Guest “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” by David Middleton
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“The Winter of Despair”
The life-or-death race to improve carbon capture
The technology works, but we’ll need better chemistry and engineering to reach the scale required to avoid a climate disaster
by Craig Bettenhausen
July 18, 2021 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 99, Issue 26Carbon capture isn’t about saving Earth. Earth is a wet rock floating through space; it doesn’t care if we drown our coastal cities or turn our farmland into desert. Rather, carbon capture is one of the technologies we will need if we want Earth to continue to be a tolerable place for humans to live.
In 2020, we sent 40 billion metric tons (t) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere. We need to cut that number to 0 by 2050 if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If we don’t, the natural systems that keep Earth’s climate relatively peaceful and comfortable will start to tip. The shift will be chaotic, and the new normal might not be conducive to life as we know it.
To reach net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, we need an all-of-the-above approach. Efficiency improvements can reduce our energy needs, and renewable and nuclear power may eventually be able to supply enough electricity for our homes, offices, and cars. But nuclear power is expensive and lacks public support, and renewables are struggling to find the land they need to be deployed at scale. On top of that, activities such as aviation and iron smelting are currently impossible to carry out commercially without releasing CO2.
That’s where carbon capture comes in.
[…]
Chemical & Engineering News
Once you get past the breathlessly alarmist nonsense, it’s actually a fairly good discussion of the current state of CO2 capture technology…
“The Spring of Hope”
Carbon Capture: The Key Answer on Climate Change
By Dan Ervin
July 18, 2021Hard as it may be for many environmentalists to acknowledge, a technology that captures carbon dioxide emissions at coal plants needs to be a part of a global approach to carbon dioxide reduction.
It is a remarkable paradox: At a time when the rest of the world is looking toward America for leadership in combating global warming, the environmental movement refuses to accept the only technology that could make a real difference in reducing carbon emissions from coal and other fossil fuels that are the foundation of the global energy system. Coal plants with carbon capture technology along with advanced nuclear reactors can reliably provide all of the electricity needed globally with little or no CO2 emissions. These technologies will work in almost any region in the world.
[…]
Coal is the world’s leading fuel for electricity generation, providing nearly 40% of the world’s electricity supply, and an even higher percentage in countries with fast-growing economies.
[…]
The U.S. cannot lead on climate by writing off coal or other fossil fuels. As Senator Joe Manchin recently said, “you cannot eliminate your way to a cleaner climate, you can innovate your way, but not eliminate your way.”
It’s absolutely critical that U.S. energy policy recognizes that American climate leadership will come directly from coal country and advanced fossil fuel technologies along with innovative nuclear reactor designs.
[…]
There is simply no credible way to address the climate challenge without becoming more practical about the way we generate electricity and the need for carbon capture. This shouldn’t be a secondary piece of the solution to reduce global emissions but rather right at the heart of the effort.
Dan Ervin, PhD, is a Professor of Finance in the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University.
RealClearEnergy
No matter how one defines “the climate challenge,” Professor Ervin is spot-on… Because, even if the threat of anthropogenic climate change is 99.7% fiction, the threat of regulatory malfeasance on the part of our own government is “a clear and present danger.” And the Harris-Biden Dominion is the the most dire “climate challenge” since 1975…
Coming Soon to a Gulf of Mexico Near You!
Reference
Meckel, T., Bump, A., Hovorka, S. and Trevino, R. (2021), Carbon capture, utilization, and storage hub development on the Gulf Coast. Greenhouse Gas Sci Technol. https://doi.org/10.1002/ghg.2082
Re the above article – “Carbon capture” is imbecilic.
More atmospheric CO2 is not harmful – it does NOT drive significant global warming, and is highly beneficial to plant and crop growth.
.
OT but it needs to be said – and I suggest that the same facts are true in the USA and Europe – Lockdowns killed more people under 65 than COVID-19.
____________
We told you so – way back on 21March2020 – NO LOCKDOWNS. And we were correct!
21March2020 – Willis Eschenbach
The economic damage from the current insane “shelter-in-place” regulations designed to thwart the coronavirus is going to be huge—lost jobs, shuttered businesses, economic downturn, stock market losses. This doesn’t count the personal cost in things like increased suicides and domestic and other violence.
21March2020 – Allan MacRae
LET’S CONSIDER AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH:
Isolate people over sixty-five and those with poor immune systems and return to business-as-usual for people under sixty-five.
This will allow “herd immunity” to develop much sooner and older people will thus be more protected AND THE ECONOMY WON’T CRASH.
22March2020 – Allan MacRae
This full-lockdown scenario is especially hurting service sector businesses and their minimum-wage employees – young people are telling me they are “financially under the bus”. The young are being destroyed to protect us over-65’s. A far better solution is to get them back to work and let us oldies keep our distance, and get “herd immunity” established ASAP – in months not years. Then we will all be safe again.
Regards, Allan MacRae in Calgary
Lockdowns killed more Canadians under 65 than COVID-19: Statscan
By Harrison Faulkner
July 18, 2021
https://tnc.news/2021/07/18/lockdowns-killed-more-canadians-under-65-than-covid-19-statscan/
The consequences of government-enforced lockdowns killed more Canadians under the age of 65 than the COVID-19 virus itself, according to a report by Statistics Canada
Yes, but, Allan, The They don’t care how much damage it does. They don’t believe they will have to pay for it later.
Carbon capture and storage from coal electric power plants is the only way that could be justified to the “climate change fanatics”. They do NOT want to be convinced that global warming primarily because the whole meme and political apparatus relies on it.
CCS might allow the rest of us a way of life despite the crazies.
That’s why I wrote this…
David-
You are 100% correct! It’s not so much that the government is trying to solve an imaginary problem, but that they wasting unimaginable amounts of money on solution that won’t work.
The fact that nuclear power has never been part of the solution was what made me realize that this was not about CO2, it was about moving away from democracy and free enterprise.
We who are skeptic of CAGW, must quit trying to argue that CO2 is not a problem, and start supporting those who have solutions that won’t destroy our economy.
That is the real existential threat- that the proposed solutions will destroy our economy.
Yep.
Old Engineer,
but what solutions, I don’t see any?
Carbon capture and storage is difficult, it could be dangerous should it leak in high concentration back to the surface, it reduces efficiency by a large amount, and has to be very expensive. And for how long will we try and keep storing it which brings the question as to where?
The relatively insignificant amount of high level nuclear waste is proving difficult to find suitable storage locations, so we are told. Trying to store the vast amount of CO2 necessary seems a fantasy?
Renewables are expensive and can’t work, what else is there that will do what they are aiming for?
The only way it can leak to the surface is through old wells that were inadequately plugged & abandoned or through well control incidents in active wells. The industry already deals with these sorts of issues in existing operations.
There is no lack of suitable pore space in the subsurface.
Nuclear waste could also be easily disposed of in a similar manner, just in different types of rocks.
“We who are skeptic of CAGW, must quit trying to argue that CO2 is not a problem”
Why? Why should we lie to ourselves and the world, if we don’t think CO2 is a problem?
