By Viv Forbes — May 17, 2024
“Pumping gases underground is only sensible if it brings real benefits such as using waste gases to increase oil recovery from declining oil fields – frack the strata, pump in CO2, and force out oil/gas.”
Carbon-capture-and-underground-storage “(CCUS)” tops the list of silly schemes “to reduce man-made global warming.” The idea is to capture exhaust gases from power stations or cement plants, separate the CO2 from the other gases, compress it, pump it to the chosen burial site and force it underground into permeable rock formations. Then hope it never escapes.
An Australian mining company who should know better is hoping to appease green critics by proposing to bury the gas of life, CO2, deep in the sedimentary rocks of Australia’s Great Artesian Basin.
They have chosen the Precipice Sandstone for their carbon cemetery. However, the chances of keeping CO2 gas confined in this porous sandstone are remote. This formation has a very large area of outcrop to the surface and gas will escape somewhere, so why bother forcing it into a jail with no roof?
Glencore shareholders should rise in anger at this wasteful and futile pagan sacrifice to the global warming gods. It will join fiascos like Snowy 2, pink bats and SunCable (a dream to take solar energy generated in NT via overhead and undersea cable for over 5000 km across ocean deeps and volcanic belts to Singapore).
Engineers with buckets of easy money may base a whole career on Carbon Capture and Underground Storage. But only stupid green zealots would support the sacrifice of billions of investment dollars and scads of energy to bury this harmless, invisible, life-supporting gas in the hope of appeasing the high priests of global warming.
The quantities of gases that CCUS would need to handle are enormous, and the capital and operating costs will be horrendous. It is a dreadful waste of energy and resources, consuming about twenty percent of power delivered from an otherwise efficient coal-fired power station.
For every tonne of coal burnt in a power station, about 11 tonnes of gases are exhausted – 7.5 tonnes of nitrogen from the air used to burn the coal, plus 2.5 tonnes of CO2 and one tonne of water vapour from the coal combustion process.
Normally these beneficial atmospheric gases are released to the atmosphere after filters take out any nasties like soot and noxious fumes.
However, CCUS also requires energy to produce and fabricate steel and erect gas storages, pumps and pipelines and to drill disposal wells. This will chew up more coal resources and produce yet more carbon dioxide, for zero benefit.
But the real problems are at the burial site – how to create a secure space to hold the CO2 gas. There is no vacuum occurring naturally anywhere on earth – every bit of space on Earth is occupied by something – solids, liquids or gases. Underground disposal of CO2 requires it to be pumped AGAINST the pressure of whatever fills the pore space of the rock formation now – either natural gases or liquids. These pressures can be substantial, especially after more gas is pumped in.
The natural gases in sedimentary rock formations are commonly air, CO2, CH4 (methane) or rarely, H2S (rotten egg gas). The liquids are commonly salty water, sometimes fresh water or very rarely, liquid hydrocarbons.
Pumping out air is costly; pumping out natural CO2 to make room for man-made CO2 is pointless; and releasing rotten egg gas or salty water on the surface would create a real problem, unlike the imaginary threat from CO2.
In some cases, CCUS may require the removal of fresh water to make space for CO2. Producing fresh water on the surface would be seen as a boon by most locals. Pumping out salt water to make space to bury CO2 would create more problems than it could solve.
Naturally, some carbon dioxide buried under pressure will dissolve in groundwater and aerate it, so that the next water driller in the area could get a real bonus – bubbling Perrier Water on tap, worth more than oil.
Then there is the dangerous risk of a surface outburst or leakage from a pressurised underground reservoir of CO2. The atmosphere contains 0.04% CO2 which is beneficial for all life. But the gas in a CCUS reservoir would contain +90% of this heavier-than-air gas – a lethal, suffocating concentration for nearby animal life if it escaped in a gas outburst.
Pumping gases underground is only sensible if it brings real benefits such as using waste gases to increase oil recovery from declining oil fields – frack the strata, pump in CO2, and force out oil/gas. To find a place where you could drive out natural hydro-carbons in order to make space to bury CO2 would be like winning the Lottery – a profitable but unlikely event.
Normally however, CCUS will be futile as the oceans will largely undo whatever man tries to do with CO2 in the atmosphere. Oceans contain vastly more CO2 than the thin puny atmosphere, and oceans maintain equilibrium between CO2 in the atmosphere and CO2 dissolved in the oceans. If man releases CO2 into the atmosphere, the oceans will quickly absorb much of it. And if by some fluke man reduced the CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 would bubble out of the oceans to replace much of it. Or just one decent volcanic explosion could negate the whole CCUS exercise.
Increased CO2 in the atmosphere encourages all plants to grow better and use more CO2. Unfortunately natural processes are continually sequestering huge tonnages of CO2 into extensive deposits of shale, coal, limestone, dolomite and magnesite – this process has driven atmospheric CO2 to dangerously low concentrations. Burning hydrocarbons and making cement returns a tiny bit of this plant food from the lithosphere to the biosphere.
Regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide is best left to the oceans and plants – they have been doing it successfully for millennia.
