Rachel: Bury the Carbon Problem?

12 Responses to Rachel: Bury the Carbon Problem?

1. Scottish Sceptic says:

   27 November 2013 at 09:00

   Thanks Rachel.
   The idea of trying to put CO2 in the ground is mad in the extreme. The cost is such that there is probably more energy going into the power station than coming out (when you account for all infrastructure costs).
   From a policy point of view it would be an absolute nightmare, because there will be leaks. If you pump under the sea, most of those leaks will be hidden, and therefore you would have to actively monitor for leaks. But even if you find such leaks, what do you do? It is more than likely the cause of the leak will be some feature way beneath the ground. It will be impossible to judge whether the reservoir was over filled or whether a small earth movement has opened up the feature.4
   The risk are therefore entirely unpredictable. The quality of the work is almost impossible to measure. (It’s the same IPCC problem – the only experts who will be allowed to testify in court are the group who are doing this and therefore it would be extremely problematic to prosecute anyone for technical incompetence).
   But the main reason I’m against these hair-brained ideas is that the free market already uses energy far more efficiently than government could achieve. And because rising GDP is a result of rising energy use, the real choice is between cutting the size of the economy to stem CO2 emissions or living with more CO2.
   There are two ways to cut the size of the economy.
   1) Make us all poorer
   2) Maintain our wealth but reduce the number of people
   These are the viable ways to cut CO2.
   In contrast hiding the CO2 in the ground to my mind INCREASES CO2 production and then if you really believe CO2 is a problem, it just stores this problem up for future (poorer**) generations to deal with.
   **Poorer because you cannot cut CO2 without cutting economic wealth.
2. Rachel says:

   27 November 2013 at 09:28

   Thanks ScottishSceptic, I’ll follow the comments to see whether you get any other views.
3. TinyCO2 says:

   27 November 2013 at 12:11

   I’m not averse to any plan that would work but…
   To do any task of separating one gas from another, compressing it, pumping it into the ground and ensuring it stays there is a huge one, both technologically and energy wise. How inefficient would it make fossil fuel energy? Just because we still have lots of fossil fuels doesn’t mean we should waste them. Much of the support for CCS is based on something that doesn’t work yet.
   All the current arguments about earthquakes from fracking would be valid for CCS only more so. More worrying, what would happen if the gas found a route to air? Under your home.
   The best CCS we have is organic. It traps the CO2 in solid form. I know that there are experiments looking at speeding up the natural process. Perhaps GM might offer something?
   Experimentation is good. Installation is bad if it doesn’t really do the job or there are major problems with it. There’s a terrible viewpoint from the consensus side that every little helps when it comes to cutting CO2. I strongly disagree because those little actions make people feel like they’re doing their bit. They mentally tick the job done box and move on. They also use up a large amount of money on very little, which means it’s not available for research, mitigation or aid.
   If I had to choose between fracking, CCS or windmills in my area, I’d choose fracking.
4. Kit Carruthers says:

   27 November 2013 at 12:18

   “The cost is such that there is probably more energy going into the power station than coming out (when you account for all infrastructure costs).”
   I’m not sure what you mean by this, and how cost and energy are related? Could you expand, please? The energy penalty for capturing CO2, post-combustion is around 8% points, so perhaps an efficiency reduction overall of 20%. This means that you think building and maintaining a pipeline. and the storage of CO2 would account for another 80%+ of the energy used in a power station?
   “From a policy point of view it would be an absolute nightmare, because there will be leaks. If you pump under the sea, most of those leaks will be hidden, and therefore you would have to actively monitor for leaks. But even if you find such leaks, what do you do? It is more than likely the cause of the leak will be some feature way beneath the ground. It will be impossible to judge whether the reservoir was over filled or whether a small earth movement has opened up the feature.”
   Ongoing monitoring is a part of the strict regulations which would apply to CO2 storage, and mitigation options are available (e.g. pressure relief), so this has been considered. Hardly a non-issue, but would be carefully planned. Any leaks subsea (as this is the issue you’ve raised) are likely to present a small, highly localised risk, based on the findings of the research done to-date.
   “The risk are therefore entirely unpredictable. The quality of the work is almost impossible to measure. (It’s the same IPCC problem – the only experts who will be allowed to testify in court are the group who are doing this and therefore it would be extremely problematic to prosecute anyone for technical incompetence).”
   The risk is predictable, and indeed researchers and companies spend a lot of time determining the risks involved to ensure that CO2 storage is as safe and permanent as possible.
5. Rachel says:

   27 November 2013 at 12:20

   All the current arguments about earthquakes from fracking would be valid for CCS only more so.
   This is not right. I’ve asked someone who works in CCS about exactly this and they said that while fracking involves fracturing the rock to release coal-seam gas, for CCS it’s exactly the opposite: we don’t want to fracture the rock because we want the CO2 to stay there.
6. TinyCO2 says:

   27 November 2013 at 13:06

   That might be the theory and when they’ve got something up an running they might be able to prove it. Geothermal energy isn’t supposed to fracture the rock either but it has. I don’t think it’s the major issue but people will jump on it in the same way they jump on fracking. NIMBY applies to ‘green’ technologies too. CCS truly is technology that breaks new ground. It might be viable, it might be another white elephant. Part of the technology should be a plan to pump some of the gas back out of the ground in case it all goes pear shaped.
   So far the only successful CO2 injetion schemes I know about are those used to extract more oil from the ground. ie and alternative fracking subtance.
   Pinning all our hopes on CCS and making huge commitments based on something that doesn’t work yet is a fools game.
7. Scottish Sceptic says:

   27 November 2013 at 13:25

   I gave a whole talk about it in Stirling based on the article Enerconics. The cost should be seen as a proxy for energy consumption or indeed “stored energy value”.
8. Scottish Sceptic says:

   27 November 2013 at 13:39

   “Ongoing monitoring is a part of the strict regulations which would apply to CO2 storage, and mitigation options are available”
   This is just pie in the sky thinking. I was speaking to someone who tendered for building roads. It is widely known that some companies don’t properly fill in the base layers so that the roads will have a dramatically shortened life. But they keep getting the contracts.
   This is where thousands of people will be easily able to see. The idea that any government official – and certainly not companies will care at all about CO2 leaks under the sea is so crazy it is mindbogglingly stupid.
   And come the day when the organisation says it needs another £10,000,000 to do ongoing monitoring and a one off £30,000,000 to cap known leaks. The government will look at this “problem” where no one is dying and there is nothing at all to create publicity … and they will look at the roads … and they will look at schools that need repairing and hospitals that need replacing. And they will work out that if they didn’t spend so much money looking for leaks, they wouldn’t need to spend so much “fixing” the leaks
   In fact I can already see the kinds of stories that will be on the news “Greenpeace claims oceans as fizzy as a fizzy drink … whales and dolphins being killed because … some idiot thought it a good idea to put this lot under the sea when there was no need”.
   The whole thing will make our generation just look even stupider than it will already with the global warming scare.
9. Kit Carruthers says:

   27 November 2013 at 13:48

   Clearly you have no trust in government or authority and so I cannot provide you with an answer you will accept, so I’m not going to bother trying.
10. Kit Carruthers says:

    27 November 2013 at 13:56

    CO2 has been injected for storage at the Sleipner gas field since 1996 with no great technical, safety or environmental problems, and indeed the UK stores natural gas offshore in similar formations to those targeted for CO2 and has been quietly doing so for years. So nothing new, or controversial, but indeed the public are right to question the safety. So long as the risks are set out in an honest way and with context. I think the public would see that CO2 storage is not a dangerous technology e.g. Roberts et al (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/40/16545): “Risk of accidental human death from these CO2 seeps is calculated to be 10-8 year-1 to the exposed population. This value is significantly lower than that of many socially accepted risks.”
11. Scottish Sceptic says:

    27 November 2013 at 15:27

    When you understand the motivation and methods of government and you know when they can and cannot be trusted.
12. Scottish Sceptic says:

    27 November 2013 at 15:33

    I think the dig was the other way: “as dangerous as fracking” – that fracking isn’t dangerous.

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