I like to deal in reality. The reality is, there is no evidence that CO2 needs to be regulated or removed from the atmosphere. None whatsoever. Conjectures are not evidence. That’s what we should be arguing.
Philo,
Other than capitulating to lies, what purpose is there for doing this? Is that really a good strategy? Isn’t this just another enormous waste of money? Shouldn’t we simply be telling the truth?
Regulations and laws based on lies are still regulations and laws.
No I think this would be another noble cause fallacy, where we advocate something we know is false in the hope of a better outcome. As the idiotic biofuels situation in Europe shows, the law of unintended consequences means that this is a strategy likely to fail, and it will draw the credibility of the people who supported it into the mire. No I think we should stand up for truth, however much it seems to hurt. CO2 is great, every piece of food we have ever eaten is literatlly made of it. We want more of it in the atmosphere – a lot more.
We know that the 45Q tax credit for CCS is currently $50/t.
We know that congress is in the process of raising it to $85/t.
We know that some (not all) industrial CO2 point sources can be economic at $50/t.
We know that quite a few more industrial CO2 point sources can be economic at $50/t.
We know that we can safely inject and permanently sequester CO2 in a multitude of geologic settings.
What more do we need to know?
Why would paying/taxing CO2 removal at $50 to $85 per ton make economic sense? Yes, we know that Democrat-led government is insanely fixated on a benign and life-giving gas because … climate.
Why should the average person be willing to pay such amounts in taxation and inflation? Why should WUWT followers support such a scheme? “Because the government is doing it anyway” is no reason to support it.
It makes economic sense to the companies that can generate a profit off of the tax credit.
The 45Q tax credit was largely a Republican idea; but it has broad bipartisan support.
The average person doesn’t pay for this. It’s a tax credit. Whether or not the tax credit will generate enough economic activity to offset itself from taxable income generated by that economic activity is unknown. Although, this has been the Republican justification for tax cuts… It used to be the justification for Democrats like JFK too.
There is no shortage of CO2 in the atmosphere; nor will this actually reduce the atmospheric concentration. It might measurably slow the growth… But the plants will be OK.
Reality doesn’t care if WUWT followers or anyone else supports it. The tax credit has been in place since 2008. It was expanded at the end of 2020.
https://www.whitecase.com/publications/insight/carbon-capture/us-tax-credit-encourages-investment
The November 2020 coup d’état, demands from Wall Street and the soon to be juiced-up version of the 45Q tax credit have combined to send interest in CCS/CCUS through the roof…
https://www.catf.us/2021/06/u-s-senators-introduce-critical-improvement-to-45q-tax-credit-completing-proposed-carbon-capture-legislative-package/
This might come as a shock… But we don’t drill oil & gas wells because people we agree with support it or because oil & gas fuel our economy. We drill oil & gas wells to make money. When we start drilling CCS wells, we’ll be doing it for the same reason.
I write about it on WUWT because it is related to energy and climate change policy, it interests me, I know a fair bit about it and it annoys the living schist out of people like Griff and BigOilBob.
We will make up the losses related to the Broken Window Fallacy by increasing volume. As I said: Crony Capitalists love this. Bipartisan or not, politicians of any stripe love handing out taxpayer money for money back to them and to buy votes. Evidence an approximate $30 trillion national debt. Just be sure your family is protected against high inflation.
The big mining companies are in love with the resource hungry weather dependent electricity generators. They are experiencing unprecedented demand for iron ore now at USD220/tonne, copper aluminium, lithium, glass and so on. Australia is the biggest supplier of traded iron ore and mines it at a cost of USD18/tonne – 90% of the price paid is margin. BHP runs advertisements in Australia to demonstrate their green credentials with the boast that every wind generator needs 3t of copper.
Real capitalists are supportive of the evils of CO2. That belief supports incredibly wasteful endeavours like WDGs and CCS.
I expect that if humans can find and burn fossil fuels fast enough to get atmospheric CO2 to 1000ppm then humans would face an enormous task of controlling plant growth- even at 400+ppm the forest productivity has created fire issues. Forest productivity would likely increase to the point where humans could just use managed forests for all human fuel needs. Look at how quickly plants pulled down CO2 eons ago.
Getting CO2 above sustaining levels for plants would open a whole new range of energy options.
The idea that CO2 has direct control of the weather is simply crazy. It amazes me that such a dumb idea has now become a common belief.
The funny thing is that they aren’t ramping up production either…
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sheridandoug_commodities-inflation-mining-activity-6823336980445749248-_UT2
“I expect that if humans can find and burn fossil fuels fast enough to get atmospheric CO2 to 1000ppm then humans would face an enormous task of controlling plant growth- even at 400+ppm the forest productivity has created fire issues.”
It is definitely creating issues with my property. The grass seems to be growing about twice as fast as it used to grow, and the the trees and other plants are outdoing themselves.
Of course, one change is, my area has been getting a lot of moisture over the last few years, so that has somthing to do with it, too.
I mow the lawn, and turn around and have to mow it again, more often than I used to do. It’s good exercise, though. Thanks, CO2!
Wild (European) lettuce on my lot gets 10 – 15′ tall (if it doesn’t get blown over) in 5 months in a US mid-Atlantic state climate. Giant ragweed gets 8 -12′ tall. Even jewelweed (wild native impatiens) are lately getting 6′ tall in a season.
True, and borrow and spenders like Mr. Middleton and his current/former employer love lining up at the trough.
AGAIN, no matter your view on AGW, this is a bipartisan borrow and spend boondoggle.
“It makes economic sense to the companies that can generate a profit off of the tax credit.”
That applies to windmills, too, doesn’t it. Is government largesse a reason to promote more windmills for those of us who have to pay for subsidizing windmills with our taxmoney?
No doubt the windmill producers are happy to take advantage of the American taxpayer. As long as the stupid taxpayers will pay the money, there are those who will take advantage of the situation.
This is not “greater good” thinking.
It’s taking advantage of a situation created by stupid/underhanded people, that ends up harming everyone, except the few in a position to benefit. And it perpetrates a lie: that CO2 needs regulation and/or is harmful to human life.
I imagine the Democrats are going to come up with all sorts of scams to spend money on as long as they are in power. Removing CO2 from the atmosphere is one of them.
It applies to every economic activity that our government chooses to incentivize.
It doesn’t harm anyone except the greentards’ feelings and it eliminates all arguments in favor of regulating CO2.
This actually has more support from Republicans than from Democrats.
And AGAIN, happy to lose those relatively tiny green start up helps, if the hydrocarbon extraction/transportation food chain catches up with the century+ corporate welfares that are orders of magnitude higher. 11-12 figures worth of shirked asset retirement obligations, bonded at a fraction of actual, just in the CONUS, for example….
“Shouldn’t we simply be telling the truth?”
Yes, we should, to the best of our ability.
Appeasing alarmists is the wrong way to go.
CCS/CCUS doesn’t appease alarmists… It antagonizes them.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/07/20/smokestack_fighting_how_greens_spurned_better_as_the_enemy_of_perfect_-_and_may_wind_up_losers_785733.html
I have always wondered if there is a business opportunity if/when carbon capture ever actually happens: would farms having 2000 ppm CO2 perform visibly better?
