Three things everyone needs to know about carbon capture.
- Coal supplies 29% of the worlds total energy (and oil supplies 31%).
- In the last five years governments world-wide promised to spend $22 billion on carbon capture and storage (CCS). $5b in the US.
- CCS increases the cost of electricity by 70%. (Yes, you read that correctly, seventy percent). That’s about $60/ton of carbon reduction.
TonyfromOz has been sending me gobsmacking details and statistics on this bizarre practice for months, and I must post them in their full glory as soon as possible. Historians of the future will gape at this strange religious ritual and ask how much we gave up in order to stuff a plant fertilizer down a deep hole in an effort to change the weather. – Jo
——————————————————
Carbon capture and storage—the Edsel of energy policies
…
By Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
The war on climate change has produced many dubious “innovations.” Intermittent wind and solar energy sources, carbon markets that buy and sell “hot air,” and biofuels that burn food as we drive are just a few examples. But carbon capture and storage is the Edsel of energy policies.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS), also called carbon capture and sequestration, is promoted by President Obama, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for coal-fired power plants. In September, the EPA proposed a limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 emissions per megawatt-hour of electricity produced, a regulation that would effectively ban construction of new coal plants without CCS.
Coal is the world’s fastest growing hydrocarbon fuel. Increased use of coal by developing nations boosted coal use from 24.6 percent of the world’s primary energy supply in 1973 to 28.8 percent in 2011. Wind and solar remain less than one percent of the global energy supply. Proponents of the theory of man-made warming realize that world use of coal will remain strong for decades, so they insist that coal plants use CCS to limit CO2 emissions.
CCS requires capturing of carbon dioxide, a normal waste product from the combustion of fuel, transporting CO2 by pipeline, and then storing it underground. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says, “CCS technology is feasible and it’s available.”
Carbon capture is feasible, but it’s very expensive. The DOE estimates that CCS increases coal-fired electricity cost by 70 percent. This does not include the additional cost of building pipelines to transport the carbon dioxide and the cost of establishing reservoirs to store the CO2 underground.
An example is Southern Company’s planned coal-fired plant with CCS in Kemper County, Mississippi, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2014. With recent cost overruns, the Southern Company now estimates a $4.7 billion price tag for the 582-megawatt plant. This exceeds the price of a comparable nuclear plant and is almost five times the price of a gas-fired plant.
The DOE pledged $270 million in funding for the Kemper County plant along with a federal tax credit of $133 million. Mississippi customers will be socked with a $2.88 billion electricity rate increase to support the plant.
Nine US plants currently capture CO2 as part of normal industrial processes, such as natural gas or chemical refining and fertilizer production. All nine facilities sell CO2 to the petroleum industry for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), a process which pumps CO2 into the ground. The Kemper County plant will also provide CO2 for EOR. Another ten US projects are underway to capture CO2 and most of these projects are subsidized with federal money.
Ford spent $350 million on the Edsel, the most famous car failure in history. But CCS is a much bigger financial boondoggle. From 2008 through 2012, governments committed to spend more than $22 billion on CCS projects. The United States leads the way with a commitment of more than $5 billion.
Despite support by US and world governments, carbon capture is not headed for success. A report released by the Global CCS Institute this month shows that international investment in CCS is now in decline. During the last year, the number of large-scale CCS projects declined from 75 to 65. Five projects were cancelled and seven were put on hold, with only three new projects added. The institute reports that private organizations are not investing in CCS.
The number of CCS projects in Europe has declined from 21 to 15, where no new project has entered commercial operation since 2008. The Global CCS Institute states that an “urgent policy response is required” for success. In other words, governments must impose carbon taxes and provide big subsidies for CCS.
Would carbon capture really have a measureable effect on global warming? CO2 emissions from power plants total less than one percent of the carbon dioxide that naturally enters the atmosphere each year from the oceans, the biosphere, and other natural sources. If the world fully implements CCS, it’s unlikely that we could detect a change in global temperatures.
But, worse than this, if the theory of dangerous man-made global warming is false, CCS becomes an expensive solution to a non-problem. When the dust of history settles and the ideology of Climatism fades away, failed CCS projects will be remembered as the Edsel of energy policies.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
How many schools, hospitals, kilometres of roads and railroads does that $22bn represent?
I wonder if the green left actually realise the oppurtunity cost of this madness?
Actually I don’t wonder … I know that the green left do not allow reality to pollute their view of the world …
490
It would be a good “ticker” on a website to show the cumulative money wasted on climate alarmism, and expressing it in human values terms – such as the number of starving who would otherwise have been fed – or ill who could have been treated – would be the measure to apply.
290
Unfortunately; deaths on a ticker would be too much like “cheering news”.
Perhaps we could count Olympic swimming pools, or Sydney harbours.
20
Remember it’s probably also about undermining/destroying today’s Western culture and society and pave the way for international radical leftist ideology?
In that perspective the green pain and no gain makes sense?
51
Truthseeker that’s the real cost isn’t it?
In my local paper some Labor prat actually had the hide to write a “letter to the editor” on how and why the LNP should only get one term as they are sure to “stuff things up”.
After writing a fitting reply online all the leftards came out with the most incredible claims and all I could think was how people can be so blind as to justify what Truthseeker has easily pointed out as a disgusting inhumane misuse of public funds.
I never resort to outright profanity online so I’ll redirect it into a creative description of these clueless malleable socialist livestock.
190
I have just realised yet another layer of hypocrisy about this.
The green left hate fracking because it is cheap energy and quote all sorts of dubious and questionable “science” about the risk of pumping water into the ground to get gas out.
However they seem quite happy to pump exponentially more water and CO2 into the ground to store it “safely”. Apparently there is no risk in that … yeah, right.
I think hypocrisy is invisible to these people. Stupendously hypocritical and stupid is all I can say.
190
Yes the layers are many, and add up to one bloody big onion.
I believe this story on Lake Nyos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos has been shown here before as a warning of what can happen if we deprive the planet of CO2, yes stupid is all I can say also.
20
I keep thinking about this”storage” of carbon dioxide underground. I would imagine it would be in liquid form. I imagine, also, that things get a bit warmer the deeper you get into the earth. Now, when this liquid carbon dioxide warms up it would change state at some time in the future to how it appears naturally in the atmosphere; as a gas again. This would cause the pressure where the carbon dioxide is stored to increase quite a bit. Let’s hope that the “storage container” is very strong. VERY STRONG. I, for one, would not like to be anywhere near where this “underground storage” is taking place.
30
I thought the idea of Co2 capture underground had died long ago. A city in Germany, years ago, rebelled against the experiment underneath them and succeeded in stopping it. Indeed, the argument that Co2 could seep out and kill any number of lives above ground is too valid and scarey; far worse than AGW.
As well, the anti-fracking people are quick to sneer at proper, well designed storage of nuclear waste saying it is too dangerous even if stored underground in granite and encased in syncrock. I know I would prefer to live above the latter.
40
How does CO2 seeping out of the ground kill people?
04
Asphyxiation. As Yonnistone mentioned, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos tells all
50
I guess I missed Yonniestone’s link–it addresses a cataclysmic natural event that occurred under the most limited of circumstances, so I’m not sure of the connection. (Interesting link, though). Edwina said “seeps”–which PNAS studied in Italy (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/09/09/1018590108.full.pdf). They state: “These deaths equate to 2.8 × 10−8 risk of fatality from CO2 seeps per annum” from natural seeps. Manmade seeps would have less risk since we can control where we put them, mark the areas–maybe even market a CO2 alarm. Oh, wait, there are already CO2 alarms for houses. Maybe outdoor ones then? I still can’t see how this can be much of a risk.
08
“since we can control where we put them”
Seriously Sheri..? Do you really think we know enough about where we might be going to “put” this gas, that we wouldn’t actually cause other major issues ?
You have never studied much about geology, earth stuructures etc etc etc, have you.
And besides that, he TINY amount that we could ever hope to sequester is totally insignificant in the scheme of thiongs.
It is a POINTLESS, DANGEROUS and FUTILE exercise.
40
ps.
I apologise for even more typos than usual.
Sandwich in hand in 15 minutes between lecture and tutorial.
00
“Sheri”, logical and critical thinking isn’t your forte is it dearie….
30
Learn what you are talking about before making such a stupid statement. Fracking and storage are indescribably different things. the only similarity is the word “underground”. Its drongo’s like you that do no research, just listen to whoever says the things you like to hear has put us in this position. I am referring to both sides of the argument here.
If you cannot take the time to understand what you are commenting on then please refrain from making comments.
00
The usual crowd of knuckle-dragging baboons talked the government into engaging in this enterprise.
I must say, it doesn’t take many noisy baboons to sway the government when it comes to such nonsense as this. I only wish I had as much persuasion with anybody
00
We have our own home-grown CO2 geosequestration project:
http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/8511.aspx
And then there is the massive Gorgon LNG project on Barrow Island (I bet they wish they could get out of the CCS part too):
http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/8514.aspx
00
The Kemper County, Mississippi coal plant will burn locally mined LIGNITE, which is a dirty and inefficient fuel compared to coal from other sources.
The people of Mississippi are painfully aware of the cost overruns, and inefficiencies of the plant. But, what can they do? Their power company in partnership with state and federal government agencies have forced this on them.
