Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Thread
The Zamboni went through at Climate Audit to eliminate discussion of Carbon Dioxide Sequestration. I know absolutely nothing about this topic, but you can discuss it here anyway.
The rules are:
- The topic is about Carbon Dioxide sequestration. If you want a different topic, I’ll open that.
- If you have a theory, describe the theory and explain why you think it’s a valid theory. Avoid advancing your argument using a series of rhetorical questions that are meant to cause the audience to infer your theory, and discover its truth.
- Crackpot theories are allowed.
- No name calling or calling theories “crackpot”, or casting aspersions on people’s motives. Try to engage theories and explain why they are correct or incorrect on their merits. You may also request others to support their theories.
New blog functions:
- It should be possible to edit your comments for 5 minutes after you enter them.
- It should be possible to select text you want to quote, double click, and have that automatically enter into the text box.
- It should be possible to insert links to images, provided you understand how to use html. If you don’t know how, ask.
Now, feel free to discuss sequestration. I will be making more rules as I discover what causes flame-wars.
Comments
Jan Pompe (Comment#236) December 27th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
The media reports on the technology have all been rather naive and fawning. I have some serious questions about its feasibility, based on concerns regarding energy efficiency, capital and maintenance expenses, and whether it’s realistic to compress this material up to 1000s of psi, put it in the ground, and expect it to stay there over the long haul. A related question is, are there enough suitable geological formations, and are they located in enough diverse locations so that power won’t have to be transmitted over 1000s of miles.
The energy cost must be huge if the financial cost is as high as 60% of the financial cost of energy production without sequestration. I still haven’t found anything that I feel can be trusted that analyses this cost.
ferris (Comment#239) December 27th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
The nations first coal gasification plant is scheduled to be online by 2013 (if cost overruns don’t kill it first). Just recently a site in Illinois was chosen: http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....3851.story
If you want information on feasibility, this is a good place to start: http://www.gasification.org/library.htm
As far as other CO2 sequestration technologies, biochar looks very promising. Expect to hear more about this in the future.
Even though these technologies show great promise, look for the AGW proponents to oppose these solutions. To them, overpopulation is the “real” problem so any solutions that do not address this will be deemed unacceptable.
edited to add link for biochar:
ferris (Comment#240) December 27th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Sorry for the extra post. I tried to edit my first post but it did not work.
Here’s a link about biochar:
Larry R. (Comment#241) December 27th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Biochar is a completely different animal, that seems much more practical than compressing gas into caves. You’re right though, as soon as an alternative looks like it may be feasible, it will be opposed. Just like hydro, just like wind.
Larry R. (Comment#242) December 27th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Eek. They didn’t say the MW of the plant, but using the rule of thumb of 1 kw (averaged over 24 hours) per home, that $1.8 billion for a 150MW plant. Can we please take a second look at nuke?
Andrey Levin (Comment#246) December 28th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Plenty of information on current CS projects could be found here:
http://www.greencarcongress.co.....index.html
BTW, GCC is extremely informative and up-to-date web site.
Philip_B (Comment#307) December 29th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Local estimates for ‘zero emission’ coal fire plants here in Western Australia show operating costs are double current coal plants. Ignoring how realistic these predictions are that means double the coal, i.e. energy input.
Lost in all the blather is that carbon sequestration (by non-bio means) is a massive step backwards in energy efficiency.
Larry R. (Comment#325) December 30th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Also, to be realistic, estimates for new technologies are always optimistic. The devil’s always in the details. How are the operating permits going to be written? Are they going to be allowed x number of tons of emissions per year, or do you have to take the entire plant off the grid the minute some scrubber pump breaks a coupling? We really need to think about this, folks. We could end up losing the entire electrical grid in January if there area few simultaneous mechanical failures.
Larry R. (Comment#230) December 27th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Over at CA, we were discussing whether CS was a real, ready-to-roll technology, or pie-in-the-sky. There was one link to a reasonably comprehensive overview, but unfortunately, it got chopped up by the Zamboni.
One thing that was evident is that a number of oil companies are using CO2 as a recovery agent, and then taking credit for sequestration, as if that were the intent and motivation for the project. Actual coal-based sequestration plants are, as near as I could determine, nonexistent at present, and none are scheduled to be in operation until well into the next decade.
The media reports on the technology have all been rather naive and fawning. I have some serious questions about its feasibility, based on concerns regarding energy efficiency, capital and maintenance expenses, and whether it’s realistic to compress this material up to 1000s of psi, put it in the ground, and expect it to stay there over the long haul. A related question is, are there enough suitable geological formations, and are they located in enough diverse locations so that power won’t have to be transmitted over 1000s of miles.
Discuss.