5 Reason Carbon Capture and Storage for Coal is Bulls**t

[kgrandia]

http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/carbon-capture-and-storage-a-myth

Top 5 Reasons Carbon Capture
and Storage is a Myth

#1: CCS cannot deliver in time to avoid dangerous climate change

The earliest possibility for deployment of CCS on a large commercial scale is not expected before 2030. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not expect CCS to be commercially viable until at least 2050. Nor does Oil-giant Shell who "doesn't foresee CCS being in widespread use until 2050."
#2: CCS wastes energy

The technology uses between 10 and 40% of the energy produced by a power station. Wide scale adoption of CCS is expected to erase the efficiency gains of the last 50 years and increase energy consumption by one-third.
#3: CCS is expensive

CCS could lead to the doubling of plant costs, and an electricity price increase of 21-91%. The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently pulled out of the only "clean coal" pilot project with CCS technology in the US due to massive budget increases from initial estimate of $800 million to $1.8 billion.
#4: "Capture Ready" coal plants are pure greenwash

CCS is being used as an excuse by power companies and utilities to push ahead with plans to build new coal-fired power plants, branding them as "capture ready." Promises to retrofit are unlikely to be kept. Retrofits are very expensive and can carry such high efficiency losses that the plants become uneconomical.
#5: Storing CO2 underground can have unintended consequences

The world has no experience in the long-term storage of anything, let alone CO2. A 2006 United State Geological Survey (USGS) field experiment showed there is every chance that carbon dioxide will behave in ways that are totally unexpected.

The researchers were surprised when the buried CO2 dissolved large amounts of the surrounding minerals responsible for keeping it contained.
For an in-depth look at Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), check out "False Hope: Why Carbon capture and storage won't save the climate," recently released by Greenpeace International.

[IndyOp]

1. It is a lie that plays into the conservative (read "big fossil fuel corporation") frame-

SUN ** AIR ** WATER <<-- More than enough energy for everyone.

[JohnWxy]

2. INteresting paper on carbon sequestration by Union of Concerned Scientists - they don't reject it,

but indicate it deserves further research:

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/GEO_CARBON_SEQ_for_web.pdf



http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/05/carbon-seq/Plenary%20Coninck.pdf

The IPCC doesn't reject CCS either. THeir report says it needs study but refers to CCS as a "serious mitigation option" - from the chart no 7:

IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001): a “new itigation technology”

•“Serious mitigation option”

•Capacity not restraining (~ 5700 GtCO2)

•Costs are estimated competitive with other mitigation
options at ca. 40 –60 US$/tCO2

•Safety and verification noted as problems

•Significant cost reductions for achieving stabilisation
scenarios



- but they don't seem to be rejecting it out of hand.

to me it doesn't seem to be as dangerous to future generations as tons of radioactive waste which will be dangerous to everything but cockroaches for many tens of thousands of years.

[truedelphi]

3. Now those are some serious scientists that I can respect

Thank you for showing me how to see what they have to say.

[crimsonblue]

5. the radioactive waste

would be stored hundreds of feet below the ground in isolated, remote locations specially chosen because of their distance from habitated land and other environmental concerns.... say, Yucca Mountain.

[losthills]

7. Thanks for articulating the Republican party platform,

for our entertainment....

[crimsonblue]

11. sorry that everyone here hates nuclear power

but transportation of nuclear material has been proven to be safe. and we need someplace to securely store it all. so why no just dig a big fucking hole way deep in the ground in the middle of nowhere and store it there?

maybe we could invade saskatchewan and bury our waste there... (that part was snark, btw)

[losthills]

15. How has it been "proven safe?"

And where is "the middle of nowhere?"

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[crimsonblue]

4. Maybe somebody should contact NASA

they've had carbon sequestering systems in place since the Apollo program, maybe even before. They have filters onboard the shuttle that scrubs out the carbon dioxide and monoxide out of the air, leaving fresh, lovely O2. Why does the filtering process have to be an active-based system? Why not just pump the exhaust gas through a 50 ft filter? Anyone with better knowledge of coal emissions know why this couldn't be done?

[kristopher]

9. I don't think you grasp the essence of the problem with CO2 capture & sequestration

1,128,000,000 metric tonnes of coal is burnt each year for producing electricity in the USA.

That's two trillion fifty two billion pounds


Chemical reaction when coal burns: 4(-CH-) + 5O2 = 4CO2 + 2H2O

That is approximately equal to 1,503,772,000,000 pounds of CO2.

Just in the US.

Each and every year.

Think of what goes into taking two trillions pounds of coal out of the ground, transporting it and burning it; then reverse the process for one and one half trillion pounds of CO2 you are trying to put back into the ground - permanantly.

[crimsonblue]

10. i'm not talking about sequestering it

i guess that was a bad word... I think it'd be easier to filter the co2 out of it, and still let the air pass on through.

[kristopher]

12. And then what are you going to do with it?

It HAS to be stashed away where it doesn't enter the biosphere. That is the entire point of the exercise.

[cosmik debris]

6. I agreed with some of that, but you wandered off into the ozone

with this statement:

"The world has no experience in the long-term storage of anything, let alone CO2."

You may not believe this, but the oil and natural gas we have been using for the last hundred years or so was stored conveniently for later use. It is millions of years old!

When you present an idea, you shouldn't put in a conclusion that is so obviously false. It hurts your credibility and the credibility of your argument.

[Nihil]

14. Err ...

> You may not believe this, but the oil and natural gas we have been using
> for the last hundred years or so was stored conveniently for later use.
> It is millions of years old!

Are you suggesting that Man put the oil & natural gas there?

Or maybe that the oil & gas was created on the surface and then magically
transported to the depth where we conveniently find it?

Or perhaps you were throwing a complete strawman into the argument?