91
Add Australian technology and you get a 30 to 40% reduction in CO2 emissions from lignite. coldry…
cannot make links work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldry_Process
20
The reason lignite is used in Australia, Germany, & USA is that it easy and cheap to recover from very large deposits. The lignite is soft and can be recovered by continuous rotating bucket excavators feeding conveyors dragged the excavators. Little man power is required and theoretically the whole lot can be operated remotely, and automatically.
Lignite (at least in Victoria) contains very little ash (0.5-1.5%)which can be readily collected in efficient bag filters. It is NOT dirty.
Lignite has a low specific energy due to having a high moisture content (upto 66% in the raw coal). The boilers need more capacity than low moisture black coal due to the volume of water vapor and due to lower flame temperatures. The boilers however, are relatively efficient.
Upgrading the coal is a matter of getting out as much of the inherent moisture as cheaply as possible. The research has been to try and use mechanical energy (pressure) to squeeze out the water. To date it has not been economical because of the low cost of the coal for thermal energy. If one makes the thermal energy more expensive by adding a carbon tax then processes to remove the water will be more attractive.
However, there will be no move to install water removing processes in less developed countries such as China,Indonesia or Russia which have large deposits of lignite.
Let me repeat Lignite is not a dirty fuel and coal burning is not causing pollution from CO2.
20
Imagine all the carbon,
It’s easy if you try
no cold to die from,
Cause we’re sitting by the fire….
You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be a warm one.
burning in the fires,
130
Hit send too early or too late. Ignore the last four words or go on and add your own stanza.
30
Don’t worry Mark, Premature Adjudication is common.
It can happen to anyone. 🙂
[Even to moderators] -Fly
60
It should be correctly titled CO2CS, abbreviate to COCS, because it is not capturing carbon but carbon dioxide.
And what next? Will we all have to wear CO2 masks to stop us all from polluting the planet?
How my schooling lead me astray – I thought CO2 was plant food.
90
Just a short one here, and an added bit for that quote of an increase in the cost of electricity by 70%, because I can just see the incredulous and unbelieving looks on people’s faces thinking that just cannot be true.
Look at a typical new technology USC coal fired plant now being constructed in huge numbers all across China.
They can construct those plants there for $1.2 Billion (shown at this link, see page 28 $USD600/KW)
Now, they can build them cheap in China, so we need to look elsewhere for a more realistic cost.
A similar USC plant of the same size was recently opened in Germany, burning Lignite (brown coal) and that plant cost $4.3 Billion.
As time goes by, then that cost would rise slightly, and now a similar plant like this could actually cost around $5 Billion.
This CCS process adds around 40 to 45% to the cost, so now we have a cost for a CCS compatible plant at around $7.25 Billion.
That cost has to be recovered across the life of the plant. How they recover that is from the sale of electricity to all consumers.
However, the CCS process itself consumes anything up to 40% of the power actually being generated by the plant.
So now, instead of having their full electricity to sell to recover the enormously increased cost, they now have 40% less electricity to sell to recover that price, hence the unit cost per KWH of electricity rises, and rises almost exponentially.
Tony.
350
Hey Tony
I assume that the 40% figure is for “reasonably” local CO2 storage.
Most thermal power plants ( including Drax) were built right on top of the fuel supply.
I imagine trap/reservoir geology will rarely be within a stone’s throw of coal measures.
So transporting fuel or piping CO2 has to be part of the equation.
It has all the hallmarks of green energy alchemy to me.
90
I live here in Rockhampton, and for one year, we lived at Blackwater, coal mining central.
What amazed me were the trains that carried the coal from the mine sites to the ports for export, and to see one up close is astonishing.
They are hauled by three huge diesel electric locomotives at the front and a further 2 of them in the middle, so 5 locos in all. They haul 100 coal hoppers. The whole unit is around one kilometre long. Each hopper carries 100 tons of coal, so one coal train hauls 10,000 tons of coal.
They pass Rockhampton just to the South on their way to Gladstone at the rate of one every 45/50 minutes, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year. Around 30 trains a day full of coal, hence 300,000 tons a day.
Now, why I even mentioned this in reply to pattoh’s comment is that most thermal plants, coal fired plants in particular, are constructed at or close to the coal mine itself.
Those which aren’t constructed near a coal mine have the coal brought in, usually by rail, so having mentioned above about the size of those coal trains, 5 locos, 100 hoppers of 100 tons each, then a large scale coal fired plant of around 2000MW+, say 4 units, and having all four units in operation, then the minimum requirement is for 2 of those coal trains ….. every day, around 16,000 to 22,000 tons of coal each day at full operation.
When that sinks in, that means a burn rate of around one ton of coal every 3.9 seconds, and an emissions rate of one ton of CO2 every 1.36 seconds.
Tony.
180
My eyes are starting to water here Tony…..just so we are clear:
Say plant cost is 5 Bill
CCS cost will be about 2 ish so thats 7 Bil
Plus a 40% reduction in available power so effectively you will need to increase teh capacity of the plant by 40% the plant has cost you 7 bil ( ignoring the extra ccs reductions etc) plus the 2 ish for ccs (based on a cost of 5 bil)so now we are up to 9 bil and that only covers the onsite collection of the Co2.
We then need to find a site that has the right geology to pump the co2 into add in transport…………………….
80
I’ve made that point as nauseum. Plus the volume to be transported and “buried” 365/24
Perhaps most readers here are not much au fait with hard geoscience (nor, I suspect is the website proprietor) but the sheer volume of the task of finding the “right” geological strata, transporting and burying liquefied CO2 and ensuring it is trapped forever makes the concept mind-bogglingly stupid
TonyOz mentions his stay in Blackwater observing the coal trains. I’ve worked in all the operating Blackwater mines (Moura, Emerald, Collinsville etc etc) and all the associated power stations (mainly on raw fuel qualities and variances to ensure power station tolerances are met). CCS is a Sun King thought bubble
80
It’s a snake whose tail you could never chase down, the way you describe it. Just leave it at costing an added fortune and then the process consuming 40% of the power. Add in an extra unit to cover the power used by the process, and now you have to add the CCS process for that unit as well, so see the point there.
As to transport, that would need to be by huge pipelines from the plant to the sequestration site, pumps and cooling, and then a monster pump at the injection site, keeping in mind liquid CO2 is liquid only around its Triple Point of 5.1 Atmospheres, at Minus 56.6C, and as you pump it into the ground, the deeper you go,the ground, the CO2 heats up, reverting to a gas again.
Can you see just how complex this is all becoming?
Tony.
150
Tony.
i will back your information and data and the ultimate and unbelievable stupidity of CCS as I have taken an interest in CCS for sometime now starting possibly some 6 or 7 years ago when the hype was already high on CCS.
The Norwegians have basically abandoned their massive CCS project after some 8 years of research and $1.25 billion dollars.
Norway abandons carbon capture and storage plan
For a rather simple schematic on how a CCS plant is supposed to operate;
‘One of the ugliest political crash landings’ – Norway abandons carbon capture project
The Norwegian project was started in 2007 amid great expectations but like every similar CCS project, it ran into horrific technical problems and immense cost overruns during even the research phase let alone the probability that such costs and problems would escalate by some magnitudes once the commercial exploitation of the technology was attempted.
If Statoil and Shell, the big players in the Norwegian North Sea oil and gas fields and amongst the very biggest players in the global oil and gas game couldn’t make a go of CCS then arguably nobody can.
And they along with the Norwegian government were involved in the North Sea based CCS research,
The Norwegians of course have one huge advantage over just about every other nation attempting CCS and that is the size and location of their steadily depleting North Sea oil and gas field reservoirs which were going to be used to for the CO2 “storage” part of their proposed CCS system.
And that ready storage capability plus even the pipe lines to the depleted fields were all in place to take the extracted CO2 and pipe and pump it down back into those depleted gas fields
In any case there is an interesting development underway in that I am seeing more and more mentions even in the media from commentators of how the increasing levels of CO2 are far more likely to be of benefit to mankind and the so called environment as global plant growth responds enthusiastically to the increasing atmospheric CO2.
CCS is dead but will continue to stink politically until it is finally, along with it’s afraidy, fraidy climate alarmist adherents, is dead, buried and disposed of forever.
140
The CC in CCS is well enough understood, although the sheer volume needed is currently beyond practical limits
The S (storage, including transport) is from some other galaxy
None of this will ever reach the MSM, except the perceived risks of storage ruptures, groundwater contamination, aquifers destroyed and so on, and on …
Sorry, TonyOz, but trying to sideline geoscience by just “leaving it out” is not a good look. Real wealth is either grown or dug – process enhancing downstream cannot occur until the 1st steps are taken economically
90
yeah i get it Tony its a shame the warmbots dont
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this subject
Cheers
20
Tony,
Jo says above that CCS increases electricity cost by 70%, which equates to a carbon dioxide reduction cost of $60/ton. But that appears to be the cost of production of electricity per tonne of CO2 emissions, which is not the same as CO2 abatement cost.
Assuming that the retail price increase will be about 15% of the base cost increase! and the retail price elasticity is about -0.3, the abatement cost looks more like $1300/tonne of CO2 emissions abated.
That’s worse than household photovoltaics.
40
Just to clarify, I was suggesting that the retail percentage cost increase would be about 15% of the base cost percentage increase.
10
Leo
You sound surprised? Making energy unaffordable appears to be the master plan by the green movement. And they’re always right, of course. Don’t you remember them telling us that P/V’s would soon be cost-effective?
