Bishop Hill Swedes abandon CCS
May 7, 2014 Energy: CCS The Swedish energy giant Vattenfall has decided that carbon capture and storage is a dead duck and will wind up its research efforts in the area.
The state-owned giant had been investing in this technology for more than 10 years, with plans for a power plant equipped with CCS in 2016.
Capturing and liquifying CO2 coming from carbon combustion to later store it underground was meant to curb greenhouse effect gas emissions, but its costs and the energy it requires make the technology unviable.
This really does put a question mark over the direction taken by Ed Davey, who is hosing down oil majors with money in an attempt to keep them working on the technology. It's the 1970s all over again - ministers pick winners while the public watches them sink without trace, all the time wondering if it would have been better simply to have burnt the cash in a power station, which at least would have generated something useful.
Reader Comments (38)
A really interesting news item but I don't think
is quite right. It only becomes the same - potentially a lot worse - when half-baked CCS is mandated as part of fossil fuel powered electricity generation. For the moment it's a research topic and I have less problem with government keeping the researchers on that topic than I do with its gross meddling with the energy market in other ways eg subsidies for offshore and onshore wind.
Anybody with an IQ greater than can be measured on the fingers of one or even two hands knows that CCS is a non-starter - unaffordable, too risky and unnecessary. If idiots like Davey are prepared to give taxpayers money away, then some company will take the money, make a profit and eventually show CCS for what it is.
'CCS' has been gifted undeserved credibility by an over-promoted sixth former disguised as a cabinet minister. It's rank stupidity to suggest such impractical nonsense could make any discernible contribution to reducing global temperatures in any meaningful way whatsoever. Away with the fairies stuff. Nothing less.
Cheshirered: "Away with the fairies stuff." I agree with you (and with the Bish and Phillip) that it is fantasy. The danger for me is not the loss of taxpayer money in yet another unproductive direction, because it's going to be a fairly minor sum in the overall scheme of things. It's the perpetuation of fantasy as a major plank of public policy, as Robin Guenier has argued so powerfully. Davey and the rest have to come to their senses and fast. Ideas like CCS aren't helping.
CCS has for a long time been an excuse to maintain carbon-intensive infrastructure with the pretence of retrofitting it in the future, and thus forgoing the opportunity of investing into renewable energy. Slowly as the evidence of its unfeasability starts to mount, we can start to think about better solutions for reducing carbon emissions.
Fred Pearson: Or we can forget about the pretence of reducing carbon emissions globally - for pretence is what it is, as Robin Guenier has shown beyond doubt. So let's get real. It's not going to happen. We have to adapt to whatever comes - including the certain benefits of greater fertilisation from more CO2. The situation is that simple. We need politicians with the guts to say so.
Richard Drake: Politics is the art of the possible. I'm glad that you acknowledge that climate change will have dire effects that require adaptation, but I find it surprising you would believe someone to have "shown beyond doubt" that carbon emissions cannot be reduced.
Its a given that ministers are nit-wits, so no surprise Davey talks tosh. The hand up the dummy always used to belong to the Civil Service. What on earth has happened to it? Or do the Civil Service know that ideas like CCS are daft, but there is another agenda which compels the promotion of such ideas? If so, what?
Fred Pearson
"Slowly as the evidence of its unfeasability starts to mount, we can start to think about better solutions for reducing carbon emissions."
Please don't think I'm nitpicking - but who exactly does "we" refer to in the above?
Re: Fred Pearson
> I'm glad that you acknowledge that climate change will have dire effects
He did no such thing.
I am currently adapting my home to handle the change in climate from winter to summer. This means doing thing like changing the curtains for lighter ones and digging out the fans. The change is neither dire nor catastrophic and the adaptations required are minimal but necessary for my comfort.
Just because you adapt to handle change does not mean that that change is dire.
Fred Pearson:
I don't expect the effects to be dire. We have been winning the battle over extreme events since 1920 and I expect that to continue. More CO2 has one certain effect and it's beneficial - increasing crop yields. Some further mild warming will also be beneficial. But whatever happens we have to adapt - that's part of the human story. Let's drop the 'dire', be thankful for the wondrous benefits fossil fuels have made possible and move forward with intelligence and hope.
Phillip Bratby
It's interesting that, as a generalisation, the same people who are against fracking are in favour of CCS.
The CCS nonsense has been around for a lot longer than Ed Davey at least in Scotland where nowadays we're the last to abandon a bad idea. As I understand it, one unstated reason for the otherwise puzzling enthusiasm for the technology is that pumping gas underground can significantly increase the yield of an oil field. Especially off-shore, costs are prohibitive but, if politicians can be persuaded to coerce the public into subsidising it in the name of planet saving, why not give it a shot?
Fred Pearson
(Chandra MkII?)
To paraphrase something said by Bob Carter quoted by BH in the subsequent item to this.
Such dire consequnces only exists in the virtual reality imagined by computer models.
Fred Pearson (10:16 AM): you have quite a remarkable ability of twisting what someone says into something quite the opposite. Are you an aspiring politician, or a lawyer?
Richard Drake did NOT “…acknowledge that climate change will have dire effects…”; neither did he say that he believed that carbon emissions cannot be reduced. What he said was that, whatever happens, we can adapt: as summer approaches, I shed my winter coat – i.e. I adapt to the change. As for the reduction in carbon emissions, all the attempts by (Western) governments have merely been to shift the location of the emitter (moving industry to other countries), not to reduce total emissions. Yet they call it “reducing emissions”, when it quite clearly is not; hence, RD’s description of it as a pretence. Carbon emissions could be reduced, but need they be reduced? Now, that is another question.
it would have been better simply to have burnt the cash in a power station, which at least would have generated something useful.
and it's "sustainable".
The ability of ministers and politicians to pick losers should never be underestimated. The bigger problem is allowing them to do so with national energy policy.
What so few of them understand, is that the process is as perilous to the country as allowing ministers and politicians to decide the monetary policy of the Bank of England. It is something Gordon Brown never really grasped.
why not give it a shot?
May 7, 2014 at 10:46 AM | Unregistered CommenterDaveB
Because, dave, It facile. Where will the gas go? How and when will you cork the whole, will you be allowed the burn the fossil fuels released by the process. It's stupid, expensive and useless.
Fred Pearson gives us a refreshing look at a true believer: Immune to facts, twisting what other say, using the latest trade name for AGW and of course the irrational, ignorant and deceptive hatred of carbon. He has it all in one snarky package.
something about his reactionary hatred of carbon makes me wonder if, for some true believers, climate obsession, and its attendant hatred of carbon is not some sort of misanthropic loathing that hates the very molecules we are made of?
Fred, now you've accepted the engineering lunacy that is CCS, perhaps you can help us work towards demonstrating this is the case to those with influence in energy policy.
Welcome aboard!
Nial
hunter:
Though not falsifiable in the Popperian sense this is I think a really important insight. At the heart of all this - including the horrid co-option of 'denier' - there's blind hatred of the ordinary man and woman. Only the elite are worthy - the 'anointed' in Thomas Sowell's deliberately creepy term. But even they are made of carbon. Clay feet.
May 7, 2014 at 10:16 AM | Fred Pearson
I am the “someone” to whom Richard Drake referred. And he didn’t say that I had "shown beyond doubt" that carbon emissions couldn’t be reduced. No doubt they could – in theory. My point is that, in practice, global reduction isn’t going to happen and to claim otherwise is pretence.
Do you disagree? If so, perhaps you’d like to join this Discussion.
A Carbon Capture device already exists with many advantages
Solar powered
Very efficient recycling CO2 and storing Carbon for 100s of years
Low maintenance
Easy to install
Almost free to purchase
Blends in with its surrounding Landscape
No restriction on location (but unfortunately not very portable)
Provides a habitat for wildlife
Provides fuel
Provides building material
Provides natural farm produce
Looks great
Free patent
Provides a ready made children play area
The name of this device is called a tree.
..too simple to be true ?
and eventually what happens to the CO2 in that tree ?
- Trees temparily store CO2 when the are alive, however if you get a forest fire they release it. (and BTW cumulatively more radio-active dust than coal or nuclear power does ..but don't panic)
- also if they die & rot they can emit large amounts of CO2, however if you are lucky it will get trapped in the soil or even better swampy peat.
- If you plant a regenerating forest in an area where less vegetation used to exist, then you have added a net sink (as long as the whole lot never burns down)
.. It all has this "have your cake & eat it attitude" that greens seems to have, that they can have a big life with 5 kids and a people carrier and buy stuff that makes them "green". In reality no solution is going to be as good as not consuming in the first place.
