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.
I just wish I had the drawing talent as those who contribute to this site. My drawing would be of a plant labelled Carbon Caputre Inc with it pumping thousand dollar bills underground. And yes I know there are no such things as thousand dollar bills – but our politicians don’t know that with the way they feel about squandering billions.
“As of now, however, CCS is used very little, nowhere near the scale required to make a meaningful dent in emissions. Why?”
Because it is a stupid idea that should not have been lifted off the back of whatever envelope it was first written on. Or was it a serviette? I can’t remember.
There is a multi-billion dollar behemoth of a power station in Mississippi that is planning to pipe all the CO2 into the local oil fields, charging for the supply. This project is $4 billion over-budget and 3 or 4 years behind schedule. I am presuming it is being done deliberately to demonstrate that the whole idea is plain crazy.
http://www.globalwarming.org/2014/10/29/kemper-ccs-project-3-years-behind-3-9-billion-over-budget-hows-that-for-adequately-ademonstrated/
https://mississippicoal.wordpress.com/tag/ccs/
https://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/kemper.html
“This project was one of two selected in the second round of the US Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative. It received US$270 million in funding to demonstrate advanced power generation systems using IGCC technology.”
Too bad it cost $6 billion. It is obviously too big to fail.
“…stupid idea that should not have been lifted off the back of whatever envelope it was first written on…”
…and designed with real, effective modelling software like this or this. Expensive, but much more useful and nowhere near the cost of the useless climate models.
A fundamental flaw too seldom noted is that, in commercial practice, CCS would actually increase net CO2 emissions from coal power plants!
CCS is nowhere close to being economical unless the captured CO2 is sold to oil companies for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. But the CO2 emitted when recovered oil is combusted exceeds the CO2 injected underground.
According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (http://www.netl.doe.gov/File%20Library/Research/Energy%20Analysis/Publications/DOE-NETL-2011-1504-NextGen_CO2_EOR_06142011.pdf), injecting 20 billion metric tons of CO2 underground in EOR operations would increase oil production by 67 billion barrels. According to EPA (http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/refs.html), combusting one barrel of oil emits, on average, 0.43 metric tons of CO2.
Combining that conversion factor with NETL’s analysis, injection of 20 billion metric tons of CO2 produces 67 billion barrels of oil that, when combusted, emit 28.81 billion metric tons of CO2. In other words, EOR produces 1.41 tons of CO2 for every ton injected underground.
I say that if the alarmists are really concerned about CO2 that they should support the idea that every coal fired plant can be taken down as soon as a nuclear plant is built to replace it. Then take a weed wacker to the EPA and NRC and unburden our nation of over reaching ideologically oriented bureaucracy and set up a sensible approach to regulation and monitoring health and public safety issues. Economic opportunity every where and a path to a post petroleum economy clearly made possible!
I live along the Front Range of Colorado which is fueled by Wyoming coal . It is not possible to drive from Colorado Springs to Denver without passing at least one kilometer long coal train .
The idea of adding 2 atoms of oxygen to each atom of carbon in those trains and then forcing it down holes int the ground , hour after hour , day after day , year after year is ludicrous .
“Global CO2 emissions ‘stalled’ in 2014” apparently???
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31872460
Does that mean there is a pause in the increase of atmospheric CO2?
If not, why not?
mwhite
Yes that is exactly what it means. Now, watch the birdie: if there is not an immediate concomitant stabilisation of the atmospheric level of CO2, the ‘splaining will have to start. If AG emissions remain constant for 5 years and the excuse that ‘it’s got a lag, you know’ wears thin, there will be a lot of ‘splaining that will need to be done. Maybe 100 excuses like the pause.
If the rise is not really caused by humans after all, what the heck is going on? If part of the rise was caused by humans, what about the rest? It will mean humans are not in complete control of the planet’s atmosphere, weather, temperature and destiny! Oh noes!
The core claim by climate scientists is that they understand and are in control, and the greatest threat is information or anyone who says they are not. Hence, the current ‘shoot the messenger’ campaign. All it is doing is attracting attention to the pauses, declines and failing models of reality. Kerry is absolutely the best ally available at the moment. He should hold weekly press conferences on the subject.
I’m going to take a bunch of CO2 out of the air and sell it back at an enormous profit when the earth starts to cool.
Sorry, haven’t read all the comments, but surely the energy required to separate, compress and pump the CO2 into the deep storage reservoirs wil reduce the net useful output of a coal fired power station to around 30% from 38%, and a CCGT to around 45% from 54%. So we end up burning more fossil fuels to delivervthe same power. Madness!!!
Quite soon you will see the wasted heat from these stations turned into electricity at an efficiency of about 45% using thermo-acoustic generators. Big ones. Simple, very few moving parts, low maintenance, no steam.
However in Asia and other intelligent places, they use the waste heat for district heating so the efficiency of the stations is not as important.