Cheers,
Speedy
90
West Australians might want to look at the CO2 CCS recovery project for the Gorgon gas plant.
http://www.chevronaustralia.com/Libraries/Publications/CHEVRON_CO2_Brochure_07_07_10.pdf.sflb.ashx
Is this the best way to spend money?
Does it set a precedent for other forms of development in Australia?
Your Liberal Premier Colin Barnett signed the deal into reality.
30
Is this similar to the massive amount of money that Anna Bligh & Peter Beattie spent on ZeroGen operation which was shut down in 2011.
They spent over $160 million, with nothing built, just research and directors.
These 3 directors plus a manager spent over $4 million on travel & expenses in Singapore.
1. Corporate affairs manager Heather Brodie
2. Chair of Board – Dr Keith Hilless AM
3. Chief Executive Officer – Dr Anthony Tarr
4. Project Director – Dr Chris Greig
This was just $160 million down the drain. What did Queensland get for this. SFA.
110
Traverston dam costs us 900 million, and not a sod was turned.
40
Thats a Traverstony Greg 🙂
30
Slightly different, in that the CO2 has to be removed from the methane before sale, and it is at quite a high concentration, unlike CO2 from power stations where the CO2 is mixed with air.
30
Exactly Robber, 15-20% and this CO2 is not counted when gas promoters compare the CO2 output from gas vs coal, they only include the CO2 output at the power station – watch the pea.
30
Barnett is the Minister for Science in WA. He had a Masters degree in Economics but it is a long way from science. The politicians rely on the Government Media agency for their daily information in WA. Just imagine the Warmist gatekeepers involved keep feeding them on BS.
50
Limestone deposits in warm shallow seas. Stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon in Arizona and you can see 300-600 million years worth of sequestered carbon dioxide. Kind of makes you think we are asking the wrong people to solve the problem.
110
CCS Carbon Capture and Storage (sequestration) Is a very costly way to throw away comparatively small and insignificant quantities of useful plant food.
90
emdh, I’m not having a go at you here, just pointing out the scale of this whole thing.
While you have the enormously expensive part correct, the second part where you mention comparatively small and insignificant quantities is not really quite correct.
With respect to just ONE large scale coal fired plant, that amount comes in at almost 19 Million tons each year, and over the expected 50 year lifespan for the plant that amount now balloons out to 930 Million tons of CO2.
ONE large scale coal fired power plant.
Can you see the scale now moving to the impossible end of belief.
Let’s transpose this across to currently existing U.S. coal fired fleet. Pretend all of that fleet could actually be replaced with like for like.
That would entail using the CCS process to capture and store 2.46 BILLION tons of CO2 each year with a 50 year projection of 123 Billion tons of CO2.
Then add on the 600 Million tons a year from the Natural Gas fired sector as well.
The scale of the whole thing eludes the Green supporters.
Tony.
170
China is a leader in CO2 production for FIZZ and SPIN.
Huaneng Company power plant in Southeast Beijing provides 10 percent of the capital’s electricity. The flue gasses come out and go into that absorption tower. Eighty-five percent of the CO2 is removed and absorbed into a chemical solvent. The CO2 is then purified, cooled and compressed into a liquid, and stored in this tank. A truck comes up and hooks up to this pipe and removes the CO2, just like filling a car with gas.
Huaneng’s plant can only extract and process less than 1 percent of the 5 million tons of CO2 it emits every year.
But it gets used in dry ice, filling fire extinguishers or puts the fizz in soda pop and carbonated beverages. Then when melted, sprayed or drunk, it’s back to the atmosphere. But just selling that tiny amount of CO2, Xu of Huaneng points out, covers the cost of capturing the carbon, not including Huaneng’s original investment. 🙂
This type of technology is about as far as China has progressed, and I doubt they will be heavily involved in CCS. No need really.
70
So CCS increases electricity by 70% – so much waste of resources – in 30 years time when global temps on planet Earth have dropped significantly there is going to be a lot of soul searching – I suspect from that point on there will no repeat of the “AGW fiasco” – legal processes will be put in place so that Theories like “AGW” have to satisfy a “stringent due process” – future “climate modelling” will no longer be adopted unless it is unequivocally & scientifically proved valid beyond any doubt. Certainly that would be a far cry from what is currently in vogue wrt “Climate Change Research of planet Earth”, much of which is based on GIGO computer modelling. Hopefully that time frame of 30 years is reduced to 10 years or less – this is more likely if the impending GM & associated LIA commence sooner than later.
50
Jo having read the article perhaps your intro might be more fitting if in your comments about CCS stories from Tonyfrom Oz, you change “and I must post them in their full glory” to “and I must post them in their full gory”
50
He He he
10
Jo I can’t imagine a more insane technology than CCS. Why? Because, apart form the expense and the futility, what it is actually doing is removing oxygen from the atmosphere. For every carbon atom there are two atoms of oxygen being sequestered away from our atmosphere. Utter madness.
60
Even Tim Flannery worked it out in 2010.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/flannery-ive-changed-my-mind-on-carbon-capture-20100526-we8u.html
40
I bet you CCS qualifies as “Direct Action” too. It’s a creation of the coal industry to suck cash from governments who want to look like they are doing something. It doesn;t have many friends on my side of the fence either.
210
That’s just too stupid. Please show to us all where any coal mining company has proposals for CCS.
50
I believe there are mines in Wyoming working with CCS ideas. Spent coal mines can apparently be used for CCS. I know my one senator Loves CCS, but probably because his kid benefits from the grants. Wait, that might help Mattb make his point–my bad.
Anyway, the idea that coal mines won’t find a way to milk the government of the US out of money is erroneous–considering oil, gas and coal eagerly snapped up wind and solar projects. They get a big subsidy, can say they care about the environment, yet face no challenge whatsoever from those sources. In fact, gas loves new wind projects. I means a new gas fired power plant for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun is in bed sleeping. Money’s money. Companies get if from wherever they can. Grants to study worthless energy sources spend just as well as money from selling coal or oil.
21
Sorry Sheri but I don’t think that is possible. When I visited Wyoming a few years back all the coal mines I saw were open cut, the biggies around Gilletee anyway.If there are any underground mines I think they would be shallow. For CO2 storage (as a super critical fluid)you need to bury it below about 800m depth were the theory is it will stay in that state within the rock pores – one reason why depeleted gas deposits are of interest.
00
Plenty of propositioning (or lip service to that effect) by the coal industry.
06/05/2008
03/09/2009
21/06/2013 ‘Clean coal’ money used to promote coal use
In summary, during John Howard’s reign the coal industry voluntarily set up a CCS R&D programme ostensibly to implement it in power plants but with no desire to ever actually do so.
10
the big plants in Victoria are essentially the same operation as the coal mines they are built upon/next to.
02
Right, we would expect no less from a Flim Flammery follower.
30
Actually, the idea and need originated with the power stations. That’s where the raw fuel is actually burnt so you can fill this screen with uninformed pixels
10
Personally I consider the users of coal to be part of the “coal industry”. I think you and BS are splitting hairs here.
05
So that would include you then.
20
Well, that effectively covers every Australian then. Where they live, where they shop, where they drive, where they work, etc etc etc.
And I don’t think that is splitting hairs. With 70% of all Australian power coming from coal fired sources, there’s nowhere you can go that does not consume that electrical power. Every grid has access to coal fired power.
Tony.
30
good to see we’ve leapt from one end of absurdity to the other here.
05
Unless YOU “Mattb” are 100% OFF THE GRID then YOU, by your own reasoning are also part of the coal industry….
Talk about an own goal !!
50
yeah… nah.
05
yep, just remain a total hypocrite.
But at least admit that you are one. !
30
“Mattb” what a very intelligent response.
00
The closest you give to an intelligent response is [SNIP]
00
I do not recall now where I read it but burying CO2 disposes of not only one carbon atom but also two oxygen atoms. They are burying the very oxygen we want to breathe! If instead the CO2 is left in the atmosphere plants not only turn it back into oxygen for is to breathe but also make food to go along with it. What foolishness is it to pay $$ to bury it instead.
60
The U.S. Navy has accumulated over 5,400 “reactor years” of accident-free experience, and operates more than 80 nuclear-powered ships.
80
And the Russians are selling their old submarine reactors, fitted to barges, that you can tie up in the local marina, to add supplemental power back into the grid.
I can’t understand why they haven’t had any takers in places like the Florida Keys, or Long Beach. 😉
40
Im so over carbon lol
20
Yes let’s just bury it and move on.
Or not!
20
But what if it “seeps into the groundwater”? Tap water might become polluted, and fizzy? Then considered dangerous, and then there will be a ban on Coca Cola… which has a “C”s in the name and therefore clearly is related to carbon.
60
Whatever pops your cork, baby.
40
Ha ha ha.
But seriously – if only I could.
getting old.
but maybe not that old.
KK
10
CCS is the most bizarre and inane process I have ever come across.
Even the “Scientific’ CSIRO has a CCS programme but I think it is really just a front for genuine research into coal combustion techniques.
If that is the case I would have a lot more respect for CSIRO.
They are in a difficult position, caught between an insane political construct, CAGW, and the survival imperative to “get that funding”.
KK
If we really have to do CCS why not just use trees and grass?
50
By sequestering CO2 presumably by burying it, are they not in fact laying the foundations for making fossil fuels?. If so that’s irony with a capital FFS. The way I see it if Gaia were a living entity then coal and oil would be it’s (her?) DNA. These people are truly dumb, can’t think logically and laterally. They only get away with it because we as a society don’t kick enough journalist arse.
50
Ceetee
You are not that far off when you say that burying CO2 might be laying the foundations for fossil fuel.
The US Navy has a research project to do just that, to convert CO2 by hydrogenation into hydrocarbon fuels so as to overcome the logistics problems of supplying 600 million [ US ] gallons of fuel [ for year 2011 ] to US Navy ships around the world.
For jet aviation fuel the price delivered to the aircraft carriers comes in around the US$6 / US gallon. For around that price the US Navy using their Aircraft Carrier nuclear reactors that are their power source has calculated they can produce their own on board requirements for aviation fuel by hydrogenating CO2 to convert it to the required military aviation fuel standards.
Rather than repeating the processes involved you can read a couple of articles.
First from the US Navy’s Fleet News
Fueling the Fleet, Navy Looks to the Seas
Another article of quite a number on this development is from Oil Price
U.S. Navy Investigates Making Jet Fuel from Seawater
i don’t think this is a done deal as yet but the technology has been developed. So if the Lockheed Martin SkunkWorks Fusion Reactor technology is proven up experiementally by 2017 as the skunk works is claiming will be the case and thats about all the information they have released, and serial production of the transportable Fusion, note I said Fusion reactors have a time table of being in production by about 2022.
IF the Skunkworks Fusion Reactor technology is proven out as a commercially viable energy generation technology then every other energy source becomes obsolete almost overnight as mankind will finally have an almost completely clean, endless and almost limitless supply of energy until eternity.
High beta fusion reactor
Video of Charles Chase presenting the LM Skunkworks reactor program at the Google’s “Solve for X” forum is on this site.
Nuclear Fusion in Five Years?
This video which has a wide circulation in the energy blogs is about the only release of the Skunkworks fusion reactor technology program into the public domain
We can but hope that Lockheed Martin and it’s SkunkWorks have got it right and just perhaps due to the confidence with which they have published their time llne for the development of their Fusion Reactor, they have already solved the major problems inherent in developing a radical energy generation technology that is on the very fringes of known and achievable physics.
30
That’s fantastic. It’s amazing what real, professional people can do without the ideological constraints of the politically hidebound. Just don’t let the enviros know or else there will be legions of boiler suited whackos chaining themselves to every piece of Navy equipment in sight. Thanks for your post. I will definitely be reading up on it.
20
When this idea of making jet fuel on board carriers was first mooted I remember remarking that the sheer volume of the carrier that needs to be dedicated to making fuel means that the carrier would be unable to carry aircraft. There is no spare space on warships, so to install a large chemical plant would require the removal of something, and the only something is the armament.
20
Agreed.
First they would need to hydrolyse water for hydrogen. That means some way of storing hydrogen (note it can pass through some metals) and also the potassium hydroxide used in the generator.
Then they would need a plant to remove CO2 from the air. Getting something out a concentration of 0.04% is hard…perhaps patriotic Americans could help by increasing that percentage.
Then they would need a plant to convert the CO2 with hydrogen in one section, and another section to make the fuel.
Perhaps the carrier could pull a 20,000 ton trailer?
00
Jet aviation fuel is Kerosene, if memory serves me correctly. That is not the same as oil or petrol.
00
Yep Jet A1 is like unleaded kerosene, more refined(pure)and a bit lighter than diesel obtained from the fractional distilation process.
20
Carbon capture is insanely dangerous. Inevitably someone, somewhere will overfill a geological reservoir, located conveniently near population centres. Here is an idea of what might happen when the reservoir cracks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos#1986_disaster
The amount of CO2 release by Lake Nyos is equivalent to the CO2 emitted by a large coal power station in a couple of weeks. A similar disaster near a major city could kill millions.
110
I think you are right Eric,
A very very bad idea!
30
Very true. I used to work summers in the yeast cellar of a brewery. There were strict procedures to follow and long waiting times before climbing down into the fermentation tubs to wash and scrub, or into the storage tanks.
Carbone dioxide rolling along a slope will suffocate people. In high doses it feels like inhaling a super-sour sweet through your nose. Hits you like a hammer.
60
Sorry Eric, I duplicated that same link higher up DOH!
I’ve done Confined Space training for work and CO2 in very high doses is not good, as is the affects in scuba diving where it produces a narcosis type effect which mostly is blamed on Nitrogen buildup in the bloodstream but often CO2 is the culprit.
20
Sorry Yonniestone, but the normal hazard in confined spaces is low oxygen level or the presence of toxic gas. Carbon dioxide is rarely or never tested for.
As far as CO2 producing narcotic effects (like nitrogen under pressure) there should not be more than 0.04% of CO2 in your compressed air. Any more than that and you are using contaminated air, not good. A level of CO2 above this could change the blood chemistry particularly pH beyond safe levels with fatal but non-narcotic effects.
10
That is not a bug, it is a feature for the so called environmentalists. It accomplishes three things: slowing down development of energy supply, vastly increasing the cost of the energy produced, and eliminating large numbers of humans. All accomplished by one easy to communicate policy that grants almost unlimited power and control over the economy.
30
Good one Eric,
This was mentioned some time ago as well but not in relation to CCS just the CO2 aspect of it.
There may be, some speculation, that the low lying CO2 effect is also linked to the deaths of first born in the bible stories.
Apparently all the family slept on the top of buildings and first born down below in the favored ” cool” location.
They were, according to legend, the ones within the range of suffocating CO2.
Also read a comment that said that this theory was not true.
What’s true. may not be true but sounds plausible.
KK
10
This was under the perfect conditions–valleys that filled with the gas that expelled all at once. I’m not understanding why this is a problem.
02
People died.?
Suffocated.
30
Sheri. IF you put gas underground, there is a very high probablity of it be expelled.
And there is nowhere near enough of “underground” to make the slightest bit of difference anyway.
MUCH safer and MUCH more BENEFICIAL to leave it in sensible uncompressed form in the atmosphere WHERE IT BELONGS.
40
Not really like Lake Nyos Eric. Lake Nyos was gaseous CO2 at the bottom of the lake- max depth about 250m.
For geological storage the CO2 is as a super critical fluid at pressures above 100 bar which means depths greater than about 800m and temperatures above 31C. The geology needs to be right but CO2 has been used in enhanced oil and gas recovery for yonks so the technology is nothing new.
More a matter of do we need it and economics.
10
“CO2 has been used in enhanced oil and gas recovery”
That’s because it acts as a lubricant, also helping to force the oil/gas out.
It increases pressures in already pressurised geo systems.
Its akin to fracking.
Just tell the pseudo-enviros that, and they’ll be totally against it…….
…… or will they ? !!!
30
I’ll repeat that for those that didn’t catch it..
CO2 is used to force oil and gas through FRACTures in the rocks.
And they want to try and sequester it… seriously ??? !!!
20
I’ll repeat that for those that didn’t catch it- that’s you Andy (reservoir engineer now are we?)
CO2 doesn’t “act(s) as a lubricant”- seriously ???!!! that’s funny
Back to school for you I think – CO2 is used in enhanced recovery and has been for years to force (without lubricant- ouch)gas from the rock p-o-r-e-s and replace it- no fracturing (that’s fraccing without a k)involved- don’t want to damage your reservoir now do we(not dealing with shale gas here). CO2 behaves very similar to CH4, push the CO2 in one end and force the CH4 out the other.Sorry but sequestering CO2 already happens-but don’t tell the greenies (or Andy).
00
Oh forgot to add that with oil CO2 is miscible and may reduce the viscosity and lower pore surface tension- ah is that your lubricant? still funny
00
IAEA fixated on Iran for years, yet they haven’t bothered to visit Fukushima for two years! almost no MSM coverage of this visit:
15 Oct: Arirang News, South Korea: IAEA experts begin week-long assessment of Fukushima clean-up
The first IAEA visit to Fukushima in two years comes as Tokyo continues to come under international criticism for its sluggish response to the nuclear contamination…
http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=152208
anyone hear a word of the following in the MSM:
11 Oct: Voice of America: Daniel Schearf: S. Korea Charges 100 Officials Over Nuclear Reactor Corruption
SEOUL – South Korea has charged 100 officials and suppliers in its nuclear energy industry with corruption over faked safety certificates for nuclear reactor parts. The scandal, coming on the heels of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, has led to much criticism about how the nuclear industry is regulated…
Two senior executives are among those charged: the former CEO at Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power and the vice president of Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO)…
A minister in the government office of policy coordination, Kim Dong-yeon, announced the charges Thursday. He said they investigated 10 year’s worth of safety certificates for parts at South Korea’s 20 operating nuclear reactors.
He said 277 of those documents were found to be forged, and 7,733 parts relevant to the documents have been replaced…
The probe also discovered South Korea’s nuclear reactors had to be quickly shut down 128 times in the last decade because of faulty parts…
Analysts and officials say a culture of corruption was created as former nuclear regulatory and industry officials were allowed to swap jobs…
The Fukushima disaster had already dropped support for nuclear power, and South Korea’s own nuclear scandal is raising further questions…
http://www.voanews.com/content/s-korea-charges-100-officials-over-nuclear-reactor-corruption/1767603.html
presumably this is the source of the “parts” in the VOA report. why didn’t they say so?
15 Oct: Saudi Gazette: Editorial: Japanese nuclear scandal
For the last 40 years, Japan’s reputation for excellence, from everything from consumer electronics to the revolutionary bullet trains thru its precise and unique cuisine to its automobiles, has been one of its greatest assets.