The cost for this CO2 must be low given enormous expense in sending it deep underground.
Crony Capitalists can and do make fortunes off governmental market distortions.
Yes, if the government is willing to spend money, you can always find someone willing to take it.
RE carbon capture:
I will not submit to a gang of scoundrels and imbeciles.
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT University, one of the world’s leading experts on atmospheric physics, had these extraordinary words:
“Carbon control is a bureaucratic dream. If you control carbon, you control life.”
Allan MacRae – you say ‘”Carbon capture” is imbecilic’. I beg to differ. With a second round of La Nina possibly already in the offing, and with CO2 emissions recovering fast from the coronavirus disruption, there is a desperate need for something – anything – that can provide a headline explanation if the global temperature starts falling. The opening of a CCS facility somewhere might just do the trick.
I nearly said ‘rational explanation’ but of course that is not at all necessary, so I settled for ‘headline explanation’. I can see the headline now: “Carbon capture plant begins operations, global temperature falls”. So you see, aiming for a headline like that is not imbecilic, it could give the scare campaign a few extra decades.
“there is a desperate need for something – anything – that can provide a headline explanation if the global temperature starts falling. The opening of a CCS facility somewhere might just do the trick.”
Good point!
Alarmists need talking points!
CCS isn’t economic without it being part of oil recovery.
CCS isn’t possible unless you have (depleted) oil or gas fields.
Wrong and wronger.
That is griffie in a nutshell.
No: 1) Right 2) Wrong. Paying to pump it into the ground, with no economic return, is bureaucratic foolishness and makes everyone poorer.
The alternative is the far higher prices for gasoline, natural gas and electricity that would result from a carbon tax. Worse yet, a lack of reliable electricity because coal-fired and natural gas power plants get shut down and replaced with wind turbines and solar arrays.
Great! Let’s shoot ourselves in the left foot rather than the right.
If we continue the market distortions of CCS that benefits your industry, what is to stop the government from implementing a CO2 tax or its continuation of the unreliables debacle?
Dave, its more like the choice between shooting yourself in the foot, or shooting yourself in the head. Neither choice is palatable, but you may survive the former. The lunatic left is pulling the trigger, our only hope is that we get to aim.
David M,
I’m siding with David F on this one. We all agree that CAGW is a crock of sh*t, as are all the progressive “solutions” to this non-problem. Saying that CCS is preferable to a carbon tax reminds me of something Churchill said about crocodiles, or what Franklin said about the trade-off between liberty and security. If the progressives have their way on CO2, let the economic impacts be severe and clearly attributable to the progressives themselves.
We will get a carbon tax, some form of cap & trade or something much, much worse unless we rapidly ramp up CCS/CCUS and eliminate the source of a problem that probably doesn’t exist. We might even get all that bad schist, even when we demonstrate that CCS/CCUS works.
It’s not a matter of “if”… It’s a matter of “when” and “how.”
Any /ton welfare check from 45Q should also be a carbon tax rebated regularly, equitably, totally back to every US tax paying family, or it should not be given to API rent seekers selectively. To try and have one without the other is blatant hypocrisy.
In this forum, most would not want their government’s deficit increased for this, without a pay for. I agree…..
“The alternative is the far higher prices for gasoline, natural gas and electricity that would result from a carbon tax.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say a nationwide CO2 tax is not going to happen in the United States.
Joe Biden is already under pressure because of how the gasoline prices have risen so high, and he has already said he is against raising gasoline taxes, and a CO2 tax is just a glorified gasoline tax dressed up in different clothes, and if Joe were to propose such a thing, that would be pointed out to him in public, and put even more pressure on Joe, and Joe knows it. I don’t think Joe is going to go there.
It may not be called a tax… But support for carbon pricing is growing, not shrinking. The 45Q tax credit is actually the most benign form of carbon pricing.
I don’t think Joe knows what he’s signing…
CCS isn’t economic because it isn’t required, so in every case it is an added cost with no real benefit.
The 45Q tax credit makes CCS economic where the cost of capture, transportation and geologic storage is currently less than $50/t. Congress is in the process of raising the 45Q tax credit to $85/t.
David doing something to gets tax credit that more than offsets the actual cost is a government give away and is unnecessary. There is no reason to do it. So any money spent is a waste.
The tax credit is what it is. The emitter gets the tax credit if they capture and geologically dispose of the CO2. It’s a fully transferable tax credit, like the ITC for solar and PTC for wind. Many, if not most, wind and solar projects are funded with tax equity financing. CCS is being financed the same way.
The emitter can only benefit from the 45Q tax credit if they have a means of capturing the CO2, transporting it to a suitable geological repository and drilling, operating and monitoring injection wells. Very few emitters have the means to do this. Most oil companies have the means to do this… provided they can generate a profit from the operation.
Most emission sources currently cost more than $50/t to capture the CO2. Coalfired power plants, iron & steel and cement plants run from $50 to $200/t just for capture. These are not economic at $50/t. Some might be economic at $85/t.
Natural gas processing, hydrogen, fertilizer and corn ethanol plants generally have a cost of capture of around $25/t. If the cost of securing the rights to a suitable geological repository transporting to the location, drilling, operating and monitoring injection wells is significantly less than the 45Q tax credit minus $25/t, the project is probably economic.
“Economic” to the Crony Capitalist. It makes the average person poorer through increased taxation and inflation.
I’m fairly certain that the US oil industry wasn’t the intended beneficiary of this particular bit of “crony capitalism.” I have little doubt that the Democrat sponsors of the CATCH Act will be shocked to find that the companies drilling and operating the CCS wells aren’t wind, solar & unicorn dust companies.
“I’m fairly certain that the US oil industry wasn’t the intended beneficiary of this particular bit of “crony capitalism.””
Uh, ok.
http://priceofoil.org/2021/06/17/carbon-capture-five-decades-of-industry-false-hope-hype-and-hot-air/
And of course, there’s your current/former employer’s PR feed about tucking in to this corporate giveaway from the rest of us.
I’m sure you remember the oilfield prayer. To para: “Give me just one more oil boom Lord, and I won’t piss that one away” I’m also sure you remember Rocky’s words “You should’a planned ahead”.
Read the comments from your otherwise acolytes. Find some self awareness and see what you’ve been reduced to…
Lets be clear. What is making everybody poorer, is political ideology.
If tax revenue is given away as a credit for doing something it is a cost to government. That cost is recovered in one of several ways. Generally, higher taxes must be implemented in some form or fashion. You can bet that the general public will end up paying the piper in higher costs of something and inflation.
If we were running surplus revenue, then someone might make a cogent argument for using tax credits. Otherwise it is simply a cost to be covered now or in the future thru inflation.
Tax revenue isn’t being given away.
If the economic activity resulting from the tax credit doesn’t generate enough tax revenue to offset the tax credit, government will have to 1) raise other taxes, 2) cut spending, and/or 3) run up more debt.
The rationale behind just about every Republican tax cut is that the the economic activity resulting from the tax cut will generate enough tax revenue to offset the tax cut.
I don’t know what the end result will be. I just know what’s happening right now in the CCS space and have a pretty good idea what will happen if the 45Q tax credit is boosted to $85/t for CCS and $60/t for EOR… And it’s a fairly certain bet that it will be boosted.