Or were you just being a pratt?

> When you present an idea, you shouldn't put in a conclusion that is so
> obviously false. It hurts your credibility and the credibility of your
> argument.

*cough*

:P

[cosmik debris]

16. I responded to the statement that was written in the post.

"The world has no experience in the long-term storage of anything, let alone CO2."

I did not suggest that man put the oil there. But the sentence to which I responded mentioned nothing about man storing anything.

Storing of oil and natural gas underground is an established fact. It is viable because it has worked for millions of years. For that poster to pretend that it is not possible, probable, or feasible is absurd. It is an historical fact, not wild speculation.

The poster decided to embellish his argument with an appeal to emotion that transcended the world of factual evidence. That is the sort of thing that hurts credibility. He should have stuck to the facts.

[Nihil]

17. The whole topic is about the stupidity of attempting to store CO2 ...

... so the original statement ...
>> "The world has no experience in the long-term storage of anything,
>> let alone CO2."
... is well established in context.

Pretending that
> the sentence to which I responded mentioned nothing about man storing
> anything
is facile bullshit and you should be better than that.

Moreover ...
> Storing of oil and natural gas underground is an established fact.
> It is viable because it has worked for millions of years. For that
> poster to pretend that it is not possible, probable, or feasible
> is absurd. It is an historical fact, not wild speculation.

It is nothing of the sort. The presence of oil & natural gas underground
is not evidence of the viability of human attempts to store CO2 somewhere
else underground.

The oil & gas were *created* deep underground and *migrated* *upwards*
to their current locations.

They did not stay still after creation.

They did not sink through impermeable layers until they found a happy
depth to remain for millions of years.

They were not pumped down boreholes.

The only reason they stayed in the locations in which they were discovered
is that said locations trapped the migrating fluids below appropriately
shaped structures in the impermeable cap rock.

In some cases, the fluids were trapped for some time at lower levels until
subsequent faulting created new pathways upwards (cracks in the impermeable
layer forming the trap).

When the migration reaches the surface, the fluid escapes (e.g., some of
"tar" seeps that are found around the world) thus showing yet another flaw
in your "viable process" argument - one that we have no need to repeat.

:shrug:

[cosmik debris]

18. LOL, nice try.

I'm sorry you don't know what you are talking about, but it's not my problem.

[Nihil]

19. "It hurts your credibility" ...

... in your case, repeatedly so, nearly every time you post.

If you have anything to dispute with my comments, please point it out
as it is a "while" since I graduated (in geology & physics FWIW) and
I'm not too proud to learn.

If not, don't try to blame your ignorance on me.
:hi:

[cosmik debris]

20. I have no desire to convince you of anything

That would be a clear waste of time.

I just enjoyed watching you trying to make the absurd sound reasonable.

Perhaps you would like to try again?

"The researchers were surprised when the buried CO2 dissolved large amounts of the surrounding minerals responsible for keeping it contained."

Surprised? These researchers didn't know that water and carbon dioxide make carbonic acid? They didn't know that acids dissolve limestone? They didn't know that the oil industry has been injecting CO2 into old fields for thirty years or more? Which high school did these researchers drop out of? And why would anyone trust researchers who knew so little about their subject matter?

Your turn.

[Nihil]

21. Congratulations! You've managed to catch up with your own tail!

Maybe next time you can try reading the posts and responding to
their content rather than launching tangents?

The sentence in the OP article on the follies of carbon sequestration
that triggered your first response was:
>> "The world has no experience in the long-term storage of anything,
>> let alone CO2."

Nothing in your subsequent posts contradicts this statement. It is true.

The only thing that the world has experience in is *breaking* the ancient
reservoirs in order to drain the fossil fuels and create a climate-changing
mass of CO2. Even the ongoing CCS pilot projects (e.g., Sleipnir) are not only
few & far between but have not been proven to be safe over anything vaguely
near "long-term" timescales.

You are the one who seems to spend his time "trying to make the absurd sound
reasonable" and you have been caught on it.

[cosmik debris]

22. Aw, c'mon

You have run that into the ground and it still doesn't make sense.

When we discovered these wonderful storage containers with a track record showing millions of years of successful containment, it is just silly to say we can't store anything.

And why were the researchers surprised that H20 + CO2 -> H2CO3 Are they really that uneducated? Why would anyone hire a researcher that doesn't know the basic chemistry of his subject? Why would they hire researchers who hadn't read all the thirty years of published literature on enhanced oil recovery with CO2?

Certainly you haven't run out of rationalizations? And how about citing more credentials? Appeal to authority is always a laugh, and I believe everything I read on the internets. (not)

[Nihil]

23. Have a nice day.

> You have run that into the ground and it still doesn't make sense.

Not to someone with their eyes firmly closed.

> And how about citing more credentials?

I don't usually "cite my credentials" but that was in response to your

>> "I'm sorry you don't know what you are talking about"

As I stated at the time, I'm not too proud to learn but it appears that
I have nothing at all to learn from you.

Have a nice one.

[cosmik debris]

24. So you have run out of rationalizations. OK.

That's what happens when you don't have a well thought out position.

Trying to defend nonsense just because it agrees with you is not the key to success.

You should learn to spot the BS in your own arguments before you attempt to call others on their BS.

It's been fun.

[Nihil]

25. More like "ran out of patience" ...

... in trying to explain a colour to a blind man ... or, more accurately,
a man who complains he cannot see because he has his hands firmly clamped
over his eyes.

> You should learn to spot the BS in your own arguments before you attempt
> to call others on their BS.

You still haven't put forward a single accurate point to support your
original criticism of the OP no matter how you've twisted & turned, raised
strawmen and tossed insults.

> It's been fun.

Not the word I would have chosen but at least you're happy now. :shrug: