Carbon Capture a Pipe Dream

The dirty truth about carbon capture: it's very expensive and it's a long way off. Speaking at the World Bank in Sydney, Mark Diesendorf of the Univeristy of New South Wales points to the Bush Administration's shuttering of the FutureGen project as an example of the escalating costs associated with this largely unproven technology.

Note that in June, Energy Secretary Steven Chu revived the FutureGen project with $1 billion and a directive that it come up with realistic cost estimates. Diesendorf also questions the wisdom of his country spending some $2 billion (AUS) on carbon capture, when the first commercial scale plants wouldn't be online until at least 2020.

There's much to love about carbon capture, in theory. (Michael Pollan is a fan.) But what most people love about carbon capture is also what's wrong with it. Carbon capture continues our dependence on coal-fired power plants, and does little to change the status quo. In other words, carbon capture does nothing to get us off the coal standard.

Furthermore, to echo a point made by Diesendorf, investing in carbon capture takes money away from the development of renewables like wind and solar, and from the development of energy efficiencies like CFLs and electric cars.

Given the global economic crisis, shouldn't we be investing in proven technologies first?

Watch the full program at FORA.tv.

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Comments

[ReedYoung]

Coal plants can still be used, but coal itself is absolutely unnecessary as a source of energy now thanks to Concentrating Solar Power, which works by superheating a liquid then *turning a turbine* just like a coal plant. Every coal plant can be converted to a solar-powered source of electricity!
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/04/01/can-concentrating-solar-power-outshine-fossil-fuels/

Photovoltaic solar panels -- the kind on house rooftops -- provide electricity less expensively per KWh than coal, nuclear or any other conventional source used by utilities, they just do not have such vocal, over-funded spokespeople because they are not subject to centralized, corporate domination -- there is no opportunity to pull an Enron on us with solar photovoltaic ("solar PV" to many installers and retailers). Government should be going to solar and wind power, not in addition to coal, petroleum and nuclear power, but instead of those. Nuclear corporate interests have had their chance to clean up their mess and proven that they didn't consider it profitable. Fine, We the People will do it ourselves and nuclear is off the public dole.

The only aspect of clean energy that really is still more costly than its competitors is all-electric automobiles, and that is just because the existing auto manufacturers haven't been pressured by the market (that's us) to try.

[quidam56]

Appalachia can't stand anymore progress and prosperity of the new and improved, clean, green, hybrid coal industry and it's method of extracting clean coal.

http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138

[Eggsackley]

What we don't want is to perpetuate our dependence on coal. Have you seen what the coal people are doing to our mountains and streams? Mr. Peabody's coal train was just a warm-up for the real desecration being practiced today. The only dependable carbon capture is composting or bio-char used to replenish the soil. Why do we recycle only things like gas, plastic, and aluminum? Bio-waste is a precious thing. We should all garden and compost and buy organic food grown locally to reduce our dependence on industrial agriculture which is almost as bad for the environment as burning coal. We need to start using more bone meal in soils to recycle Phosphorus. The next big shortage may well be Phosphorus that is essential to growing food. And we should all go solar if we can, once the smart grid is mandatory everywhere. Carter had the right idea with his tax deductions for solar, which Reagan promptly undid. We might eventually find some good use for coal, if we stop burning it in power plants, the best way to quickly reduce the dependence on coal is to make it cost more in comparison to other energy sources, by outlawing mining methods that desecrate the environment, and imposing a carbon tax.

[research]

Waste BioChar is the way to actually capture carbon.

As Charcoal that works to double crop growth if placed in poor soil.

BioChar generates energy and biofuels as well.

Using waste allows all organic material we use to be converted to energy, fuel and real carbon capture.
See my profile for proof and links.

[alvdh1]

That would be biochar produced from organic waste such as crops, tree trimmings, refuse and animal waste. Cutting down forests to create biochar would be a bad way to capture carbon. Otherwise, it is an ideal way to change the carbon cycle from less than a hundred years to well over a thousand years.