Pure ignorance. Taxing the people to pay for something with Zero benefit and benefiting only a select group of insider companies sounds more like a crime than an ecological program
Nobody is taxing anyone to pay for this. The 45Q tax credit is not offset by tax increases on anyone else. It’s benefitting everyone who will continue to be able to have affordable, reliable energy.
That said, it’s not “an ecological program,” even if Democrats believe it is.
Where does the money come from to support the tax credit?
It’s a tax credit… Similar to a tax deduction… Not all that different than a tax cut.
Money comes from economic activity in the private sector. All of the money starts out in the private sector.
Tax cuts, deductions and credits take less money from the private sector under the conditions laid out by our Federal government in… (drum roll, please)… The Federal tax code.
A tax credit is not the same as a deduction
It’s not exactly the same thing. A tax credit directly reduces the taxes owed by the the taxpayer down to zero taxes owed. A tax deduction just reduces taxable income.
A fully refundable tax credit is 99% welfare.
45Q is not refundable; but it is transferable. This makes it a source of financing from tax equity investors.
This is a mechanism our government uses to encourage the private sector to invest in things our government wants.
A publicly held corporation has a legally binding fiduciary obligation to take advantage of tax credits and deductions that are being made available to their industries, if they can generate a better return for their shareholders .
David M,
You are correct from a “Rothbardian” perspective that any tax cut, credit or deduction that reduces the government’s tax “take” from the private sector should be applauded. Unfortunately, so-called “tax expenditures” have no effect on curtailing the rapaciousness of a federal government that is willing to issue limitless amounts of debt in concert with a central bank that is willing to purchase that debt.
That problem can only be fixed by voters and/or an Article V Constitutional Convention of the States.
The problem with an Article V Constitutional Convention is that it would probably get hijacked by the progressives, in which case all of the unenumerated government powers that they say exist in the current version, as well as many others on their wish list, would then be explicit stated therein.
As for the entirety of voters, I’m hopeful that their attention would rapidly become focused by higher taxes that would be built into the cost of everything they consume. But if I’m wrong on this, the fall back, and maybe best, position would be for voters in a substantial number of states or regions to push their local representatives to nullify the federal attack on conventional energy.
It’s one thing for people not to notice that the progressives are giving China, India, etc. a pass on CO2. It will be much harder for voters in progressive blue-states to ignore that they alone are being sacrificed.
I don’t think it would get hijacked… But it’s difficult to imagine 3/4 of the States ratifying anything.
So the one million tonnes ADM injected into the Mt. Simon sandstone formation (not an oil field or gas well) is a hoax?
ADM Announces Successful Completion of One Million Metric Ton Carbon Capture and Storage Project | Business Wire
A very successful pilot project.
“So the one million tonnes ADM injected…”
Is this ADM aka Arthur Daniels Midland? Isn’t that the same company that actively lobbies the government to mandate the conversion of large amounts of energy in the form of fossil fuels to lesser amounts of energy in the form of corn ethanol? CCS and mandatory biofuels – one stop shopping for crony capitalism!
The atmosphere is not a closed system, it stands in constant exchange with the sea, the green mass etc. If humans take away CO2 from the atmosphere, the balance with the sea is distorted. The sea will release CO2 from its huge storage of CO2 and until the balance is settled again, ceteris paribus.
Nature will continue to strive to reach that balance as long as the earth rotates around the sun with a tilt in it’s axis. Cold water is the big sink for atmospheric CO2. Clouds and rain return it to the surface on a daily basis. Cold polar waters with phytoplankton consume all that reaches it, on an annual basis. These big sinks act the same on both anthropogenic and natural CO2 emissions. Since natural emissions are at least 20 times more than anthropogenic, it is nearly impossible for anthropogenic emissions of CO2 to accumulate beyond one year.
Where in the world did that big island with the offshore storage complex come from? Someone’s fevered imagination?
It’s a very poor depiction of the subsurface.
Two thoughts:
or for any reason.
Given the govt. doesn’t pay attention to the existing amendments, what would that accomplish?
“The rest of the world is looking to the U.S. for leadership” should be replaced with “The rest of the world is looking to the U.S. and wondering if there is any leadership”
The rest of the world is looking to the US for a handout.
Or economic advantage. EU has knobbled its economy and needs the US to fall into line. Otherwise it will enjoy and economic advantage.
There is no doubt China’s CCP wants to have the power and influence reflective of its population. I expect many Chinese people would aspire to the energy consumption of individuals in the USA.
Ultimately it means USA must accept lower per capita level of energy consumption to fall into line with the other large economies.
Or we “drill baby drill!”… For oil & gas and CCS.
I see they are still trying to push the claim that if the Earth warms just a few more tenths of a degree, life as we know it will end.
Despite the fact that it was 3 to 5C warmer than today for the vast majority of the last 20,000 to 30,000 years.
Do you have a source for that? 20,000 years ago the earth was in a glacial maximum and the temperature was 8C colder. Rarely was it more that 2c warmer.
Link
No he doesn’t. In Marks world if he says it, it is true. But maybe he has found a peer reviewed reference that will back him up? I’ll look forward to it.
Simple Simon,
Nows your chance to start repairing that atrocious education you received! All you have to do is search the WUWT website for the graph titled “CO2 Versus Temperature Over the Last 87 Million Years!” Think of it as a scavenger hunt and the first step in acquiring some useful knowledge!
Who knows, maybe if you spend some time every day trying to gain a few new facts, in only a decade or two you’ll be able to make a cogent and rational argument! Until then we’ll just think of you as another of the local toadstools!
I think you may have a small problem with numbers. MIU Mark was talking about the last 20-30k years which in most peoples number system is smaller(by quite a bit) that 87 million. Thanks for your mature input though.
Simon,
Thank you for so eloquently fixing an irrelevant sidetrack… 🍻
You’re right, but today’s temperatures are lower than what they were during Pliocene or the peaks during Pleistocene, and yet, animal life thrived.
Carbon capture is another solution looking for a problem to fix. David is correct regulation is the really harmful part of this. Years ago even Rupert Murdock understood this when he wrote an article in National Review about how easy it is to regulate an industry to death. People like Representative Dan Crenshaw need to stop supporting this crazy idea.
Government malfeasance is the problem CCS addresses… 😎
OK, I understand that in this case, “bad” is the enemy of “worse”. At a credit of $50/ton or $85/ton, what is the total potential offset across the economy? Energy producers/consumers can get their taxes down to zero, but then you are left with two problems.
First, once you get your taxes down to zero, there is no incentive to sequester any additional CO2, unless you are allowed to sell your “credits”. I don’t even want to think what that secondary market is going to look like.
Second, if the government is losing revenue, it must find other sources or crank up the printing presses. In neither case is the outcome going to be good for the general public. TANSTAAFL.
It will never get down to zero because there just aren’t enough economically viable projects to do that. Also, it won’t get down to zero because the economic activity will generate taxable income from all of the companies (and their employees) involved in the CCS projects. Will the tax revenue generated by the economic activity fully offset the 45Q tax credit? We’ll never know.
Is there any estimate of the percent of CO2 vs overall production that can be economically sequestered at $45 and $85/ton?
And if enough CO2 doesn’t get sequestered to satisfy the Climatards, who’s betting against it getting made mandatory regardless of economic viability?
At $85/t for CCS, pretty well all of the CO2 emissions from natural gas processing, LNG, fertilizer, ammonia and hydrogen plants will be economic. The emissions from quite a few petrochemical plants and oil refineries will also become economic. I don’t know exactly how large that volume is; but I’m pretty sure it’s larger than the volume we will be able to quickly sequester. Assuming, LA and TX award CCS leases this year, it will take 2-4 years just to get the permits approved. We will probably have to drill some “science” wells first. The EPA will probably want to see whole cores and rock mechanics data for the primary sealing shale formations. The initial injection wells won’t be drilled quickly. The tempo will pick up as infrastructure is expanded and operational experience increases. As the costs of capture come down due to technological improvements and economies of scale, more CO2 sources will become economic.
If CCS wells were drilled at the same historical rate that oil & gas wells were drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, it would be technically possible to sequester 100% of US emissions from fixed point sources. They might never be economically viable; but it is technically possible.
I would never bet against Climatards doing really stupid things.
Do you believe these economics extend to electrical power generation as well, either coal-fired or natural gas?
Coal, natural gas power and cement plant emissions are difficult and expensive to capture because the CO2 is diffuse in the flue gas. The Allam cycle will be a game changer for gas. Coal and cement remain challenging.
No, it is government malfeasance in action. Government skims taxes, sets up a mechanism for potential adversaries to participate in the skim and everyone just shuts up and takes the money.
The U.S. Constitution vests all power to create laws, rules, regulations, or whatever you want to call them in Congress, not the Executive Branch.
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives” —Article 1, Section 1
The only way an industry can be legitimately and constitutionally regulated to death is for Congress to pass regulations that do that. Executive Branch agencies cannot do that unless specifically authorized by Congress. The beauty of that system is that hundreds of our elected representatives have to debate it and convince a majority that those regulations are necessary. That’s the way it’s supposed to work In the government envisioned by the authors of the Constitution; methodical consideration, debate, compromise and consent.
In the corrupted real government, Congress has essentially delegated legislative power to Executive Branch agencies like the EPA, FDA, DoE, OHS to allow them to make rules by giving them broad authority; for example, allowing EPA to “regulate” specific pollutants without specifying amounts. The rulemaking process ostensibly involves “public input”, but it is in fact an autocratic process that can completely ignore the public; the opposite of what the Founders intended.
Every regulation not specifically authorized by Congress should be challenged in court and the responsibility (and accountability to constituents) placed back on our representatives in Congress where it belongs, otherwise regulating an industry to death becomes as easy as the (unelected, unaccountable, autocratic) director of an agency wants to make it.
Sop they are not going to do anything useful like build more roads and bridges, just pile up our tax dollars and burn them. Thats typical.
What do you think of this method of carbon sequestration? All new coal-fired power stations should be located in an area where they can be surrounded by large greenhouses. After the real pollutants have been removed, using advanced emission controls, the remaining CO2 is pumped through the greenhouses to increase the plant growth.
All power stations are already surrounded by a giant “greenhouse” into which we are already “pumping” the CO2 where it is already increasing the plant growth.
It is called The Atmosphere
That’s true, but the global increase in CO2 levels each year is too small to create a discernible increase in crop production. Raising CO2 levels to 1,200 ppm in greenhouses will have a huge impact on the plant growth, which can be measured in terms of increased profits, especially if the CO2 from the coal-fired power plant is a much lower price than the farmer would usually pay for the CO2 that he pumps into his greenhouses.
Combining the two industries in a synergistic way makes both industries more profitable.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
That would be a very short loop.
The food or flowers get consumed in just a few days or weeks.
Likely the non-food/flowers parts are reprocessed just as quickly.
Sort of like “dry ice” in a summer cooler.
What do these people have against plant food?
Nothing, the question is, “What do these people have against you?”
I should give credit to Paul Joseph Watson:
The tale of two cities ends with a journey to the scaffold with guillotine welcome party.
So who’s in for the chop?
It’s like wondering who’s the patsy in your poker game. If you don’t know, then it’s you.
Not esp important because of the small quantity involved but, will we be able to let it back out again?
At some point, or there won’t be any further points, we will realise what is actually going on out there (in the real world, not inside chemically disabled minds and computers) and actually do something about it.
Those of a religious disposition might recognise what its about, esp why we were given the brains we have and also, the dextrous little fingers – especially in light of The Inevitable – as per what happened on Mars
i.e. Irreversible and terminal soil erosion
We got those brains/fingers to build tools – tools for a particular purpose.
So far so good in so far as we have in fact built the tools and found a fuel supply for them.
And, we have been given a bounteous supply of ‘stuff’ upon which to use them.
Its all there, just waiting for the get-go
Now then, all we have to do is get our brains out of a sugar/alcohol/cannabis induced lala land and put the clues together about what we are supposed to be doing.
Its really basic stuff as well, nothing at all complicated.
(No, tempting & great fun as it is, not Bar-Room Brawling about the properties of Phlogiston)
Thus, when we have doused our existing farmlands and the places currently called deserts with a good amount of crushed Basalt Rock, we are going to need a Truly Epic (more epic than an Epic Thing – this is big)..
…..a truly epic supply of Carbon Dioxide to feed (not fertilise, feed) all the greenery that starts growing on those previously barren places and other wastelands.
Don’t worry, water will sort itself. Trust me, I’m from Cumbria and have webbed feet.
Do Not Worry About Water. ok?
We even have the tools and the ‘fuel’ to do that as well – It Really Is All Laid On and ready to go.
What we will finish up doing is constructing fake (isn’t everything these days) Fake Volcanoes.
‘cept they wont be fake, they will have to be powered by the same stuff that powers Real Volcanoes
Nuclear
We will be, within a century otherwise we REALLY WILL be toast, building nukes simply to cook Limestone and thus make CO2
How crazy is that?
May you live long and prosper – just follow the recipe above and so will your kids.
CO2 is heavier than air. A grid scale CCS accident is inevitable.
Technology can be made fool proof. But bigger fools are invented every day.
We have CO2 pipelines all over the country. We’ve been transporting CO2 from natural sources to oil fields and injecting it for EOR since the early 1970’s. While there have been a handful of well control incidents, there has never been a major accident.
And when one of these storage reservoirs ‘let’s go’, releasing ‘cold’, dense, carbon dioxide to spread far and wide hugging the ground? What then?
There was a natural release from a ‘lake’ in Central Africa not that long ago. Many deaths.
Not even remotely analogous.
CO2 is injected in a porous formation generally about 6,000′ to 9,000′ below the surface. There are multiple confining shale layers between the storage interval and the surface. Injection is halted well before the pressure exceeds the frac gradient. Then the injection well is cemented to the surface and abandoned. The injection wells, pressure front and CO2 plume are monitored throughout the injection period and for 60 years afterwards.
https://www.epa.gov/uic/class-vi-wells-used-geologic-sequestration-co2
Lake Nyos is a lake in the crater of an active volcano.
http://geophile.net/Lessons/volcanoes/ND_volcanoes_06.html
And now a word from St. Greta…..
