Who knew that shooting yourself in the foot was less harmful than shooting yourself in the head?~ctm
Lancaster University
Solar panels and wind turbines coupled with energy storage offer a better hope for tackling climate change than trying to capture carbon from fossil fuel power stations, according to new research published by Nature Energy.
Carbon capture technologies – that is new, or as yet undeveloped, technologies that capture CO2 emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations – play a fundamental part within the models that serve as the basis of international agreements to tackle climate change, such as at the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015.
However, new research shows that resources that would be spent on developing and installing carbon capture technologies would be better invested in creating more solar panels and wind turbines and focusing on developing energy storage options to support these instead.
An international team of researchers from Lancaster University, Khalifa University, Clemson University, UiT The Arctic University and the University of Florence, have calculated the energy output after taking into account the energy needed to create and operate the system, for carbon capture technologies across a range of fossil fuel power stations – including coal and natural gas.
They compared these results with the energy return on energy invested for renewable energy systems, such as wind farms and solar panels, combined with various kinds of energy storage systems, such as batteries, hydrogen or pumped hydro-power and discovered that worst cases of renewables, with storage, compare to the best examples of carbon capture.
The researchers calculate that this is, in part, due to net energy losses from implementing carbon capture – which includes penalties caused by the energy needed to build, and then operate, the carbon capture and storage processes. In addition, the equipment, such as pipes and compressors, needed to capture and store carbon also needs energy to produce – which is known as embodied energy.
All this results in a reduced net energy output from power stations with carbon capture.
The energy return on energy invested for wind turbines and solar panels depends on the energy costs to build the panels and turbines themselves, and also on how sunny or windy the place is where they are installed.
However, even moderately efficient renewable locations provide a better energy return than the majority of carbon capture technologies.
Dr Denes Csala, a Lecturer in Energy Storage and System Dynamics at Lancaster University and co-author of the research, said: “It is more valuable, energetically, to invest the available energy resources directly into building new renewable energy and storage capacity rather than building new fossil-fuel power stations with carbon capture.
“The better net energy return of investing in renewable energy makes it more likely to meet emission targets without risking a reduction in energy availability, due to dwindling fossil fuel supplies and a climate-constrained emissions budget.
“Given its net energy disadvantages, carbon capture and storage should be considered a niche and supplementary contributor to the energy system, rather than be seen as a critical technology option as current climate agreements view it.”
The research is a world-first to compare these technologies using net energy analysis and it is outlined in the paper ‘Comparative net energy analysis of renewable electricity and carbon capture and storage’, published by Nature Energy.
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The paper’s authors are: Sgouris Sgouridis, of Masdar Institute, Khalifa University; Michael Carbajales-Dale, of Clemson University; Denes Csala, of Lancaster University; Matteo Chiesa of UiT The Arctic University of Norway; Ugo Bardi, of the University of Florence.
DOI: 10.1038/s41560-019-0365-7
“. . . energy to produce – which is known as embodied energy.”
One positive in this research is they took into account embodied energy. More researchers should consider embodied energy and embodied CO2 emissions. If embodied energy and emissions were considered in a rigorous fashion, I predict that many renewable energy projects would never make it off the drawing board. Also, it would be great if they took into consideration the fact that CO2 is the food stock for carbon-based life earth. Give CO2 the credit it deserves.
David
Thanks for your EROEI comment that it’s a stupid concept. It’s not the energy return, It’s the return on the money that matters.
Mike
Thanks for suggesting a focus on conventional nuclear. Molten salt reactors are a distraction from a nuclear renaissance because there is no chance for commercial operation in the next 20 years. NuScale SMR’s might have a chance and needs to replace wind and solar idiocy beginning in 2026 when the first one goes commercial.
There is always something in the that in 20 years might prove to be the next big thing.
There are really two paths that need to be followed:
1) Safe reliable nuclear reactors that can be built as standardized units NOW.
2) Continued research into future reactors that can burn waste and thorium, and the recycling of wastes safely.
(oh wait…, and 3) Research better power plants for space exploration, but not at NASA which is has become a hopeless bureaucracy.)
The future is going to be nuclear, and we need to be able to recycle the waste so that we reduce the buried waste to 5% of what it is today – that requires we support further research. This kind of research is the type that the U.S. government should sponsor, since there is no immediate profit that would lead a business to invest so much.
Yeah. I actually said the U.S. Government should fund something…go figure. The government used to be able to build rockets and send people to the moon, now all it seems to be able to do is hopelessly waste money and then give up. So we should be funding a collection of private companies to do the research, not trying to do it within the government.
Clean, green renewable drivers, and gray technology with variable value.
Agree w/CTM, both ideas are just plain dumb — one just dumber than the other.
OK, so am I missing something here? We start out by defining carbon capture as-
“Carbon capture technologies – that is new, or as yet undeveloped, technologies that capture CO2 emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations”
How exactly, can you evaluate the productivity of a technology that does not, as yet, exist?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I am all for solar and wind power- on a personal scale, not industrial. The former is a giant middle finger to the power utilities in my eyes, (at least for me, as in my neck of the woods, it would cost me $28,000 just to get lines back in here, and then around $80/month BEFORE I even use a watt of their power…) the latter is a fool’s folly, and completely unrealistic.
I am off-grid completely, and use solar and wind, but I also burn FF in the gen when the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind isn’t blowing if the batteries need a top up.
Molten salt reactors not ready for Prime time:
Hastelloy N in molten salt is ok at 700C but the reactor-to-hydrogen-production-plant heat transfer system reach over 800 °C.. Material development “is ongoing.”
I’d stay 500 miles from any carbon capture storage facility.
It’s an inert heavy gas. It’s sinks to the ground and won’t dissipate until mixed out by wind alone. If there is a rupture and millions of tons of CO2 escapes you’ve got a potential disaster bigger than a nuclear bomb going off.
Lake Nyos in Cameroon was a natural CO2 storage. It killed 1700 people in 1986.
The EROEI of 9:1 return minimum for renewables quoted in the article works out to slightly more than 12% minimum annual return on investment.
Any investment that has a minimum 12% annual return on investment has absolutely no need of government subsidies. Private investors would be lining up to get in on the deal.
ferd berple
EROEI of 9:1 perfect example of what David & I commented on earlier. EROEI is a stupid meaningless concept. It’s not the energy input output ratio that matters it’s the quantity and quality of the energy output cost that matters. Solar and wind are unreliable, interruptible, non-dispatchable. Basically worthless without 95% backup conventional power.
Carbon capture is like sending tax credits to underground storage for a fee. That is equivalent to a negative productivity incentive overall. Digging ditches or rock collecting on the moon would be more productive.
If renewables are now confirmed as a better investment option than carbon capture, that just about confirms carbon capture should be abandoned as an idea all together.
Renewables have a hopeless efficiency record, have a hopeless financial return record (ignoring state subsidies) they have a hopeless reliability record, and a hopeless record of enhancing the environment or saving rare birds from being chopped to death by wing tips of giant turbine machines.
Now if that presents a preferable case for investment over carbon capture, then for the sake of our children and grandchildren we need to go nuclear energy and gas fired power stations to keep people warm in winter and cool in summer.
Thank you Lancaster Uni you have confirmed what we all knew but hadn’t bothered to document.
“…After years of hard work and dedication, a third of the power generated around the world is now linked to renewable energy. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) just released new data that shows impressive growth in both wind and solar energy, which has contributed to the changes in energy sources around the globe….”
http://tinyurl.com/yym92a4y.
It boggles my mind how renewables (primarily wind and solar) advocates can keep spreading the religion that their preferred energy source is the wave of the future and is making impressive gains — and say it with a straight face. I’m at a loss to understand where IRENA obtained is one-third number from for energy “linked” to renewables. What do they mean by “linked?”
The pie chart below, although it is a little dated now, shows only a 6.8% electrical energy penetration for renewables globally as of January 2015. For all energy sources, it is only 2.5%. IRENA (The International Renewable Energy Association) is living in a fantasy world with its one-third number.
http://tinyurl.com/y27hjdf8.
Barring some technological breakthrough, CCS is just as much of a fantasy as renewables.
The “international team of researchers” that published the article referenced above made the sophomoric mistake of failing to first demonstrate that atmospheric levels of CO2—let alone, changes in atmospheric CO2 due to mankind—have any significant effect on Earth’s Climate Change (TM).
Without citing credible evidence that this is definitely true (and there is much evidence to the contrary . . . remember, correlation does not equal causation), everything else in the publication is rubbish.
In a related story…
Research funded by the Stark Foundation indicates that the Seven Kingdoms will be better served by mining and shaping obsidian, over trying to mass produce quality Valyrian Steel for the war on climate change. Professor John Snow, lead investigator on the study, said: “Considering the pressing need for a solution, the abundance of readily available obsidian and the difficulty in obtaining the natural resources required to mass produce the steel, we have determined dragon glass to be the superior solution. Winter is Coming!”
(As long as we are talking about make-believe solutions to make-believe problems…)
The reality is that the climate change that we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So neither renewables or carbon capture will have any effect on climate.
#define yourself
#define harmful
I sometimes wish these green bastaads would live in one place and were making harm to themselves instead of me. But no, they shoot me in my head and call it climate justice.
Who knew that shooting yourself in the foot was less harmful than shooting yourself in the head?~ctm
Pulitzer Prize, right there
I can almost never find a previously read article on WUWT, which perhaps means I don’t think about them as other people do or some such; I just can’t think of proper search terms. Anyway, maybe someone else can.
About a year or so ago there was an article here about a person who had spent decades (starting, I think, in the 60s) trying to figure out an economical way to capture the CO2 produced in a gas fired power plant. The reason was that CO2 is so valuable, especially to the oil industry, this could be a significant profit center for a power plant.
Recently, with some help and financing, he finally had something that seemed to work AND did not reduce the electrical output of the plant significantly per amount of methane used. He had a grant, probably Federal, to build a pilot plant somewhere in Texas convenient to delivery of said CO2 to oil fields.
I’ve seen nothing about it since. Did it work? Is the plant not yet finished? Was the WUWT article a spoof?
Increasing efficiency of all devices and systems is the single greatest gain we can make over CO2 production and environmental destruction.
Teaching everyone on Earth who currently cooks over an open fire how to make an enclosed combustion pit will reduce CO2 output _and pollution_ by about 8%.
Forcing companies to reduce density within cities, creating and enforcing well made mass transit systems, reducing obesity by nutritional education and complex food availability will drop another 6% off.
“Forcing companies to . . .”
What a world of sins can be hidden under that blanket statement.
Forcing companies to…
Who put you in charge to force companies to do anything?
Pumped storage and production of ammonia seem the best bets in long term future of renewables. In any case all subsidies should be taken off and let everything compete in marketplace.
“Given its net energy disadvantages, carbon capture and storage should be considered as a complementary and supplementary contributor to the energy system, rather than as a critical technology option as current climate agreements view it.”
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Old offer in new packaging on the shelf:
The authors of this “study” very well know that “conventional” fossil fuels need to be kept ready to safeguard the unreliable, intermittent “green energy”.
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A mere exchange of labels: “needed” vs “supplementary”.
With “cap and trade”, please.