The only certain outcome from CCUS is more expensive electricity and a waste of energy resources to do all the separation, compressing and pumping. Unscrupulous coal industry leaders love the idea of selling more coal to produce the same amount of electricity, and electricity generators would welcome an increased demand for power. And green zealots in USA plan to force all coal and gas plants to bury all CO2 plant food that they generate. Consumers and taxpayers are the suckers.
Naturally the Greens love the idea of making coal and gas-fired electricity more expensive. They conveniently ignore the fact that CCUS is anti-life – it steals plant food from the biosphere.
Global Warming has never been a threat to life on Earth – Ice is the killer. Glencore directors supporting this CCUS stupidity should be condemned for destructive ignorance.
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Geologist Viv Forbes is the founder of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
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Excellent excellent article. This needs wide distribution to the common guy.
We have a great carbon capture process called photosynthesis. We have lots of deserts all they need is water to green. Build some coastline nuclear desalinations plant and pump the water into the deserts
But please not all of them. Sahara dust fertilizes the central Atlantic, and Australian dust fertilizes parts of the Southern ocean. Calcareous phytoplankton are GREAT carbon capturers. They plus the oceans make limestone.
In fact, were it not for plate tectonics recycling limestone via andesic volcanism, the world would soon enough die from lack of CO2. Soon enough estimates range from just 0.5 to at most 2.5 million years.
We have the US south west, eastern Sahara doesn’t add much to the Atlantic etc. We can also fertilize ocean areas low in iron to increase Calcareous phytoplankton growth
Excellent post.
Some CCUS hard facts.
All this also means that the newly announced Biden EPA power plant CCUS regulations are illegal—the CAA never allowed mandating more than ‘best established technology’. For CCUS there simply isn’t one. And as essay Clean Coal in ebook Blowing Smoke described, the EPA already tried and failed (via big subsidies) to get a US CCUS pilot plant that would ‘conform’ to CAA—three separate times. Three failures and yet they still persist under cognitively impaired Biden with an unlawful CCUS regulatory fantasy.
There’s a market for CO2 gleaned as a waste product from other processes. (IE Making ethanol)
If the demand became such that it was worth taking it out the air and selling it, it would already being done.
To spend big bucks to take it out of the air and then stick it the ground?
Government must be involved.
(The only “process” involved here is that some are going to rake in some Big Green.)
There’s also Sleipner (see article for some hints about limitations)
https://www.ice.org.uk/engineering-resources/case-studies/sleipner-carbon-capture-and-storage-project
and In Salah (Algerian) and Heping (Taiwan cement plant)
https://frackland.blogspot.com/search/label/CCS
James Verdon puts together a lot of useful information on the geological aspects of CCS.
Capital power here in Alberta just abandoned a $2 billion CCUS project, at the end of the cbc story they suggested it could still go ahead as long as someone else paid for it
Makes for a nice image, but translating the drawing to the real world runs into a host of problems as noted by Rud below. Only the rent seekers profit.
Oh my, another hair brained plan to capture the CO2 that feeds our vegetation and provides us with oxygen to breath.
“one tonne of water vapour from the coal combustion process”
I agree that CCUS is a nonsense, but how does a coal combustion make water?
Not directly. It’s the WV feedback theory. See, increased CO2 raises temp which then raises water vapor. Might even be true in theory, but dunno by how much.
No, that is not what the article said. The article quite clearly stated that the one tonne of water vapor was physically present in the flue gasses. No such enhanced water vapor theory was either asserted or implied. There is a small amount of hydrogen naturally present in coal (bituminous coal, 5.4% hydrogen by weight, on average). Thus, water vapor would be present in coal combustion gasses.
Coal Chemistry
For wood stoves the moisture should be below 20%. I’ve had folks that take heavier wood (more H2O) because they expect it to produce more heat. Coal comes with varying characteristics and it does claim “from the coal combustion process”. There is a difference between water in the fuel and producing water from combustion.
This makes me think of the pellets DRAX burns. Somewhere between cutting the tree and the flue, a lot of water has to go somewhere.
Is burning wood not burning a hydrocarbon? If hydrogen is involved, water is likely produced.
Coals vary in moisture content. Bituminous coals are typically around 10-15%, but some others are much higher: Kalimantan in close to 40% for example.
Residual ash content also varies, and is composed mainly of oxides of silicon, aluminium, iron and calcium, although other elements are often included.
Once we allow for these impurities then we are left with variations in the underlying hydrocarbon chemistry. Anthracites are almost pure carbon, while bituminous coals contain asphaltenes (plates of mainly aromatic rings joined together like chicken wire, with some hydrogen or small groups attached) and other hydrocarbons (think of distillation into coal tar etc.).
clearly stated that the one tonne of water vapor was physically present in the flue gasses.
Not sure how Viv gets “every tonne of coal burnt in a power station, about 11 tonnes of gases” & “and one tonne of water vapour”. Sounds like adding too much intake air.
Dasein, according to my Babcock Steam book from 1970, Subbituminous coals run 14.1% to 31% moisture and Lignite is 37%.