Eric,
That was a really nice, compact summary of CCS …… and why it is both unnecessary and fraught with high cost and peril.
Mac
It might be cheaper to build the powerplants deep underground, pumping down sintered coal and O2, then bringing up high voltage lines.
For details on modeling a CO2 pipeline puncture see:
Modelling punctures of buried high-pressure dense phase CO2 pipelines in CCS applications
Wareing et al. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control Volume 29, October 2014, Pages 231–247
The Conversation: Why is CCS stuck in second gear?
==============
Probably because reverse gear has been sabotaged. Now that the true engineers and qualified technicians are on the scene and when the past drivers/saboteurs are tossed out of the operators seat we can get things moving in the right direction.
Just because an idea is total lunacy, is no reason for the Warmistas to cease pursuing it. Look how far they have persisted with CAGW theory, long after.its proofs vanished..
Heck, just shot the stuff into outer space. It will fall into the sun, and problem solved.
Heck, just shoot the stuff into outer space. It will fall into the sun, and problem solved.
Or, build a big smoke stack that goes through the atmosphere,and just blow it out. It would use the vacuum of space to suck it out.
People, get creative.
You know, that really high smoke stack (RHSS) idea might work, and you could get rid of any noxious gas that way.
Do you think I could get a billion dollars from the Dept of Energy to build one? Imagine the carbon credits!
CCS is a 100% cost operation if it is not used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) programmes. If you don’t put it into an under-pressurized zone, you are destabilizing an existing stable reservoir. All the earthquakes showing up with fracking demonstrate what geologists have long known: the rock beneath our feet has many, many minor, open fractures that serve to relieve compressive stresses before a large movement on what we recognize as a fault happens. Over pressured, fractured (open fractures) zones move and release fluids, including “gas” as a standard geological process. You are right to worry about a large scale uncontrolled release of CO2 if a “normal” reservoir is used. It will be unstable.
CCS has no market-justified reason except in EOR projects. In EOR schemes the revenue derived from additional oil obtained is greater than the costs of gathering CO2 and pushing it down injection wells. Now, the Greens would say that this is because CO2 has been given no negative value in the capitalist system, an example of the “problem of the commons”. True. But that means the costs of CCS have to be front-loaded onto other operations. Why would anyone voluntarily do this when it would put their operation at a (huge) economic disadvantage? There is no incentive, especially at this time as carbon offsets etc. are far cheaper, some of which actually generate a profit in their own rights.
Note that CCS as an EOR project is not really CCS, as the CO2 is circulated. Even the CO2 won’t be jammed into the oil-bearing rock once the oil-bearing rock has no more oil in it. Unless that reservoir becomes a storage unit for other EOR projects, of course. Which just increases the non-disposal of CO2 and production of further oil.
The Canadian Weyburn CCS that the world comes to see is not the CCS of Greenpeace ideology. And the Weyburn CCS is also NOT using CO2 from industrial plants, or even a power-plant. The Weyburn case is special, as the CO2 it uses comes from a SOFT BROWN (lignite) COAL GASIFICATION scheme in the northern USA at Beulah, North Dakota. It is a byproduct of upgrading a low-carbon source (lignite), into a high-carbon product (CH4). At the energy-conversion loss (inefficiency) such a process causes. Even so, only the high netback on conventional oil makes the purchase and transport of the CO2 economically worthwhile.
Anything can be done if enough public money is thrown at it, just as a brick can fly with enough power on its ass. Safe storage/disposal of CO2 means movement of liquefied or compressed CO2. Which means, like the trainloads of Bakken crude burning these days, there will be accidents and uncontrolled releases somewhere at some time. Is that what the eco-green want? Don’t think so, either.
CCS is a thing that makes market sense only as part of a conventional EOR projects. The current greens don’t want anything that supports the oil industry, so the EOR doesn’t have “public” support. Mass movement of compressed or liquefied CO2 is a scary idea for the reasons of accidental release noted above. So lots of green and non-green people don’t want it, at least not in their backyard.
The Greenpeace groups understand CCS as a non-starter as a whole. That is why they want the whole fossil fuel energy systems shut down. There is no way to dispose of the “pollutant” gas that makes sense or is desirable.
No profit, unacceptable costs, no acceptable and safe way to get rid of it or get it to the disposal site. CCS is done except as a way to get more oil out of the ground.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Gasification_Company
Doug, that was one terrific comment.
Since the USEPA has gone CaliforniaEPAish, perhaps a careful study of the fault lines on the US left coast would suggest just where the CO2 should be injected to reduce the hot air?
It’s almost as stupid as the other idea that was proposed by “greens”: releasing large quantities of aerosols (i.e. Sulphuric acid) into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight.
I think I can answer the premise of the question.
with one image, provided recently by Deutsche Bank analysis:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/deutsche-solar-storage.jpg
Imagine what would happen to the electricity cost curve if CCS was required!