It is really sad to see a publication like CET buying into the AGW claptrap. The green cabal has moved the discussion to the point that no one dare speak the truth. The proper response to anyone spouting this nonsense should be to point and laugh. But the Feds smell money. Nothing will stop them.
Particularly since the article provided a very good summary of the state of the technology. The alarmist crap was 100% gratuitous.
Unfortunately, you see a lot of the same crap from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and to a lesser extent from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) – Which is exploring a merger with SPE.
Your world is getting smaller by the week. I should keep better track of every org that you are cancelling in your life because they follow AGW science. Pretty soon you will go full subterranean..
Just a thought. We’re trying to capture carbon dioxide to try and slow the rise in atmospheric co2, just as we are about due to slip back into 100,000 years of deep glaciation. Thousands of years of cold oceans sequestering co2. What if it gets low like back to 280ppm or 230 or 180ppm. Is the carbon we capture permanently sequestered or can we re-release it. Future generations might think we were no better than our ancestors throwing virgins into volcanoes.
At that point… What we did or didn’t do won’t matter.
Co2 can’t live without it and it’s in short supply, I find it hard to see the sense in burying it.
Actually, we need relatively cheap energy for the economic and technological advancements for humanity to deal with future known and unknown disasters.
Without CCS, we won’t have “relatively cheap energy for the economic and technological advancements for humanity to deal with future known and unknown disasters”… Because we have a government.
We will still have a government even with CCS. You seem to be arguing that feeding the politicians (volcano) with CCS (virgins) the government (gods) will be appeased and won’t visit devastation upon us.
I’m not arguing anything. I’m just explaining the facts. The 45Q tax credit is a real thing. It’s already there and government is about to increase it. We can make real money by taking advantage of it. Just like we make more money by taking advantage of the IDC deduction, percentage depletion allowance and every other tax break that the government puts into the tax code.
The more emissions reduction achieved through CCS, the less reason there is for government to push through a carbon tax. At that point the war against oil & gas would have no basis other than politics.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/07/08/can-one-mans-vision-lead-the-shale-industry-out-of-the-esg-desert/?sh=6e10b2400f51
We’ll still have politics even if the oil & gas industry achieved net-zero emissions… But that would that would totally eliminate tiny bit of scientific rationale for replacing fossil fuels.
The Biden administration owes the voters who elected him a comprehensive and reasonably well-detailed national plan for determining how: (a) the goal of a 50% overall reduction in America’s GHG emissions can be achieved by the year 2030, (b) the goal of net zero for the power generation sector can be achieved by 2035; and (c) the goal of full net zero for all economic sectors in America can be achieved by the year 2050.
Within Biden’s fully comprehensive energy transition plan — assuming his people actually do publish such a plan at some point in the near term future — the specific role that carbon capture and storage (CCS) would play over the next thirty years must be spelled out in enough detail so as to assure that the overall transition plan as a whole retains full credibility as a useful tool in supporting public policy decision making.
Among its many other fully-specified details concerning how America’s energy transition over the next thirty years is to be achieved, Biden’s plan must include:
— The specific coal-fired and natural gas-fired power generation facilities which CCS is to support.
— The specific industries and facilities which will be consuming the CO2, where, when, and how.
— A specified list of locations where excess CO2 will be stored if it can’t be consumed in some other industrial or extractive process; how it will be stored; and by what target dates.
— The specific methods and means by which captured CO2 will be transported to its final destination for either reuse or for permanent disposal.
— The estimated capital and operating costs over the next thirty years for enabling full CCS technology and implementation within the United States.
Investors in CCS technology and infrastructure must have reasonable assurance that their investments will pay off. A fully-comprehensive thirty-year energy transition plan, one which covers all the bases, is a key enabling tool for assuring that Biden’s GHG reduction goals can in fact be met.
The one thing we can be sure of is that David Middleton’s exceptional knowledge and expertise in this area would be indispensable for hashing out the many details of the CCS component of a Biden administration thirty-year energy transition plan.
Most of them were dead long before Election Day… I don’t think they’ll understand the explanation… //SARC! 🙂
David, IIRC, the proper sarcasm enclosure tags are <SARC> </SARC>.
In any case, we have to assume that the many millions of live voters who did cast a legal vote for Joe Biden do know what it is they want from his administration.
They want plans, plans, and more plans which can guarantee a desired outcome, not just make that desired outcome more likely.
However ….what is the true desired outcome these voters want from a Biden administration GHG reduction plan?
Is the desired outcome a substantial reduction in America’s GHG emissions, one which achieves Biden’s announced targets and which therefore saves the planet from a climate catastrophe?
Or is their desired outcome simply to guarantee that trillions of dollars are being spent on the effort, regardless of whether or nor the announced reduction targets can ever be met?
The better angels of our nature would say that for planning purposes, we must give those who cast a legal vote for Joe Biden the benefit of the doubt and assume they want quick and very substantial GHG reductions; i.e., they aren’t in it just for the money.
If the handful of actually living Biden voters were expecting a coherent plan… They will be sorely disappointed.
These plans are such a historical rarity, what makes you think they are really wanted or thereis any chance they will ever be provided. Most of those voters only want comforting words.
The USSR couldn’t even handle simple 5-year plans when they had the absolute power to make them happen. The entire Western world is now slamming into the reality that the green/Marxist “plans” are failing massively. Germany and California are just the tips of the icebergs.
A five-year or a ten-year plan is a lot easier to accomplish if its basic goal is to reduce the production of a given commodity — as opposed to increasing the production of said commodity.
Biden and his people have the legal authority to formally declare a climate emergency and then to impose a program of carbon fuel rationing on the American people not unlike the one imposed during World War II.
If technology innovation falls short of delivering Biden’s GHG reduction targets, a government-mandated carbon fuel rationing scheme could make up the difference.
Imposing what amounts to a carbon energy lockdown would of course produce considerable political blowback, to say the least.
On the other hand, if taking this kind of bold action is what is necessary to achieve their target of a 50% reduction in America’s carbon emissions by 2030, then Biden’s people are, by their own standards of performance in delivering on promises to their constituents, morally and ethically obligated to do it.
So, reducing CO2 emissions 50% in less than 9 years is a good idea? Is it an achievable idea?
50% in 9 years? Probably not doable. 50% in 25 years with a minimal effect on energy prices and no effect on reliability, while cutting the Climatariat off at the knees? Probably doable.
Beta, move over and let Alpha take over the forebrain.
Why did that make me think of George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers?
Obviously they didn’t have any power to make such plans happen, only the power to absolutely declare them.
This is as far as I read in that article before I got hit by the urge to fall off my chair laughing:
“We need to cut that number to 0 by 2050 if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change….” – article
I have a suggestion that will work nicely for this: tell them all “get your mouths sewn shut and wear an oxygen rebreather. And stop eating gas-producing foods. You are polluting my planet with your intestinal byproducts.”