But something has gone wrong…
An official report has found that in the 10 years to 2012, at least 40 percent of the nuclear reactor parts Japan made and exported to 18 countries were not checked but were given forged documentation, saying that they had been.
Every component of a nuclear reactor has to be of the highest quality. Yet Japan was selling overseas critical items such as reactor pressure vessels and control rod drives, which regulate the rate of nuclear fission within the rector core, that had not undergone crucial safety tests.
First indications are that more than $500 million of this potentially faulty equipment was sold.
There is now alarm at nuclear power plants around the world as managements rush to check if they have been sold the uncertified components. If they have, it is likely that the reactors will have to be taken offline for safety. Given the complexity of checking irradiated components, any suspect part may simply have to be replaced. The resulting cost in lost power production and income together with the sourcing of properly-checked
components will be enormous. It is not only that Japan’s reputation for engineering excellence is now seriously compromised, but its nuclear industry also seems certain to behit by a colossally expensive financial tsunami of international litigation…
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20131016183727
apart from West Australian & Time Magazine, no MSM has published the following:
16 Oct: Reuters: Osamu Tsukimori/Rebekah Kebede: Japan on gas, coal power building spree to fill nuclear void
Japan plans to start up 14 new gas and coal-fired power plants by the end of 2014, allowing a switch away from pricey oil, as Tokyo struggles with a shutdown of nuclear reactors and energy imports drive a record trade deficit.
Regional power monopolies will construct 12 gas-fired units next year, while two new coal power plants will be completed by December 2013, according to a Reuters survey of utilities…
Prior to Fukushima, nuclear power accounted for about 30 percent of electricity and at this stage Japan may have only four nuclear reactors back operating by March 2015, the Institute of Energy Economics Japan says…
The two coal-fired units due to start commercial operations in December will add 1.6 gigawatts online from the current 39 gigawatts. Building two plants that produce 1.6 gigawatts would cost about $2.4 billion, according to the IEA…
Japan’s coal imports are set to hit another record over the next year, but the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) has said oil use at power plants could fall 10 to 20 percent this winter from a year earlier…
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/japan-power-outlook-idINL4N0HN02X20131016
10
Just what they need in Europe. Taking nuclear plants off-line when winter is upon them.
At least the UK plants are so old that the Japanese probably never bothered making anything for them. If they did, watch out as the UK freezes. 4% reserve capacity??????
Ludendorff was right about the english being led by donkeys.
30
Hi Pat, thanks for your most informative posts. Adds to my paltry wealth of knowledge.
Keep up the good work.
10
My good friend, John Harborne, a metallurgist, wrote a critique of carbon capture/clean coal in 2009 . Nothing has changed; like every aspect of AGW it is a scam.
30
Good overview article, although there is something concerning about the SG of 0.65 for the near-liquid CO2,that must be at the surface as it is much much higher at subsurface reservoir conditions.
00
Bishop Hill (UK) is reporting that British electricity costs have been estimated to have been responsible for the thousands of excess winter deaths (of the elderly and poor) in the UK over the last 5 hard winters and sadly reflects that the number is 2/3 of the deaths that the Luftwaffe achieved during WW2. Eco-fascists indeed.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/10/10/the-cost-of-climate.html
40
Consider this a troll. 🙂
If you guys aren’t getting enough rage overload from CCS, sink your teeth into this:
What? A company minimizing tax? Surely not!
But wait a second, what exactly is wrong with wanting to keep your own money?
Hell, I’d be doing the same thing if knew how – and if I thought I could get away with it. But even if it is perfectly legal, the government bureaucracy will still find a way to fine you, shut you down, or send you to jail.
Remember good old Paul Hogan? Well the ATO had a fine time with him. It was clearly a psy-op with the aim of sending a message to every Australian: If Paul Hogan can’t get away with minimizing tax, neither can you. In case you think I am just leaping to his defense without knowing if he was really doing a dodgy, let’s just remind ourselves of this rather important sentence in Their ABC’s report of the affair’s conclusion in 2012:
No charges were ever laid and Hogan consistently denied any wrongdoing.
No charges were ever laid.
The ATO has no trouble getting all the evidence they need in tax evasion cases, they have some of the best digital forensics and fraud investigators in the game. But they either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bring an actual criminal charge against Hogan.
Now here is Westfield UK operating legally out of a tax shelter in the Jersey islands, with the net effect being…uh… rent on shops in their malls is lower than it would otherwise be so all the goods and services on sale there are slightly more affordable to the public.
Oh the humanity! How will the unproductive bottom-feeders get their government handouts if the Filthy Rich aren’t shaken down for every penny.
Maybe the bottom feeders don’t need as much in handouts if goods and services are more affordable?
Sorry, I’m making sense again, aren’t I? It’s a temporary affliction, m’Lud, merely a passing fever.
Now realise that you as an individual should have no less a right to keep your own money legally than Westfield. Property rights are for everyone. All this bile stirred up against Westfield is an attempt to fool the sheeple into attacking themselves, by eroding their own rights with the same stroke of the pen that erodes Westfield’s.
50
Haven’t the trolls gone quiet? 🙂
50
Backslider,
I can see them now.
“Huh! What the hell are they talking about?”
Tony.
50
Speaking of trolls, has anyone heard from ‘Maxine’ since Tony Abbott became PM?
Maybe someone should check on his/her welfare. I expect to find a quivering person, naked in the foetal position, with their thumb in their mouth uttering “Abbott will never be PM” over and over again.
21
I am still trying to work out who BiLB is a reincarnation of.
21
Kind of like a cross between Catamon and Michael the Activist, with a little bit of Brookes condescension thrown in.
21
Dont tell me they are getting together and breeding
21
**shudder**
21
Oooh. The anonymous Red Thumb Fairy. I sooooooooo sad.
21
“Don’t tell me they are getting together and breeding”
I think they are probably all the same gender..
They may try… but will not succeed.
00
People like that don’t breed, they are spat on the wall and hatched by the sun!
11
That is akin to a parasitic wasp but still a form of breeding i believe Yonnie.
11
Yes but still bypasses the need to copulate which is what I thought you were alluding to. 🙂
The saying is probably more blue collar humor and is actually a bit rough when I think about it.
10
They’re snug in bed. Suddenly it was too cold for them.
Possibly due to a cyclone next year causing cold air from the Arctic to move down. Or perhaps Mommy told them to go.
30
It’s like MattB said, they don’t really approve of CCS as a solution anyway. There’s not much for them to argue here.
Maybe they are secretly meeting in the not-so-secret vaults under Parliament house, in the dark, hatching macabre plans where Tonekiel‘s growing Green army cannot see them. They are scrabbling around down there underneath the hill, babbling to themselves in their madness, desperately looking for the One Thing To Rule Them All.
30
As I have said for a long, long time the only acceptable way to sequester CO2 is to feed it to plants which turn it into Oxygen and Carbohydrates (Food). The lunacy of burying two atoms of oxygen for each CO2 atom permanently removing such oxygen from the atmosphere is incredibly stupid, especially when we have perfectly good methods of sequestering CO2 that do no harm at all (The afore-mentioned plants). If Australia simply legislated that just 5% of private lands (or equivalent) be treed that would completely offset our emissions.
Now taking into account that Bio Productivity due to increasing CO2 has increased 6% and Australia Absorbs some 10 – 20 times what it emits anyway. The increased productivity of photosynthesis in Australia Represents 0.06 x 10 – 20 or 60-120% of our emissions. Australia’s increased bio productivity has already reduced our net production of C02 by 60% or more simply because we are at least a 10 x net sink of CO2 and plants get better at using CO2 as we make more of it.
Now let’s get at the other 40%, that would require us to expand forests by a mere 4% on what they are now to achieve a 100% offset ( or we could just do nothing and wait until CO2 reaches a level where the bio productivity reaches 10 %). Now think about it some more – there is absolutely no reason why those forests should not be income producing EG Fruit/Food trees, or for fuel, building materials (yay, more Jarrah) or even paper.
This is why an ETS is hopelessly flawed, it takes a process that can be achieved at a PROFIT, and puts a subsidy on it, this just increases the profits of a few while making everyone else poorer, it’s the perfect way to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich – which is exactly the effect it’s having in Africa where indigenous land-owners are being murdered or moved from their lands to make way for carbon credit producing crops. I see no reason why anyone should be paying for abatement that can be produced at a profit other than those taking the profit!
Plant trees, noone could object to that, even I wont care and I’m probably the biggest global warming sceptic on the planet. It’s cheap, economically sensible for agricultural prosperity, self regulating and utterly harmless. It’s the ONLY form of abatement that makes any sense at all
Sorry Jo, I’ll return you all to your regular program now
/rant
40
“Plant trees, no-one could object to that, even I wont care and I’m probably the biggest global warming sceptic on the planet. It’s cheap, economically sensible for agricultural prosperity, self regulating and utterly harmless. It’s the ONLY form of abatement that makes any sense at all”
Hey, but that’s Liberal party policy..
ABC, ALP, Fairfax, Greens and other far left donkeys, would never agree to that.
70
Nope! No need to plant trees.
Specifically planting trees to take up CO2 is just another great con game.
Grasses, ferns, shrubs, grain crops ocean algae and diatoms, any vegetative matter of any sort with a photosynthetic ability takes in CO2, splits the CO2 molecule using photosynthesis, uses the carbon along with nitrogen and other elements to create sugars that provide the energy drive the plants metabolic systems and releases the Oxygen back into the atmosphere through the plant’s leaf stomata.
