use CO2 causes water to turn to acid. Well, what is to stop CO2 from doing what the fracking chemicals do and leak to the groundwater and turn it to acid? Or do the chemicals not leak into the ground water after all? Or does the levels of CO2 we are talking about not turn water into acid? Which is it?
Change to the level of atmospheric CO2 has no significant negative effect on anything and is plant food. CCS is really, really ignorant.
Discover what actually does cause climate change (95% correlation since before 1900) at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com . Including the effects of CO2 makes no significant difference.
No need to worry CO2 anymore. The alarmist have turned the tide:
Global CO2 emissions ‘stalled’ in 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31872460
Everyone can exhale a CO2 laden “whew, that was close” and go home. Unless, it indicates cooling has commenced LOL. GK
And voila! Same year significant portions of North America froze solid in one of the coldest winters in memory.
CO2 does follow temperature, after all!
You can imagine that this is the result of creative accounting in order to ‘demonstrate’ in Paris later in the year that the ‘pause/hiatus/lack of warming’ is not due to natural variability but to the ‘pause/hiatus’ in the growth of carbon emissions.
Anyone want to bet?
Why can’t we convert it back into coal?
I’d be more worried about enhancing earthquake probability by pumping CO2 underground.
Make plastic bags manditory. Greens keep saying they last forever when you bury them.
I like it
Why don’t Greens just line up, bend over, and sequester the CO2 where the sun doesn’t shine?
Instead of ‘fracking’ we could call it ‘cracking’.
Sorry … I meant to end that with a :
Pumping CO2 underground is hardly lunacy. It happens every day all over North America and other areas with advanced oil field technology. It is used in fracturing technology to speed up the flow-back of fracture treatments. It is used in secondary/tertiary recovery schemes to lower the viscosity of the oil in place and increase recoveries. It is disposed as a waste product from natural gas processing. All of these uses are commercially viable and completely safe.
Injecting CO2 underground for storage only is indeed lunacy. There is no economic benefit and any environmental benefit (if at all) would be negated by the risk.
My $0.02
But recovery schemes aren’t trying to store billions of tons of the stuff! There’s a bit of a difference in the scale involved.
So I recently met a couple of Greenhouse gardeners who actually pump co2 into the green house for dramatically increased results. I suspect power plant output far exceeds what a small greenhouse concern would need . Still, using Co2 for growing seems a better alternative than storing toxic levels of it. Any thoughts?
Q: What do you call a commercial greenhouse that does not augment with CO2?
A: Bankrupt.
During the next two (2) or three (3) months, … there will be literally MILLIONS of “roots-attached” half-grown vegetable plants and decorative flowers showing up a Supermarkets, etc., etc. ….. all over America.
What percentage of them do you figure their growth was “added CO2” enhanced? ….. 75%, …. 90%??
The suppliers of those plants only have a “short window” to get them grown and get them to market ….. or they will lose “big” money in the process.
if it were to work at all, Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS, can only be viewed as a costly way to throw away comparatively miniscule amounts of useful plant food.
Here’s my solution, if it is ever convincingly concluded that CO2 is going to be a serious problem. Collect it and pipe it or ship it in tankers to Antarctica. Build lots of cheep and dirty nuclear power plants for energy to freeze and store it. Some of this hopefully abundant energy could be used to turn some of this CO2 along with the plentiful supply of water back into hydrocarbon fuel. The same tankers could be designed to carry liquid Co2 in and hydrocarbon fuel out.
You’re assuming that CO2 is a bad thing and needs to be sequestered. It doesn’t.
I did qualify it with, ” if it is ever convincingly concluded that CO2 is going to be a serious problem”, and I don’t think we really know. We have lots of time to find out and besides, I’m looking for a way to get on Richard Bransen’s gravy train.
Rud Istvan has a good post on CCS at Climate Etc:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/11/clean-coal-2/
Movie plot: 500 years in the future when we are reduced to small tribes of remnant humans as a result of too much carbon sequestration, with severely reduced crops and frigid temperatures, sequestered CO2 eruptions begin. We need a Hollywood producer ala the “Day After Tomorrow” propaganda flick.
The big Holywood alarmists could make a big budget scare movie where the increase in CO2 causes the plants to take over!
They already have. Take a look at who is in charge in DC, or most other countries for that matter.