In fact, I suggest that all of these geniuses be collected into one spot, sent to a “refuge” and not allowed out for about 150 years. By that time, the world will be a much better place. We may have settlements on Mars and on extrasolar plants by then.
Sorry, David, but every time I read even a small bit of this drivel from Those People, I sincerely wish for an opportunity to drag them back to the Car5oniferous Period, a time on this planet with O2 at the 20% level, and awash in (as you once told me) raging wildfires. And never mind those 6-foot-long centipedes.
I understand more and more now why Martin Luther hammered his 95 Theses onto the door of Wittenberg Castle’s church. I may do something like that myself, only I’ll use a glue gun.
Have a nice day.
More material for my Facebook page!
Save a space for the video of Texas Rangers handcuffing them at the airport and hauling them to Austin to vote when they return from their childish and very expensive stunt.
I just wish the “One Riot, One Ranger” statue could see that!
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-ranger-statue-at-love-field-removed-over-concerns-about-racist-history/2382528/
Maybe they can take it out of storage and send it to Bergstrom Airport!
Tales of the Texas Rangers
http://www.enteringthemindseye.com/talesofthetexasrangers.html
A western adventure old-time radio drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US NBC radio network and remained on the air through
September 14, 1952. Movie star Joel McCrea starred as Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson, who used the latest scientific techniques to identify the criminals and his faithful horse, Charcoal, to track them down. The shows were reenactments of actual Texas Ranger cases.
The series was produced by Screen Gems and directed by Stacy Keach, Sr., and was sponsored for part of its run by Wheaties.
Captain Manuel T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, a Ranger for 30 years and who was said to have killed 31 men during his career, served as consultant for the series. He invented the Ranger “Trot Line.” He strung a cable between two trees in towns where there was no jail and handcuffed his prisoners to it as he captured each one. He wore two Colt 45s with an empty chamber under the hammer. He was asked if that didn’t put him at a disadvantage by leaving him two rounds short in a gun fight. He laughed and said if he couldn’t hit his target with 10 rounds, the other two wouldn’t make any difference.
Texas Ranger’s Prayer
Capt. Pierre Bernard Hill
Chaplin of the Texas Rangers
Oh God, Who’s end is justice,
Who’s strength is all our stay.
Be near and bless my mission
As I go forth today.
Let wisdom guide my actions
Let courage fill my heart
And help me Lord in every hour
To do a Rangers part.
Protect when danger threatens
Sustain when trails are rough.
Help me to keep my standard high
And smile at each rebuff.
When night comes down upon me
I pray thee Lord be nigh.
Whither on lonely scout
Or camped under the Texas sky.
Keep me, oh God in life
And when my day shall end
Forgive my sins and take me in.
For Jesus sake.
Amen
I upvote that even though I am an atheist. As a wounded Vietnam combat veteran I tell all of you that those who disparage others who put their health and very lives on the line to protect us, they can screw off! Nobody is perfect, but those who put on their boots every day and venture into a hostile world deserve our unreserved respect.
Just say NO FRACKIN’ WAY to CCS. The ends do NOT justify the means.
No cookie.
I have to say I am torn on this CCapture option.
Part of me goes along with argument, even though we know the need for it is complete junk science, never the less if we go for it, and perfect it, it will provide a way to continue using our most useful and available energy sources thus meeting the demands of the Climate Alarmists.
The other part of me says, this is like being recruited onto the committee to select a virgin to appease the earth gods in ancient Aztec culture. You get to have a say in who gets thrown down the volcano even though t=you know it makes zero difference to the earthquake and volcano eruption count.
The problem for all of us who reside in the Climate realists camp, is this.
The Climate alarmists have latched onto CO2 as the villain. They claim it must be slayed, if we are to have a future. We have also realised, they do not believe their own hype and stories. When AOC’s political advisor, came out, having been thoroughly defeated in his policies to limit energy producing CO2 systems, he said this. “You think this is about climate, you think this is about clean energy”, he laughed and revealed. the political truth saying. “This is about destroying capitalism, it has nothing to do with climate”
Now with that kind of cynicism, at the heart of the Democrat Party and other Climate Alarmist advocates, one thing is clear. We can spend as much of our time actually wasting time on clean energy options, it won’t make any difference. The Marxists will simply move the goal posts. They do not want anyone to have unlimited access to reliable energy, because that is what capitalism is built on.
Nuclear is CO2 free once in operation the alarmists want all nuclear closed down.
Hydro is CO2 free once in operation, the alarmists want all hydro closed down and no more ever built, its an eco thing, apparently?
Bio fuel is carbon neutral, providing you have a two hundred year cycle when burning trees, but it destroys natural habitat. Alternatively maybe converting food to fuel, if we are looking at bio diesel etc. The alarmists are all in favour of starving future generations apparently.
Wind turbines are CO2 free once installed, they are idle more often than they produce energy and each turbine kill many thousands of birds over its planned life. Alarmists love wind turbines, they obviously hate eagles and other raptors it seems. They also like to call them farms? That is a crime against the English language, if ever there was one.
Solar is CO2 free once installed, it is so useless as an energy option, the engineering world are working overtime to find a way to make solar economic. The latest option being, use solar to crack hydrogen from water!. Stop laughing at the back, I am serious, honest….. that is what is being progressed.
Needless to say, if any of these energy options allow capitalism to continue, the alarmists will judge it unacceptable for a reason yet to be imagined.
In summary, If you get invited to sit on the select a virgin suitable for throwing down the volcano committee, just decline the kind offer..
That’s why Greentards and die-hard Enviromarxists despise CCS.
Undercutting your own argument I think. For the above reason, Greentards will never allow this to take place. And if it did, they would simply come up with a new plan to destroy Capitalism. There is no point in looking for a reasonable solution for a non-reasonable non-problem.
Unfortunately we can’t kill them <SARC>… So we have to find work-arounds.
You “kill them” at the ballot box. As soon as the costs and human impacts are published, watermelons loose elections. Yellow Vests forever!
That’s my intent every other November… But I have to conduct business in the world that exists… Which isn’t always the one I voted for.
since when?
All of the net-zero “plans” require CCS.
Yes they do. They also require a lot more nuclear power and natural gas.
The table from “Chemical and Engineering News” embedded above is actually quite informative.
As a chemical engineer in the refining industry, I am familiar with the use of monoethanolamine (and other related amine solvents) for gas separation. MEA is commonly used to remove hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from fuel gas streams, where the sour gas is contacted with aqueous MEA solution at high pressure and low temperature, and H2S and CO2 react with MEA while the remaining hydrocarbon gases pass through unreacted.
But MEA is expensive, and refiners don’t want to throw away reacted MEA as chemical waste. Rich MEA (which has absorbed H2S and/or CO2) is heated and sent to a reboiled stripping column at low pressure and high temperature, which reverses the reaction, and concentrated H2S and CO2 is recovered overhead, while lean (H2S-free) MEA is then cooled and pumped back to the absorber. The goal here is not to eliminate CO2, but to remove H2S from the fuel gas, and concentrate it in a separate gas, which can then be oxidized either to elemental sulfur (Claus unit) or liquid sulfuric acid.