Trees are spectacular and striking and so are given the credence for being the world’s great CO2 sinks.
The reality is that anything with a photosynthetic ability takes up CO2 and the amount of bio-mass and the incorporation of the carbon into the soil by that plant species so raising soil fertility over a long term is the true measure of CO2 uptake by a biological system which may or may not include trees..
The only real difference is that the CO2 taken up by the grasses and other plant systems have a much higher CO2 turnover rate than do trees and forests which as they age and die eventually become, from being net up-takers of CO2,to becoming net contributors to the atmospheric CO2 as decay and rot set in.
Quite a few years ago I came across an american study that looked at the prairie grasses uptake of CO2 compared to a forest of similar area’s uptake of CO2.
The data said that over the time period of the life of the forest of a century or more, the prairie grasses over the same period actually took up and stored more carbon in increased soil carbon content ie; soil fertility, than compared to that of the forests.
And as for planting trees, no need.
Nature is doing the job all by itself without our assistance which is often quite deleterious because we plant species of trees in areas where they are not adequately adapted to and so we actually slow down the CO2 uptake compared to Nature which just uses species completely adapted to the local environment and therefore arguably has the highest rate of increase in bio-mass and soil carbon increase, the true measure of the uptake of CO2.
Thats if you are concerned about the levels of CO2, Something I think we need atmospheric CO2 levels closer to a 750 to a1500 PPM level for maximum biosphere increases and to have the ability to be able to feed the projected 9 billions of humans on this planet by about 2040 or 2050..
I started flying in 1959 in Tiger Moths before moving onto gliding in 1963. I have often commented to my friends on how the amount of timber / trees I now see in the whole of western and central Victoria and SE South Australia that I have flown over for some 55 year, compared to when I first started flying is now perhaps at least double that of 55 years ago when the great clearing of land for farming and grazing was coming to an end.
The horizon as seen when flying is now black with trees. The road sides with their old sad declining stands of Mallees are now much more heavily timbered with the regenerated Mallees.
The areas of timber around homesteads and houses and in the more remote areas of the farms that were kept for protection from wind and the elements by the earlier settlers and for shelter for livestock have had the livestock excluded for a couple of decades or more past and are now recovering with much of the tiny critters and plants again covering the ground compared to the sad partly eroded earth between those sparse timbers of the past times.
We don’t need to do anything. We just need to stand well back and to stuff our arrogance and hubris into our back pockets. We need to stop interfering with Nature’s own abilities to do what Nature does best. And that is often quite contrary to what we think should be the correct way for Nature to act
We just need to get out of the way of Nature and let Nature do what Nature does best And that is to create the world that we call “Natural”
40
I agree, if we just leave things alone the plants will come, happens in my own back yard where I now have a bunch of ironbarks I didn’t have 2 years ago:-), but Politically the government needs to be seen to do something. Planting trees is the only really harmless thing they can do, and the only way I can see to claim abatement, while making oxygen, food and remediating salt laden land all while making a profit.
That’s why it should be done it’s harmless and solves the political problem of backing out of the climate fraud while still saving face. Yes I want to see the climate fraud busted and laid bare and the fraudsters prosecuted, but we all know that isn’t going to happen – not by a politician anyway. We must give the politicians the means to back out.
10
Your point well made, bobl.
00
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, ROM.
NO plant naturally “sequesters” carbon beyond the life of the plant itself. Everything, from wild grasses to mighty oak trees eventually die, rot and return their CO2 to the atmosphere. The carbon content only becomes “sequestered” if the product is harvested while living, and turned into something useful and lasting.
Hence trees, which can be turned into houses and furniture that may last a hundred years (and then have the timber recycled into something else), are a much better bet than straw used for thatching which might last five years at best. But trees of a usable size take twenty years to grow, and the same land could grow 20 crops of straw over the same time period.
So the best plants for “sequestering” carbon are those that convert CO2 into growth the fastest, with the end-product capable of being used for an extended period of time. There is no guess work involved in working out which plants best fit the requirements. Extensive field trials a hundred years ago provided the answer.
The supreme plant for sequestering carbon in a form that allows it to be used for an extended period of time, is Cannabis. A distant second (although still miles ahead of anything else), is bamboo. The fact that neither are grown in Australia (where they thrive) in commercial quantities is mute testimony to power of hysterical ignorance over logical reasoning.
30
Why was the first thing I thought of here was railway sleepers.
Tony.
40
It all depends on your time frame. If you only want to see CO2 reduced during your short stay on this earth then I guess trees will do the job and the next Gen can deal with the so called, falsely in my view, problem of increasing atmospheric CO2
If we look at the longer term then we have a real problem in that there is an increasing dearth of CO2 for biological processes due to so much CO2 being locked up through CO2 using biological processes in the carbonate rocks of this planet.
Coal is the archetypal sequestering of CO2 by biological means.
Soil carbon which is pretty permanent is another where grasses as they decompose sequester carbon from the CO2 using biological processes into the soil.
The greatest sequestering of carbon / CO2 is as Sean October 16, 2013 at 2:32 pm points out above is in the calcium carbonate sedimentary rocks, The chalks, lime stones, shales and etc in extraordinary amounts and vast layers through out the global land surfaces which were created down through the eons of time as almost uncountable numbers of tiny sea creatures with shells made from calcium carbonate [ CaCO3 ] died and their skeletal remains drifted down to the ocean floors to form those calcium carbonate sedimentary rock formations.
Calcium carbonate
The one nobody ever mentions. The ocean CO2 sequestration system at work as always even today.
Limestone-Forming Environment – Marine
10
Well actually plants and grasses do sequester carbon semi-permanently if you count 20,000 or 30,000 years as semi permanent.
They do it via “plant-stones” or more correctly “phytoliths”,
Phytoliths are silica type grains in the grass species plant stems in particular but occurs in all plant species to a greater or lesser extent in which the carbon is locked into the molecular structure of the silica phytolith / plant-stone.
Plantstone
10
Sorry to disillusion you Tony.
But railways sleepers are nearly all made of precast concrete nowadays.
And making cement releases HEAPS of luvly CO2 🙂
10
The supreme plant for sequestering carbon in a form that allows it to be used for an extended period of time, is Cannabis…
I have a problem keeping it for weeks much less “extended” periods of time. Tell me about your research….maann, it must be faaarr out.
30
ummm.. I suspect he means , in its fibrous form. 🙂
00
“The supreme plant for sequestering carbon in a form that allows it to be used for an extended period of time, is Cannabis”
I think you need to be a bit more specific about the actual variety.
The cannabis most lefties know, generally goes up in smoke pretty quickly, not really sequestering much CO2 at all.
I think you mean the variety that can be used for rope, mats, etc etc etc.
And I suspect could also be formed into pretty good structural timbers with modern technology.
10
The idea that different species have markedly higher or lower THC is a bit of a myth. All three varieties have THC, AND produce fibre and oils with a multitude of purposes. All three varieties readily interbreed.
The most common variety for both production and recreation is Sativa, but this more of a historical and geographical development than anything else. Indicus gives a higher “high”, and is used to produce hashish.
Hybrid varieties with particularly low THC content are the result of selective breeding programs by wannabe commercial fibre producers to satisfy the wowser crowd. Hybrid varieties with particularly high THC content are also the result of selective breeding to maximise THC content and utilise other properties.
For instance, Northern Lights is a cross-breed of Sativa and Indicus to maximise THC content and produce big, Sativa-like plants. Skunk, on the other hand, is a Northern Lights type hybrid crossed with the Russian variety Ruderalis, to produce small, bushy plants, which are easier to conceal.
.
I only know this ‘cos I heard a couple of guys talking about it the pub one night.
20
I think the point is that growing and using plants for structural purposes only really sequesters the carbon for a very short time in the grand scheme.
The only real sequestered carbon is coal, and some proportion of underground gas.
We need to keep releasing this sequestered carbon to continue the development of the human species. The two undoubtedly go hand in hand, as history shows.
As soon as we started demonising CO2, things started to stall and degrade. Economies start to crumble.
(or did things start to degrade and this led to the demonisation of CO2? 😉
21
red thumb.. grow some b**ls and identify yourself
Tell me where I am wrong.
10
Why do the so called Green environmentalists (who are anything but) so eager to destroy businesses and cause rampant death to humans by pricing electricity out of reach of everyone? They must hate humans so much (except themselves of course).
71
A scourge on mankind!!!
21
I have come to the conclusion it is a form of self flagellation. People with overly developed environmental consciences take on the “sins” of mankind in exactly the same way as many people have over the ages.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/209255/flagellation
The delusion of hating yourself and everyone like you in order to somehow repent for your collective “wrongdoing” has not changed really changed in 2000 years. The methods and outcomes however have shifted away from wearing itchy underclothes and whipping oneself with a thong (sadly) resulting in discomfort, infection and sometime death. To simply ensuring your own welfare and that of your children while openly condemning millions of other human beings to death in order to protect “the environment”. Its now more of a case of “we will flagellate you” than “I will flagellate myself” though. That’s mainly because the proponents these days are mostly small, weak and cowardly people who have few aspirations for themselves and despise aspiration in others. So having the courage to negatively affect their own situation is not likely to be within their ability, they are therefore reduced to vicarious flagellation via normal people who’s only crime is to not share their delusion.
The unbelievable hypocrisy of the argument that “we have to think of future generations” when it is provably the case that green policies are killing people right now, continues to just blow my mind. Well off environmental self abusers in the first world are casually condemning the third world to a slowing in development that will undoubtedly result in the unnecessary deaths of millions.
Energy = development opportunity and development opportunity = potential for improved human conditions and dignity. By denying developing nations the RIGHT to the same level of development we have enjoyed, the human hating eco loons create the very conditions of poverty, starvation and lack of access to modern health essentials that they predict MAY happen if we continue “ignore AGW”.
One thing I have found to be true in so many cases, I regard it as basically a rule. The more shrill the claims of an environmentally deluded AGW disciple, the more likely they are to be completely detached from real world issues like seeking employment, cost of living pressure, access to services etc etc (think Tim Flannery).
As you rightly point out, these people have ensured their own 21st century lifestyle while howling like banshees that no one else should be allowed to aspire to that very same lifestyle. Look at MattB’s post a little way up. Spitting venom at the coal industry and anyone who is part of it “including the users” in his own words and all the while typing his poorly thought through nonsense on a computer powered by a national energy grid including sources of power provided by coal. If ignorance is bliss, then these people spend their days in a personal utopia that must see them wandering about grinning like imbeciles most of the time.
They are almost without fail tax payer funded, they are either students, unemployed or from education, the public service, QUANGOs or similar. Basically the people they want to bend over, pay their wages in almost every case I can think of. They suck the public purse in worthless positions with pointless organisations like “The Climate Institute”, its Yes Minister without the funny bits.
Ive said it before and Ill say it again. If you don’t like the modern world then GET OUT! Have the courage of your convictions for pities sake and put down your iPhone, your tablet and your tablets. Strip naked and wander off into the bush where you belong, we dont need you and frankly your cowardly carping is just annoying. Finally if you want less population in the world, again, man up and start at home, preferably with yourself.
50
An interesting article by Greg Sheridan in The Australian today.
The title: ‘The Great Climate Fiction’
For the benefit of non subscribers a copy and paste.
Something that a lot of Australians are unaware of.
40
Philip Adams latest anti sceptic spitting exercise saw him reach an embarrassing new low the other night.
He spoke to a American woman who is also a fiction writer and devout Hindu, who believes the reason climate science is not understood by the mainstream is that no one has formed it into a “narrative story” based on Hindu values. I mean of course!!! Genius!! Why didn’t I think of that, its got nothing to do with science, sceptics just don’t know a good story when they hear one right?
Keep in mind this is yet another example of the group who claim to have 97% support continuing to perpetrate the fantasy that at the same time they are an oppressed minority monstered by millions of screaming sceptics…. its pathetic really…
Listen to this garbage and marvel at the sorry stupidity of the utterly deluded mind.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/communicating-climate-change-and-food-security/5016852
Its not a long interview but they somehow mange to pack in every logical fallacy known to man and interspace the nonsense with some Ad Hom. against anyone with a view that does not perfectly align with ABC propaganda.
If that wasn’t ironic enough for you…. the next story on the show was about the re-release of Mao’s lil red book. How very fitting.
40
Every Hindu I know reckons global warming is rubbish.
Tried to listen to the link but my Avast free spyware refused to let it play.
I remember a few years ago when one of those religious people knocked on my door to spread the faith of God. You know, wanting to give me a pamphlet and the such?
I explained that I have no problem with religion as long as it does not impinge on my rights and freedoms. Live and let live.
The conversation then switched to the Global Warming Doomsday Cult that have invaded our households by way of connection to the power grid.
We must of chatted for over a half an hour. Anyway, sent him off with some food for thought…a book by Chris Berg on Freedom and a Monckton CD.
I’m in the wrong business!
Oh, by the way…love your typo (mange) which might be an excellent Freudian slip.
20
CO2 has nothing to do with the phony global warming. CO2 is needed in the air, to benefit the trees and crops: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/
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15 Oct: UK Telegraph: Claire Carter: Wind farm being torn down for scrap
A wind farm that has been in the Yorkshire Dales for two decades is being torn down, and is believed to be the first to be scrapped in the UK.
The four wind turbines, measuring 45 metres high, were put up in the 1990s but haven’t worked for years…
Locals said they had blighted the landscape and hadn’t worked for three quarters of the time they had been at the site in the Yorkshire Dales.
Peter Rigby, who helped set up the Parishoners Against the Chelker Turbines, said: “It’s been a hell of a fight but we have proved it is possible to stop wind farms.
“In recent years the turbines have hardly ever worked – they have turned the area into an industrial graveyard and look like rotting tooth stumps.” …
The local council also refused plans to build two even larger machines on the same site beside the 57-acre Chelker Reservoir at Addingham, near Ilkley in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park…
Yorkshire Water appointed a contractor to remove the turbines and said it would not be appealing the council’s decision to refuse permission for the two taller turbines.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10381752/Wind-farm-being-torn-down-for-scrap.html
00
Thanks Pat for that but I’m not particularly surprised as it fits in with a study by the UK’s Renewable Energy Foundation and is to use a metaphor, another straw in the wind as to the future of wind power.
To quote from the publications section of the RNF, a study by Proff Gordon Hughes ;
The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark
A quote from the Executive Summary of this study;
If somebody was looking to produce the most inefficient, most unreliable, most variable, most costly, most corrupt and most intrusive energy generation system ever they would be battling to get past the present day wind turbine power generation industry.
A poster who holds a very senior position in the conventional power generation industry told me on another forum that due to the extremely high costs of some major maintenance items on the turbines, they will allow a number of turbines to go out of action until it warrants the cost of getting a specialised crane in to do the heavy lifting needed for some maintenance work on the turbines.
You can imagine the costs or maybe not, of doing this sort of maintenance kilometres out in the ocean on the off shore turbines.
Wind energy like so much of the crap associated with this global warming cult is fast becoming just another very costly and corrupt farce imposed upon a well meaning populace by a few corrupt carpetbaggers and politicals who care for nothing except only for their own personal wealth, influence and power.
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14 Oct: UK Daily Mail: Helen Collis: Coal will surpass oil as the key fuel for the global economy by 2020 despite government efforts to reduce carbon emissions
Economic growth in China and India are driving global demand for coal
Coal is plentiful and more affordable for both China and India
Coal demand in the U.S., Europe and rest of Asia will remain steady
Marking a return to an era reminiscent of Britain’s industrial revolution, the rapidly expanding economies in the East are turning to coal since it is cheaper and more reliable than oil or renewable energy sources, energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said on Monday…
China – already the top consumer – will drive two-thirds of the growth in global coal use this decade. Half of China’s power generation capacity to be built between 2012 and 2020 will be coal-fired, said Woodmac…
Coal will generate nearly half of Southeast Asia’s electricity by 2035, up from less than a third now, the International Energy Agency said in early October.
This will contribute to a doubling of the region’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to 2.3 gigatonnes by 2035, according to the IEA.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2458631/Coal-surpass-oil-key-fuel-global-economy-2020-despite-government-efforts-reduce-carbon-emissions.html
20
This might be a little off theme, but I’ve noticed there is a comparative absence of paid-for advertising about greenhouse effects.
I can go a full, lazy day watching telly and listening to the radio, without being berated about production of CO2.
Why is this?
We read of clever people like Fenton Communications being active globally in pushing the CO2 story, but all I’m seeing is the usual cluster of academics standing up and saying academic things. They are less frequent now than they were 5 years ago. The BoM does most of the heavy hauling for climate alarm, but without much reference to CO2 and not with paid advertising.
In Melbourne, a company advertising blinds gets more coverage now than global warming does.
……………………
My private theory is that they have cottoned on to their legal liabilities if the CO2 bubble bursts and they are shown to have circulated fraudulent or dodgy material.
41
One may hope 🙂
The threat of hefty legal sanctions (yea verily, to the point of bankruptcy) is the only sure way of getting the attention of the various editors-in-chief and pushing them to peddle their agendas sideways
40
Repealing Australia’s carbon price to cost billions: analysts
BEIJING, Oct 16 (Reuters Point Carbon) Attempts by Australia’s conservative government to repeal the naton’s carbon price could cost the country billion of dollars and is delaying investment, analysts and lobbyists said Wednesday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2644525?&ref=searchlist
17 Oct: BusinessSpectator: Carbon tax repeal could be costly
The Abbott government has been warned that it could face a liability worth up to $4 billion in payments it may have to make to Australia’s largest polluters if it goes ahead with plans to repeal the carbon tax, according to The Australian Financial Review.
The payments would reportedly be made as compensation to businesses issued free carbon permits beyond the planned date to scrap the carbon tax.
The AFR reported that the payments could be worth up to $4 billion if the carbon tax is not abolished by the end of October 2014…
Business groups have warned that delaying the plans would create uncertainty for companies that would prove costly for businesses and consumers.
***The Abbott government has denied it would be liable for the payments, arguing that the legislation designed to back-date the carbon tax’s repeal to July 1, 2014 would eliminate the case for compensation.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/10/17/politics/carbon-tax-repeal-could-be-costly
10
according to AFR, it was $2bn on 9 Oct:
9 Oct: Australian Financial Review: Early repeal of carbon price scheme could cost government $2bn
by Gemma Daley and James Massola
The early repeal of the scheme could lead to a cash windfall for metals, energy and power stations – the most intensive emitters – as they cash in on freely allocated permits, RepuTex analysis said…
(RepuTex head of research)Mr Harper said the earlier the scheme is disbanded, the higher the cost to government, with more excess permits being sold back by companies.