- However the cost benefit analysis depends on what CO2 sensitivity is .. I haven't seen any proof ..it could be zero
..Also what's the difference if 1 European offsets and 1,000 Chinese/Indians don't bother ?
+ strong chance that FUSION is coming soon ..so CCS would be worthless if you can use a fully controllable zero CO2 power source.
- I very much doubt that renewables like wind/solar are actually carbon neutral if you follow them all the way through the cycle.
Fred Pearson
>I find it surprising you would believe someone to have "shown beyond doubt" that carbon emissions cannot be reduced.
I find it surprising that anyone might think they can (assuming that by 'carbon' you really mean CO2).
stewgreen
I recall reading somewhere many years ago that the atmospheric CO2 content starting falling at the same time as trees evolved and populated large tracts of the globe. Now if trees could talk would they be pleased with us for saving them from self inflicted disaster? A quick google revealed that:trees evolved about 400 million years ago, CO2 over last 600 million years
Some claim that trees were the trigger for ice ages
It's a £1bn commitment:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/carbon-capture-and-storage
Part of the story is that the market will be rigged to recover the costs - just as it is for windfarms. In the mean time, taxpayer money is going in up front to the tune of £100m for engineering design. There's another £125m committed for research.
CCS is such an idiotic idea you always assume someone just keeps mentioning as a joke. It sort of goes along with paying to have your carbon offset so that you can jet to the other side of the world on your eco-holiday. Is there really an industry that plants on your behalf some new trees somewhere to absorb the CO2 you generated and ten guarantees that they will never be cut down or burnt..... ever. I assume they plant some new ones in a 100 years time when one of yours falls over and rots. The insurance to cover this kind of never ending scheme must cost a fortune..... or is it just a load of wishy washy nonsense. I've never actually looked at the details so it may be totally legit and therefore keep your conscience clean.
Genuinely ignorant question here but isn't carbon capture a form of fracking? In a sense?
I mean, the placing of great quantities of a gas under the ground under pressure?
Ref jamspid,
Absolutely, couldn't agree more with your points.
Really sorry but I just can't stop thinking about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqjITYuzdus
At that rate they'll have real trouble balancing costs and benefits. Here's an insight into the technology of using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery The total CO2 injection in the US over the 35 history up to about 2005 when this was written is slightly more than one year's UK emissions at 600MT.
http://www.api.org/environment-health-and-safety/environmental-performance/~/media/d68de1954b8e4905a961572b3d7a967a.ashx
http://www.api.org/environment-health-and-safety/environmental-performance/~/media/d68de1954b8e4905a961572b3d7a967a.ashx
Not only politicians.... Myles Allen, for example, has been a huge fan of CCS:
Myles Allen on CCS
Myles Allen on CCS, again
CCS - one of the six impossible things Ed Davey believes before breakfast.
Any offers for the other five?
Bit of a long shot, but could CCS be a double-bluff?
By 'pursuing' research into CCS have Davey et al pulled a fast one on the anti-coal lobby? Maintain coal for now, but on a promise - now all-but confirmed as false, that CCS is to be fitted once it's viable.
Or am I giving the eco-goblin too much credit?
coals needed for making steel
oil and gas are needed for making plastics
and thotium will be our energy, together with fusion
we must think not about how to reduce energy so only our champagne socialist scumbags have a nice easy life, but
we must think how to make 100x more enrgy for the short time we remian on this stone called earth
Our future is in space anyway.
If callmedave and te other dogooders want to throw money out of the window they could invest in s self sustainable moon base. That will help survivers in case there is a serious catastrophe on earth.
Sometimes contributors such as Fred serve to remind that the ability to read and write does not denote the ability to reason using available actual facts rather than myths.
Ptw, I, too, long held the notion that space was our future. Now, I think that, unless something truly revolutionary is discovered and developed, the destiny of Man remains on Earth, hence we should take care of it, and use its resources as effectively and efficiently as possible. This means doing what has been done since time immemorial: caring for our present, not worrying about our future.
Well said RR. I was also struck by the need to care for the planet reading Michael Kelly's brilliant Technology Introductions in the Context of Decarbonsiation for the GWPF. Real sceptics aren't the irresponsible ones. We care about the truth of matters like CCS and the wider climate debate because it enables us to show proper respect for the amazing place we find as home.