Hopefully Clearing Up Some Misconceptions about CO2 Capture & Sequestration

I wrote the post below last week as a comment on "Clinton on Carbon Sequestration," and since it ended up being rather extensive, I decided to repeat it as its own post. If Sgt. Pepper's misconceptions regarding CO2 capture and sequestration are common, then I hope my comments are informative.

The third paragraph of this post that describes issues with carbon sequestration does not appear to be fully informed about the technology, and may be very misleading as written. First off, carbon sequestration is the act of permanent CO2 storage, separate from the capture of CO2 at an emissions source and its transport to a storage site. Sequestration is NOT an energy intensive process. Most of the energy used in a CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) system is from the energy required to capture and compress the gas, which typically takes place at the emissions source. CO2 capture technology is primarily intended for power plants (most likely coal facilities), though there are some niche industrial applications such as cement and steel production. No one is proposing to capture CO2 at a mine mouth.

Referring back to the distinction between capture and sequestration, sequestration can hardly be considered in the “theoretical stage.” Injecting and storage CO2 underground has direct analogues in the oil and natural gas industries, and we already inject CO2 underground in Texas for enhanced oil recovery. Several pilot scale CO2 sequestration projects have been completed or are underway in Norway, Canada, and Texas (courtesy of UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology). The word “theoretical” implies a technology has, at best, reached the laboratory experimental stage. Several components of CO2 sequestration technology can be considered commercial, and others have reached pilot scale and are now being developed for commercial scale.

The remaining technological issues with sequestration mostly concern monitoring the gas over long time periods once it’s underground. No one wants CO2 to leak back into the atmosphere or into drinking water aquifers and such, and these challenges are unique to CO2 sequestration. Creating effective regulations for CO2 storage is as big of a barrier to the technology as any remaining technical issues, which is why Clinton praised the WY legislature for its leadership in this regard.

Certain capture technologies can be considered theoretical, or lab/bench scale, but others have reached pilot scale, are being planned for large scale demonstration, and have commercially proven analogies. Chemical absorption of CO2 has been performed in the natural gas processing and ammonia production industries for decades, and UT is among several institutions working hard to scale up this technology for use at coal power plants.

What Clinton is referring to regarding Wyoming is that the state should have a demonstration scale (over a million tons of CO2 per year) storage site there, presumably receiving CO2 from one of the state’s 7 large coal fired power plants (over 100MW) and sequestering the gas in one of its previously identified geologic storage sites. Storing CO2 near the emissions source makes obvious sense to cut down on transport costs, which are mostly capital costs (steel for pipelines,etc.)

And finally, everyone in this class should be well aware that CO2 capture and sequestration will not be “our answer” to global warming, because no single technology will be the answer. It will take several approaches to mitigate the effects of climate change, and CCS will be a vital piece of the puzzle if we continue to use coal for electricity.

I hope these comments clear up some misconceptions about CCS technology. I’d be happy to provide more references, but NETL and the Technical Summary IPCC Special Report on CCS are great places to start.

the other march madness... part 2

After reading David Wogan's post and the associated comment by John, I started to write a comment of my own. This "comment" became so long, that I decided to make it its own post.
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Nice post, David.

The comment by John brings up a question that I would really be interested in leaning the answer to (by the way, I really enjoyed the article that John suggested).

Which matters more, race or gender? Does the very fact that we're talking about this mean that this is an influential piece of this years Democratic primary?

This question has been asked throughout the Clinton-Obama race. Would you rather have a female President, or a black President? Does it make any difference in your vote? In the decades since the Civil Rights Act, has the mentality surrounding gender and race truly changed?

Polls that I have read indicate that these are not the first thing that people consider when they are in the voting booth. In Nashville last weekend, I watched a local news station report on the top ten words that come to mind when people speak of the candidates. Included were the following:

For Obama - young, inexperienced, hope

For Clinton - experienced, solutions, *rhymes with witch*

McCain - old, veteran, experienced

With the exception of (potentially) one (the expletive I don’t care to repeat here), none of these words referred to the race or gender of the candidates. Does this mean that race and gender are not deciding factors in the Presidential race?

If this is true, then I am very proud of our country. The issues are what should matter... not the race or gender of the candidate. We should be talking about climate change, energy policy, national security, and economic prosperity for this country. To quote J.T. marsh “I care about who will be a better leader for this country. Race and gender are not a factor.”

I hope that citizens of this country agree with the Marsh perspective. However, despite this hopeful view, I still wonder how much male vs. female, black vs. white will influence the vote today here in Texas.