Bishop Hill Down the carbon drain
Oct 12, 2012 Energy: CCS Politicians Scotland "If England's going down the drain with its energy policies, let's take Scotland with us"
That must be what Davey is thinking- what else could explain this madness?
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_122/pn12_122.aspx
UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey in a keynote address to the Low Carbon Investment Conference in Edinburgh.
He will announce:
- a steering group to look into the concerns of the Scottish Islands on the speed of progress of renewable projects;
- £20m funding for Carbon Capture and Storage R&D to benefit Scottish businesses
..............
£20m funding for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) R&D
Mr Davey will today launch a £20 million R&D project to help develop Carbon Capture and Storage, involving Howden and Doosan Power Systems based in Scotland.
The money is being invested by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) to fund a 5MW carbon capture demonstration plant capable of capturing up to 95% of carbon dioxide emissions that will be designed, built and tested by 2016.
The technology will be designed for new-build or to retrofit Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power stations. The consortium developing the technology includes Howden Global and Doosan Power Systems CCS Centre of Excellence both based in Renfrew; MAST Carbon based in Basingstoke; and Inventys, based in British Columbia, Canada.
Mr Davey said:
“CCS is a key part of our aim to reduce carbon emissions from gas and coal in our future energy mix. The UK is a leading nation in developing this new technology and the project announced today is another important step to our goal of a cost competitive CCS industry.
“CCS is a prime opportunity for UK manufacturing and I am delighted to see Scottish based companies like Howden and Doosan Power Systems, as well as MAST Carbon based in Basingstoke, seizing the opportunity to create jobs for skilled workers and growth for the economy.”
a £5million competition for the most innovative local authority or third sector collective purchasing/switching initiatives. .......
Reader Comments (32)
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an expensive mechanism to throw away small amounts of useful plant food.
One assumes that he does not know what a carbon sink is.
He probably doesn't even know what a kitchen sink is...
I would like to start a new company which I believe would create thousands of new jobs as well as reducing CO2 emissions.
The company would produce voodoo dolls in the likenesses of Ed Davey, Chris Huhne and Ed Milliband. Rather than old fashion pins, these dolls would be sold with a set of miniature swords, each sword would have razor sharp, barbed, serrated and poisoned edges and come with a 1,200 page health and safety instruction manual.
We also plan to produce add on packs which would contain:
Spears, daggers, arrows, axes, lances, claw hammers, buzz saws, staple guns, sniper rifles, grenades, machine guns and ICBMs.
In order to comply with new sustainability requirements all workers involved in the production of our products will wear airtight plastic bags over their heads to prevent CO2 emissions.
Our business plans do not foresee the need for any government subsidies.
Roll-on Scottish Independence say I!
A £20 million R&D project to help develop CCS? £20 million of our money to research something they're quite happy to mandate before even finding out whether it can be done? Or even whether it's worth doing? (It's not.)
A typical political decision. Dung, put me down for a box of your dolls - all the characters, please. You can "recycle" the H&S manuals for me, I'm sure.
On behalf of the DECC may I say how much we support the new start up company being set up by Dung. We will be taking up at least one of their innovative ideas.
We have just concluded a £20 billion project which reveals that there are more than 7 billion people walking around everyday emitting CO2. We have used money from the contingency fund to begin production of 7 billion airtight plastic bags which will be fitted to these people as a matter of urgency.
The result of this program will be that CO2 emissions will be returned to levels last seen in 10,000 BC.
Added benefits will be:
A lowering of Methane emissions
An end to starvation
The abolition of all human disease
An end to poverty
An end to crime
An end to war
The gradual greening of the entire planet
I did my bit for carbon storage in the 80's by planting over a million trees. Now they cut them down to make way for bloody wind turbines. It makes my blood boil...
Jimmy: "Now they cut them down ....
" to be burned in old coal power plants because those trees you planted are "carbon neutral".
@meltemian (Oct 12, 2012 at 3:22 pm)
As an Englishman, I agree. But have you (or His Grace) apprised yourself of Wee Eck's plans? You will look back on Davey (even Huhne!) with affectionate nostalgia.
Note that the deadline for design, build,and test is 2016.
How convenient!
Well before we start this project, can we just pause to write the glowing report praising it's successful conclusion in 2016.
That done, I don't begrudge them the £20m. I doubt they'll succeed but at least it will give some students contact with a large hunk of rotating plant and a feel for how silly this whole renewable game is.
You might as well spend £20 million into the R&D of capturing Moonbeams for all the good it will do in having any effect on the climate.
Come to think of it, perhaps I should apply for a grant into Moonbeam Capture, £10 million should do. After all, I don't want to appear to be wasting money!
What would be a surprise was if no company came forward to take the £20m of taxpayers money that is being given away. Knowing what we do about Government tendering, I don't suppose there are any clauses in there regarding what the outcome of the project is. Just go ahead and design and build a demonstration plant. If it doesn't work, well it's only money, there's plenty more where that was printed.
"The UK is a leading nation in developing this new technology and the project announced today is another important step to our goal of a cost competitive CCS industry." I presume vast quantities of US taxpayer's dollars and massive amounts of Euros are also funding CCS research. Yet where is the progress? Certainly not in the UK. So how come we are in the lead? Just as well put any spare money into Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion.