[research]

Waste only, Yes.

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Carbon capture is really the opposite. It is Oxygen capture with the carbon just being returned to the earth. The scary thing is what happens when 50 years of CO2 captured underground suddenly finds a way to the surface? In an earthquake, the gas could expell into the atmosphere in one massive deadly poison cloud. If the gas is 1000 feet down, the pressure would be over 1000 PSI. The sudden massive release of CO2 would produc toxic levels for many miles around. CO2 is twice as heavy as air and will lay close to the ground like mustard gas.

I would feel much safer If I lived in the middle of a field of 16 nuclear reactors producing 8 GWatts.

[rsaillant1]

As any concerned citizen might have already learned, carbon capture
holds a frightening grip on this planet. Any leak or shift in the strata at one
of these locations will spell doom for any life, human or animal for miles.

I would suggest reading "Vapor Trails," a novel about big business in a race
to perfect the carbon capture technology with disastrous results. Authored by
individuls who have had first hand experience with these people and events.

[rsaillant1]

Read; "Vapor Trails" to understand the real dangers inherent in this "capture"
process.

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Carbon Capture is not just a pipe dream. It is a heluva huge pipe bomb

[RomeoMD25]

The average person has been misled and is confused about what the current Global Warming debate is about,
greenhouse gases. None of which has anything to do
with air pollution. People are confusing Smog, Carbon Monoxide (CO) and the pollutants in
car exhaust with the life supporting, essential trace gas in our atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide (CO2).

Guess you didn't try my experiment with the ice cubes and the glass of water. Basic physics tells us that water expands when it freezes, therefore it takes up more volume than when it was water. So, when it melts, it takes up less volume, causing a drop in the water level.

You ask who is being cheated and of what by this scam. The American people are the ones being cheated

[alvdh1]

Romeo,

It was a good attempt to skim over the facts, while making a fool out of yourself. Your physics experiment is just fine until continental galciers begin to melt. I guess you forgot to include the physics associated with this event. Oh by the way, most people are concerned about smog, pollutants, CO and the dzzing array of other toxins being pumped into the atmosphere by man. We are neither confused or bewildered. Apparently, you are based on the simple omissions to your physic project.

[TexasDem0]

If clean coal technology becomes a reality, coal mining will still be an environmental and human disaster.

[Overtone]

Forget coal! Future cars can pay for themselves and can catalyze rapid change!

Breakthroughs include the MagGen. These magnetic generators will initially make it possible to cut the cord on a plug-in hybrid so it no longer needs to plug-in. Later, they can replace the batteries in an electric car. Then, the MagGen can run when the car is parked and sell power to the utility. Prototypes are under development.

Next is a Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE, which can power a hybrid. It will need no fuel and is another path to ending the need to plug-in. The engine can run when parked.
Both systems can wirelessly transmit and sell power to the local utility.

The SPICE will be powered by hydrinos - which let a barrel of water equal hundreds of barrels of oil.
Scientists and engineers will doubt these technologies are possible until validation by Independent Laboratories, an important step on the agenda.

Until now, car ownership has been an expense. Payments to car owners driving a hybrid with a SPICE, or powered by MagGen, are likely to be substantial.

The cost of many vehicles might be paid for by utilities, as they purchase power. Parked cars each will become decentralized power plants - a rapid, cost-effective path to catalyze reduction of the need for fuel.

Consumers worldwide can generate substantial demand for such vehicles and accelerate the needed change regardless of government failings.

[guinganbresil]

Given the global economic crisis, shouldn't we be investing in proven technologies first?

Yes, like nuclear.

[KillTheMessenger]

Sure. Show me how you can solve the reprocessing and long term storage issue.

:-)

[guinganbresil]

Those two areas are the ones that the government was supposed to cover and failed miserably. =[:(

Move the responsibility to the private sector and align regulations accordingly (i.e. to facilitate success rather than block it.)

There are no technical problems with either.
The problems were with political will and motivation.
The governernment had neither.