It is obvious that solar/battery tech is going to completely disrupt the current power generation model.
sorry, I should provide the reference, here: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/energy-storage-to-reach-cost-holy-grail-mass-adoption-in-5-years-18383
The people pushing this lunacy have no idea of the difficulties such a proposition will have as it gets nearer to an actual executable project.The irony of ironies s that, if a project like this ever gets near to a ‘final investment decision’, there will be some very hard questions from very smart skeptical managers who will be pointing out basic truths like that fact that CO2 is in fact beneficial for the planet, that the link between warming and CO2 is increasingly tenuous, that there will be significant safety concerns, the risk of which will be carried by the investors, and that the overall business case for such a project might be hugely flawed.
Its never going to happen.
“the risk of which will be carried by the investors”
But isn’t the whole idea that governments would fund or guarantee (at least part of) these projects making “investment” attractive? That’s what’s going on now with turbines and solar.
I’ve posted this link a number of times over the years whenever CCS has reared its ugly head
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-009-9626-y
Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming
Leonard Ornstein, Igor Aleinov, David Rind
Abstract
Each year, irrigated Saharan- and Australian-desert forests could sequester amounts of atmospheric CO2 at least equal to that from burning fossil fuels. Without any rain, to capture CO2 produced from gasoline requires adding about $1 to the per-gallon pump-price to cover irrigation costs, using reverse osmosis (RO), desalinated, sea water. Such mature technology is economically competitive with the currently favored, untested, power-plant Carbon Capture (and deep underground, or under-ocean) Sequestration (CCS). Afforestation sequesters CO2, mostly as easily stored wood, both from distributed sources (automotive, aviation, etc., that CCS cannot address) and from power plants. Climatological feasibility and sustainability of such irrigated forests, and their potential global impacts are explored using a general circulation model (GCM). Biogeophysical feedback is shown to stimulate considerable rainfall over these forests, reducing desalination and irrigation costs; economic value of marketed, renewable, forest biomass, further reduces costs; and separately, energy conservation also reduces the size of the required forests and therefore their total capital and operating costs. The few negative climate impacts outside of the forests are discussed, with caveats. If confirmed with other GCMs, such irrigated, subtropical afforestation probably provides the best, near-term route to complete control of green-house-gas-induced, global warming.
As a rule I’ve always considered efforts to control the climate by limiting CO2 emissions to be complete malarkey, but if we must submit to it in some form to shut the alarmists up, although that is likely an impossibility under any possible scenario of a climatic future, the above seems like the least destructive, probably completely positive and cheapest plan I’ve come across. Relative to CCS one of the primary benefits is eliminating the need for the middle C i.e. the CO2 is captured with complete indifference to its source, without energy gobbling capture equipment or potentially disastrous sequestration technology. it is such a seeming no brainer that I have in the past suggested that we should polish up the concept, take it to the next Climate Fandango and offer it up as a peace plan. Saying we can’t accept your bird choppers and incinerators and dollar/.kilowatt power bills, but we could go for this. The Africans and Australians get a big bunch of new trees, the CO2 gets sucked up, if we handle it right we might only have to irrigate heavily in the early stages if we can establish some feedback precipitation as we go. It would seem to be irresistibly logical but of course they would never go for it because it contains no pathway to dominate and control humanity which even they no longer bother to deny as their real agenda
CCS is very like fracking. A hole is drilled deep into the ground and something is pumped into it at very high pressure and contaminated with pump lubricants etc.
I guess that’s why the greens are pro CCS and anti fracking. Because they are the same technology effectively.
Given the scientific fact CO2 is a “heat-trapping” global warming gas, … then Prez O’bomba should immediately sign an Executive Order mandating that CO2 be sequestered as “insulation” in the walls and ceilings of all homes and businesses, ….. which would immediately generate terrific “savings” on utility costs for heating and cooling ….. and would prove to be invaluable at keeping the populace alive iffen the climate began again to get “Little-Ice-Age” cold.
Yours truly, Eritas
The stuff you talk of already is and its called timber and you build houses out of it
The timber you speak of is used to build “stick houses” …. which has miminal insulating properties because of the vast amount of “air space” between the “sticks”.
“Air space” that is now normally filled with ineffecient “pink” or “yellow” insulation ….. which should be replaced with highly efficient “heat-trapping” sequestered CO2 insulation.
Of course, iffen you wanna build 6″ thick solid-wood walls and ceilings houses … then you’ll get maximum insulation efficency as well great sequestering of CO2.
Sad that this idea is not stuck in 3rd, 4th or 5th gear. The concept has scared the ever loving beegeezus out of me ever since i first heard about it years ago. Cameroon, anyone?
Check here for a story about gas leaking from underground storage. http://www.geotimes.org/oct01/feature_kansas.html