Carbon Capture And Storage

Will carbon capture work?

The UK (aka UQ) Ltd government has world ambitions to be a leader and develop clean-coal technology: introduce a new generation of coal-fired power stations. Nuclear power is almost certain too. Money before safety. They will all have their CO2 emissions partially captured by carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. It is about to claim success.

CCS has been viewed as the (only) way forward by the industries that stand to gain from it. It is suggested (by a few greens) who have reasoned it is the only technology which will allow China and India to burn coal without sending emissions spiralling. It is distrusted by many mainstream environmentalists who see it is a dangerous diversion from cleaner, renewable technologies. It diverts attention and resources from identifying a long term solution in favour of a quick (and temporary) fix.
Regardless of safety concerns, a limit is obvious that when storage capacity has been reached, it'll be back to square one, but with millions of tonnes of CO2 under the ground. CO2 is a poisonous gas and any release into the atmosphere can potentially destroy all life. To 'trap' 100s of millions of tonnes of this gas below breathable air and an atmosphere that contains a relatively tiny amount is lunacy. This is like storing a lake of petrol next to a raging fire. The outcome is inevitable, especially when security threats are taken into account. They will be when more money is to be made from 'protecting' the waste.

• The green groups congratulated the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, for his leadership and vision, whilst harbouring residual doubts.

Miliband has an economics (theory) background and NOT science and is so deemed qualified to pontificate and make decisions that are outside experience. At best, 'advisors' and lobbyists will 'guide' thinking in the desired direction. At worst, it'll speed the demise of all life.

Drax in North Yorkshire might be the last coal power station to be built by UK (aka UQ) Ltd, as nuclear becomes the fuel of the future (zero CO2, but waste that is much more lethal and cannot be destroyed).

It's the (only) way forward

Substituting the potential danger of a gas that would simply suffocate and extinguish life for a 'product' that will change all life after having destroyed it.

Most energy 'experts' (background connections and interests unspecified) allegedly now agree that coal has to play a part in securing energy diversity - especially with the intermittency of wind and uncertainty of nuclear new-build. Building conventional coal stations would wreck the UK (aka UQ) Ltd's climate targets: financial money-making targets and so carbon capture is the only way out.
That solution was foreseen by a few (visionary!) people in government five years ago. It has taken an impending crisis in energy and climate to focus minds on the need to fund the technology, probably with a direct levy of a

few percent on bills (!!!)

Still absolute silence when it comes to the long term attitude change that is the REAL and ONLY realistic way forward. But short term thinking is about bucks today and worry about the future tomorrow. There won't be a future.

The US has been injecting CO2 into rock to extract oil for decades and so capacity underground has been filling up. As a business plan, this moves the cost from the business and into the public purse.

Increased (short-term) profits

In Schwarze Pumpe (Germany) CO2 is captured by scrubbers in a chimney and at In Salah in the Sahara, BP is pumping its CO2 emissions into desert rocks. [This will in the longer term possibly alter the rock composition, but when money is concerned, long-term doesn't feature. It's about bucks today].

• Some greens have been asking what happens if the CO2 leaks. But the CO2 will be locked into tiny cavities in the same sorts of porous rock that hold natural gas and 'will be an impossibility'.

• The pipes that lead to them will be capped with concrete. It is much safer than putting the CO2 into the air.

There are risks and uncertainties

• Greenpeace points out that if CCS does go wrong, the UK (aka UQ) Ltd will be left with a batch of coal-fired power plants that ruin all its climate targets.

Wrecked targets are not the issue.

Wrecked human existence is more important.

• Only carbon capture on 20-25% of emissions is being required.

There is an clear uncertainty on cost. When the project was originally considered (a few years ago) the sum of £500m per plant for the extra equipment was mooted. This has now been raised to between £1-2bn (money raised from a levy on consumers, of course). Power firms managed to run rings round governments and gain £billions in windfall profits from the EU Emissions Trading System.

Simply moving potential money around

while ignoring the cause of the problem

• Between the unequal negotiation teams of highly-paid industry consultants and 'hard-pressed' civil servants, the consumer will inevitably end up paying for the party.

• CCS is not without its emissions. Each plant takes carbon to construct, and coal is carbon-heavy in its mining and transport.

• Extra energy is required to run the capture and storage process, translating into substantially more coal being mined and shipped.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study estimates that fitting carbon capture to an ultra-supercritical - the most efficient - coal plant would reduce the efficiency, meaning that 27% more coal would be needed. The calculation does not include the energy involved in mining, transport or the manufacture of the capture equipment.

• While other environmentalists have mostly fallen in line with CCS, the Green Party is resolutely against. The Greens say it is incumbent on the government to create the maximum number of jobs with any policy and that wind power and energy insulation easily trump CCS on job-creation as well as on environmental protection.