Scottish Carbon Capture - green light or red?
"Your energy policy seems to be all over the place sir, can you please breathe into this tube for me"
The whisky industry are monitoring developments closely.
20 Million dosent even cover the UK advertizing Budget Of BMW let alone there Research unit.
Does not even cover the amount of Rockets and Bullets that were fired by NATO in Afghanistan last week
20 Million think how many Nurses ,Cancer Drugs and Body Scanners you can buy for that.
In Scotland think how many flood defenses you could pay for.
The National Audit Office was not impressed with the DECC's first foray into CC&S:-
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1012/carbon_capture_and_storage.aspx
A bit silly: basing future plans on technology that no-one has actually got to work yet.
Two things.
Lake Nyos
Despite the nice harmless process name they also intend to take out of the atmosphere twice as much Oxygen as Carbon. The clue is in the compound name – CO2. So plastic bags will not be necessary – see earlier post. A good side affect will be that the reduced oxygen levels will mean that birds will not be able to fly and so will not be killed by wind turbines.
@ Chairman Al: "The whisky industry are monitoring developments closely."
If Salmond is really serious about reducing Scottish CO2 emissions, he will have to close down the Scottish whisky industry. Just think about all the CO2 that must be produced in malting the barley, fermenting the mash and distilling the spirit. Bet he hasn't thought about that, or will the distillers get an exemption.
"...Scottish based companies like Howden and Doosan Power Systems,..."
Last time I looked, Doosan Power was a Korean company (they took over the Babcock engineering company). They may well have a facility in Scotland, but to describe them as 'based' in Scotland is pushing reality a little.
@ Cumbrian Lad; Maybe Salmond has been quietly flogging off bits of Scotland to the Koreans to fund his green adgenda.
"in denial" deniers, deniers, deniers. shameful BBC:
12 Oct: BBC Business Daily: Justin Rowlatt: USA's climate change
We go deep into the mighty Hoover Dam to explore the challenges of the United States' changing climate...
In one of the US's driest regions, the Hoover Dam is part of a network of reservoirs which traps the waters of the Colorado river.
Justin Rowlatt talks to:
Dr Terry Fulp, regional director of lower Colorado region of the Bureau of Reclamation, who is responsible for the water supply to millions of Americans.
Pat Mulroy, the head of the South Nevada Water Authority which serves Las Vegas.
And Professor Henry Jacoby, who works on the science and policy of Global Climate Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ywhjd
According to a Wiki CCS summary, citing IPCC figures, capturing and compressing CO2 may increase the fuel needs of a coal-fired CCS plant by 25%-40%.These and other system costs are estimated to increase the cost of the energy produced by 21-91% for purpose built plants. In other words, you will have pay nearly twice as much and mine nearly twice as much for the same old same, in order to prevent dangerous CO2 crop yield enhancement.
Thats assuming the IPCC isnt being optimistic, the technology works, and the consumer is actually willing and able to pay the dues.
Wow Pharos, you sure hit the nail on the head with that one.
Electricity may become a thing of the past, if things like this keep going forward.
"Thats assuming the IPCC isnt being optimistic, the technology works, and the consumer is actually willing and able to pay the dues." --Pharos
What events of the past ten years make you imagine that the consumer will be consulted at any time in this process?
So Davey sees the cost of CCS as a benefit?
What an utter cretin.
I have visited the Doosan Babcock site & seen their CCS prototype plant, it reduces the efficiency of combustion by a huge amount requires make up oxygen and is completely unusable in a large scale. They haven't worked out what to do with the CO2 that they 'capture'. This stupid politically lead technology will increase our electricity bills by a huge amount whilst achieving nothing.
When will these idiots realise that CO2 cannot cause global warming & any savings we make cannot have any effect on our planet.
Forget 21 - 91 %. From past experience of anything that governments have a hand in we can be reasonably certain that CCS if it ever gets off the ground will double or treble electricity bills. The beauty of this is the eco-fascists will then be able to prove conclusively that "green" technology, windmills and other similar worthless junk, are cost effective by comparison with real power stations. There's method in their madness.
This old CCS thing just keeps coming round like a bad penny (as we used to say). "Capturing" CO2 (i.e. absorbing it from a mixed gas stream), compressing it and storing it is all old, old technolgy, but it is energy intensive and is only applied when it is economically justified eg in making high value artificial fertilisers via ammonia. But to produce electricity, carbon (in the form of coal or gas) is burned in oxygen in the form of air - i.e. about 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen. The result of the combustion is some heat (useful) and a flue gas with about 20% CO2 and, guess what, 80% nitrogen. The burden of pushing all that nitrogen through the CO2 absorption processes, with all the consequent wastage of energy, not to mention the carrying away by the nitrogen of the absorption solvent, is what makes the concept unworkable. Then there is all the energy needed to compress the CO2 into storage. Its against the laws of physics and its NONSENSE. But hey - bung me a free £20 mill and I'll give it a go.
Even assuming you could get carbon capture to work, it would mean burning far more coal or gas for the same amount of electricity. So energy would be more expensive, a win all round for this thieving toy government. Did no one in parliament ever look at a book on physics.....or a book on anything come to that?