This process reduces the net consumption of MEA to near zero, but it does not sequester H2S or CO2, it only concentrates them in a separate gas stream. This process is fine for H2S, where concentrations in the sour gas are usually less than 100 ppm, but is unsuitable for CO2, whose concentrations in flue gas are 10% or more.
The main problem with CO2 sequestration is not separating it from other gases, but a problem of compression. The critical temperature of CO2 is about 81 F, meaning that it cannot be liquefied at a higher temperature, which would be common underground. A substance that has been liquefied near its critical temperature tends to expand rapidly if heated, which could lead to man-made earthquakes if CO2 is sequestered at the wrong temperature. One way of avoiding this problem is to increase the pressure above the critical pressure (about 1,070 psi), but this requires several stages of compression, which consumes a large fraction of any power generated by a gas- or coal-fired power plant.
The compression problem can be eliminated by using a solid reactant, such as lime or caustic solution, but this dramatically increases solvent losses, if the CO2 is sequestered as a solid carbonate.
The chart in the article also mentions membrane separators, which work based on the pressure difference between the high-pressure feed stream and the low-pressure permeate stream. But CO2 tends to concentrate in the low-pressure stream, which also includes a compression problem before sequestration.
There are all sorts of ideas out there for separating CO2 from other gases, but the major problem is the energy cost of compression of CO2 before sequestration. This is the “elephant in the room” that all the “sequestrationists” want to conveniently ignore!
It needs to be compressed to 1,500 to 2,200 psi and then injected below a depth of about 3,300′ in a normally pressured reservoir, where it will remain a supercritical liquid. CO2 compression is not that huge of a challenge… It just costs money and consumes energy. The Gulf Coast already has a network of CO2 pipelines and compression facilities, which will be augmented as more industrial CO2 becomes available.
https://www.denbury.com/operations/gulf-coast-region/Pipelines/default.aspx
https://www.denbury.com/operations/gulf-coast-region/co2-sources-and-pipelines/default.aspx
It’s really just a matter of expanding what’s already out there.
David, you are engaged in CliSciFi levels of misdirection. So what if you can do it if it costs more than the total costs of doing nothing? You seem to be advocating giving in to the politically expedient (and narrow special pleader profit center) path.
The total cost of doing nothing includes the government imposing carbon taxes, cap & trade, GHG emissions restrictions, massive reliance on unreliable energy sources and/or massive imposition on pretty well all of our God-given rights.
Will the infected CO2 likely have much impact on the current subsidence of the coastal lands?
Spell check can be its own standup comedy act… 😆
I suppose that it could have some effect, because groundwater withdrawal has caused a lot of subsidence. However, turning drinking water into Sprite or 7-Up is one of the things we will most aggressively try not to do.
If I get a vote, I’m going for 7-Up.
I would rather drink 7-Up than the tap water in my Houston apartment. Maybe 7-Up & Jim Beam… Hold the 7-Up… 😉
I believe that the greater long term threat is declining oxygen. If the only means of producing oxygen is by plants and the only feedstock for oxygen is CO2 and water by virtue of photosynthesis there is way to little CO2 in the atmosphere to maintain 21% oxygen. Oxygen is decreasing at 16 parts per million per year and if the level drops below 16% we would have serious issues. This is only about 5000 years which is not long in the span of civilization.
The atmosphere is “losing 19 O2 molecules out of every 1 million O2 molecules in the atmosphere each year,” not 19 ppm of the atmosphere. The current O2 concentration is 210,000 ppm (21%). 19 O2 molecules out of every 1 million O2 molecule equals about 4 ppm of the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is currently 21% O2 (210,000 ppm O2).
At a rate of 4 ppm/yr, in 5,000 years the atmosphere will drop all the way to 20% O2.
It’s actually been dropping for about 800,000 years.
Decline in atmospheric oxygen over past 800,000 years (Stolper et al., 2018)
You want to “capture carbon”?
Stop cutting down trees to make pellets to burn for energy when a shovel full of coal will do the same job.
Or, better yet, build a nuclear power plant.
David,
I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I sure hope you won’t relax your guard and drop the sword of sarcasm you have been wielding so effectively against the greentards and other assorted Progressive riff raff!
Because our government is filled with idiots, crooks and morons; we need to redouble our efforts to show them the insanity of following the Great Green agenda! Maybe tossing them a bone like CCS will allow us to sneak other sane policies into the tent, like nuclear and NO MORE
UNRELIABLES!!
“ Maybe tossing them a bone like CCS will allow us to sneak other sane policies into the tent, like nuclear and NO MORE
UNRELIABLES!!”
Chamberlain said much the same about Hitler.
That straw man would do you a lot better if you stuck it in field as a scarecrow!
CCS could be a wedge in the space between the Green Blob and our politicians! Would I rather drive a Mack truck though the gap? Hell, yeah! But that ain’t the reality on the ground right now! Take the wedge and push it deeper, than add more until you can see some daylight!
I’ve kicked in a few doors in my day, and one of the first things I learned is that it’s much easier if the door is ajar! The VERY first thing is to see if it is locked or not!
CCS/CCUS might just be that Mack truck…
Smokestack Fighting: Carbon Capture Promises to Slash Emissions, and Greens Hate It
They will have to pry my sarcasm “from my COLD DEAD HANDS!”
😎
Fat chance!
Are these people advocating CCS aware of the math involved with CCS?
Coal is 60 to 80% carbon and 20 – 40 % other minerals. NG is mostly CH4. Either way, when burnt the C, carbon, is combined with two O, oxygen, to make CO2. The CO2 is going to weigh over twice as much and take over twice the volume of the coal mined or the NG pumped taken out of the ground. That means twice as much needs to be stored somewhere.
I live near where a Coal fired power plant once was. During operation, this plant required a train of coal cars very close to two miles long. It has been 50 years since I took college Chemistry and Thermodynamics but a train of compressed CO2 or solid CO2 is going to be no less than TWICE as long as the train of coal that was burnt. Look at the open pit coal mines in Montana. look at the vain of coal. That is how much space is going to be needed for each fossil fueled power plant. Then you have the energy necessary to pump the gas to where it will be pumped into the ground and to pump it into the ground.
I worked for an Electric Utility, I am well aware of why the majority of the coal plants were shut down. The majority were shut down because more and more of the electricity produced was needed to operate all of the scrubbers and filters and precipitators, and, etc. etc., etc. that they were approaching 30% of the generated electricity. Back of the envelope calculation tells me that this is another energy wasting boondoggle.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/07/20/smokestack_fighting_how_greens_spurned_better_as_the_enemy_of_perfect_-_and_may_wind_up_losers_785733.html
The Petra Nova project captured 92% of the CO2 emissions from one of the coal-fired units at the W.A. Parrish power plant in Fort Bend County. It included an 80 mile pipeline to West Ranch oil field in Jackson County, where it was injected into a Frio reservoir. The CO2 EOR project boosted oil production in the field from about 200 bbl/d to over 3,000 bbl/d. There was no parasitic load on the power plant because the CO2 capture was powered by a natural gas cogeneration plant.
My strong belief is that the free market should decide what is best. I believe government subsidies are wrong over the entire spectrum from agriculture, wind & solar energy, and now CO@ sequestration.