To find a place where you could drive out natural hydro-carbons in order to make space to bury CO2 would be like winning the Lottery – a profitable but unlikely event.
Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah, North Dakota. The facility currently captures approximately 2 million tons of the plant’s CO2 emissions, which are piped to Saskatchewan for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR).Been doing it since 2006. A total of 16,000 tons per day (tpd) of lignite are gasified in 14 Lurgi Mark IV gasifiers. Because the coal is steam headed, not burned, the CO2 can be more easily pulled out. Pipeline started in 2006 to Canada and more recent feeding the ND gas wells.
But only on the Gasification plant. The 2 Power plants were studied and not cost effective to CO2 capture.
There are typically small amounts of hydrocarbons in coal (bituminous coals tend to be richer than others), as well as retained moisture that simply evaporates when heated before being burned.
The composition of coal is CnHn so when combusted H2O is a product.
Burning a hydrocarbon fuel in oxygen will produce water vapour. Which is why your car’s exhaust is visible in winter, in summer not so much, the same reason your breath is visible in cold air.
Coal contains roughly 3-6% Hydrogen (depending on coal rank), on a dry, ash-free basis.
Furthermore, there is water in coal (total moisture can be over 50%), which also ends up in flue gas.
Anyone who believes that the CO2 will actually end up being stored should give me a call. I have a bridge for sale. It’s very nice. And not too expensive….
Having been involved with a number of acid gas injection facilities, (H2S and CO2 off natural gas processing facilities)…the reservoirs don’t leak…prior to depletion as a fuel source, they held methane for millions of years.
It might even be good to have that CO2 available for release as part of the CO2 control knob on planetary temperature, before the next glacial advance…/s
What happens when you pressurize the gasses to get more storage of molecules in a given area?
I have seen it before, been involved, the federal gooberment will throw TONS of money at schemes that have NO practical value, and the companies who take the money to work on the schemes just play along as if the thing might work.
Dam-atoll is a great example of this. First proposed during the “energy crisis” of the 1970’s Arab oil embargoes, it would take wave action and convert the kinetic motion into electricity.
It was funded and studied, and funded and studied and funded and studied. 50 years later, still no commercially available power plant.
Look up the Lake Nyos disaster to get an idea of how foolish this is. No, the proposed storage area is not the site of a volcanic lake, but man-made pipes etc. do fail from time to time.
If that is not enough to convince you, look this up:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lack-of-oxygen-killed-4-at-b-c-mine-report-1.582325
According to this site, most land plants need 150 ppm of CO2 for photosynthesis, and if the CO2 levels drop below that level, those land die and the land animals die with them.
In the last glacial period, the CO2 level dropped to a dangerous 180 ppm, only 30 ppm above the extinction level of 150 ppm, and the CO level has been dropping in previous glacial periods.
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
Messing with CO2 levels is like children playing with fire, very dangerous.
‘Just the Facts: More CO2 is Good. Less is Bad.’https://pioga.org/just-the-facts-more-co2-is-good-less-is-bad
Ahhh another way to throw money to fix a nonexistent problem…..
Not exactly. Another way to pass on public monies under some sort of cover to hide the theft.
To make any sense at all, you need a good explanation of why, according to the available evidence, the oceans and/or volcanoes did not increase atmospheric CO2 concentration over many 100 of thousands of years before FF burning.
Depending on temperature don’t oceans try to maintain the 50:1 ratio in CO2?
Why limit it to 100,000? Current evidence shows plants have already evolved to use 4X the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and retain that ability today. So it must have been in the atmosphere for them to evolve with.
Otherwise, the only explanation is divine intervention.
In the ’90’s, I was the only tech for a company that supplied the air machines at filling stations in the six state Rocky Mountain region.
A complaint often heard usually around the Boulder area was that the air around us is free, why am I charging for it? The stock reply was that Yes, air is free but to compress it for use in tires costs money.
. “Or just one decent volcanic explosion could negate the whole CCUS exercise.”
i wonder how the bean counters and managers factor this into the life cycle project economics…
In their most recent report on CCUS the IEA say
“CCUS deployment remained relatively flat in the last decade and this has led to progressive downward revisions in the role of CCUS in the IEA updated Net Zero Emissions(NZE) Scenario by 2050″ project pipeline
Although over 45 countries have CCUS projects in development the “current project pipeline would only meet just over one third of the deployment needed by 2030”
“Operating CCUS projects are largely concentrated in the lowest cost areas such as natural gas processing. In contrast around three quarters of the capture by 2050 in the NZE scenario are still at demonstration or prototype scale.”
“For all CCUS applications, economic viability remains a significant hurdle as costs can be prohibitively high compared to unabated technologies”
“In addition long lead times for project development and implementation can further impede progress, particularly related to CO2 storage development”
IEA ‘CCUS Policies and Business Models: building a commercial market’ (Oct 2023)
Perhaps CCUS should be renamed ‘Completely Crazy Utterly Stupid’ 🙂
Good acronym expansion!