“If the repeal is held back until April 2015, the cost to government would only be around $138 million, as companies would continue to accrue carbon liabilities through the year, and would therefore have fewer permits to sell back to the government from their free allocation,” said Mr Harper…
http://www.afr.com/p/national/early_repeal_of_carbon_price_scheme_SUY0FQ0LUJReEPyjOkSiJN
Coorey/AFR double the figure a week later:
17 Oct: Australian Financial Review: Phillip Coorey: Polluters could get $4bn if carbon tax axed
But business lobby groups say delaying repeal of the tax beyond the Coalition’s target date would create uncertainty for business and higher costs for consumers.
Labor and the Greens ruled out letting Prime Minister Tony Abbott abolish a carbon price using the current Senate, which ends in June, and Clive Palmer signalled a rough ride for the legislation through the new Senate…
***Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said his preference was to abolish the policy altogether before July 1, but if the situation became intractable, his organisation could support Labor’s alternative which is to shift from the current fixed carbon price straight to an emissions trading scheme on July 1, linked to the low-price European market.
“The simple solution is to get rid of it well ahead of July 1 so people have some certainty,’’ he told The Australian Financial Review.
“We’ve always said we want a market-based mechanism with least cost. That’s our final position. We’re not averse to what Labor did, or a version of it.’’…
Labor planning ambush
When parliament resumes, Labor is considering an ambush in which it would move either amendments or a private members bill that would reduce the fixed carbon price to zero immediately and then become an ETS on July 1.
If accepted this would blow a $3 billion hole in the budget through lost revenue and require the government to compensate industry for the free permits they have been given this financial year. The Coalition opposes any price on carbon, including an ETS, meaning it would reject the Labor tactic…
Tim Reardon from the National Generators Forum said if the tax was not abolished before July 1, 2014, uncertainty would rise and extra risk would be written into electricity supply contracts between generators and retailers.
“The longer there’s uncertainty, there will be a risk potential and that cost will be passed on to consumers,’’ he said. “The market needs to know if and when the carbon price will be gone.’’…
http://www.afr.com/p/australia2-0/polluters_could_get_bn_if_carbon_tXSI4J3u1bxNZCIfN3zWDI
16 Oct: Australian: AAP: Clive Palmer offers no promises on repeal of the carbon tax
“We have no positions on anything. We are completely neutral until we see the bills,” party founder Clive Palmer told reporters in Brisbane.
“We don’t want to undermine the current Senate that’s got to consider it.”
It is important that people see electricity prices go down if the tax is abolished, Mr Palmer said.
He wants guarantees written into legislation.
Mr Palmer refused to be drawn further into the debate, insisting it was premature for his party to take a stance on an issue it might not have to consider in parliament…
Mr Palmer reiterated his earlier comments that repeal of the carbon tax should apply retrospectively to its introduction on July 1, 2012…
Former climate change minister Mark Butler said Labor had gone to the election also calling for the carbon tax to be scrapped.
But there had to be a credible climate change policy to replace it, and Labor did not believe that was the government’s Direct Action plan.
“What the Liberal Party needs to do, if it wants to see this legislation through, and (sic) seriously discuss an emissions trading scheme,” Mr Butler told ABC Radio…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/clive-palmer-offers-no-promises-on-repeal-of-the-carbon-tax/story-e6frg6xf-1226740970513
00
ABC soooooo concerned for Business! LOL.
funny – i can’t recall Penny Wong or Greg Combet ever being grilled in this manner over the introduction of a carbon dioxide tax their Party promised not to implement!
16 Oct: ABC AM: Hunt admits bills need to pass for tax to go
TIM PALMER: The Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has refused to say whether business will continue to pay the carbon tax after July next year if bills to repeal it fail to pass before then.
The Government’s released draft legislation that if passed would make the 2013-2014 financial year the last in which the carbon tax applies…
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: At this stage we know that the Labor Party has said that it won’t support that legislation in the Senate and neither will the Greens, so that statement that you, that 2013/14 will be the last financial year that the carbon tax will apply, you cannot guarantee that.
GREG HUNT: Well that is what the legislation says. So it’s very clear that we are putting legislation to terminate the carbon tax in the first week of Parliament.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Your legislation says that you won’t extend the carbon tax beyond 2013/14 even if the Parliament doesn’t pass the carbon tax repeal bills. So the logical question next is: will business still have to pay the tax after July 1 if the bills haven’t passed?
GREG HUNT: We are seeking to terminate the carbon tax as of the 30th of June 2014. We are clear and categorical. And we will keep going through every circumstance until that’s done. That’s the finish date of the carbon tax as far as we’re concerned.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And if it doesn’t, if your bills don’t pass before then, will business still have to pay the tax after July 1?
GREG HUNT: These bills seek to have the carbon tax…
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: I understand what the bills seek to do…
GREG HUNT: …terminated as of the 1st of July and let’s…
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: This is a real prospect though, isn’t it, because Labor and the Greens have so far said that they won’t support these bills in the Senate. So it’s a real question, a live question: what happens if the bills don’t pass the Senate and does business still have to pay the tax after July next year if they don’t?
GREG HUNT: Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves, with great respect, because…
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Well it’s not too far ahead of ourselves because you’ve just released the draft bills.
GREG HUNT: …right now legislation is going before the Parliament to repeal the carbon tax. Let’s watch what Labor does rather than what it says.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Will business still have to pay the tax after that date and will it be for a full financial year?
GREG HUNT: Well the bill is very clear. The bill says that the carbon tax will be terminated as of the 30th of June, 2014. So there’s no tax as of the 1st of July 2014.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And if the bill hasn’t passed though?
GREG HUNT: It’s designed to deal with all circumstances.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But now you’re not telling the Australian people what you’ll do if a scenario which is likely happens.
GREG HUNT: Actually I’ve been completely clear. We are setting out to repeal the carbon tax and the legislation is designed to deal with every circumstance.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: That’s right, and when I ask you what will happen if that isn’t passed on July 1 for business in this country, you can’t or you won’t answer that question.
GREG HUNT: No, I think, with great respect, the legislation is designed to deal with every circumstance…
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Okay…
GREG HUNT: …so as it takes effect on the 1st of July so there is no tax…
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Okay, so it will be retrospective?
GREG HUNT: We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. It is designed to take effect under every circumstance from the evening of 30 June 2014.
We cannot take away the tax without legislation being passed, but this legislation is designed for every circumstance.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Will it be retrospective; that is that companies will be repaid the money that they’ve paid on the tax since July the 1st next year?
GREG HUNT: Well they won’t be paying tax after the 1st of July.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: If it passes.
GREG HUNT: Crystal clear.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: If it passes.
GREG HUNT: Well by definition, the ALP has attempted to prevent any change. We will not stop until the legislation passes.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-16/hunt-admits-bills-need-to-pass-for-tax-to-go/5025684?section=act
20
selective memory then
03
Do provide an example please…
30
Simple solution agree with the leftards and have a zero Co2 tax on the promise of moving to an ETS then after July dump the whole bloody lot, that should piss GA off no end.
BTW since when does one lose an election but still posture and preen in front of the cameras as if one has just won?
50
Well put Jo, very well put.
10
The world is going totally insane. There is no other word to describe neatly the state of mind many people are in nowadays. Thank God we only produce about 3 to 5 percent of all CO2 that is in our atmosphere worldwide and the rest comes naturally out of the oceans if this era of naturally small rising in temperatures continues. The further greening of planet Earth will not stop no matter how much CO2 those fools put into the ground.
20
I believe the worst possible danger of the CCS is the suffocation of deep underground bacteria responsible (among other things) for the reduction of plant material to coal and oil.
20
I think we would have to sequester one heck of a lot of CO to cause any real damage in that regard.
But you watch the moron fringe try anyway. !!
00
At ‘pat’ for comment #31
The 4 wind turbines appear on the current Google Earth image near the Chelker Reservoir.
Enter the following (copy & paste) into the search box:
53.960892, -1.911580
A ground level photo appears here:
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/news/10682657.Chelker_Reservoir_turbines_to_be_removed/
Modern towers are 2 ½ to 3 times taller.
10
This is not an “Edsel Ford” of the energy industry, this is an Edsel Ford converted to a car bomb
30
At least Ford saw the writing on the wall after three years and canned the Edsel, which ironically, even though it failed with the public, it was still vastly better at doing what it did, as an operational motor vehicle, than what wind turbines are supposed to do, supply electrical power on a regular basis.
We’re stuck with these huge towers for decades yet to come, and as with that group of them in the UK that are no longer working and are in the process of being torn down, after barely 15 years standing, it seems the public authority now has to foot the bill for their destruction.
Look at Altamont Pass, where there are 4,930 of them, barely a third still operational, and while only tiny, some have been out of operation for quite literally many decades and are still there, just locked off from rotating.
They scream blue murder that coal fired power plants, nuclear power plants have to be rehabilitated at the end of their lifespan, costed to the owners of the plant.
The same should apply to these wind towers, both onshore and offshore.
Tony.
70
They remain testament to a botched civilisation.
40
Don’t worry, Tony. When it comes to dismantling those bird killing whirly gigs in Australia I’ll do it for free.
Been working in my laboratory (man cave) on a new molecular transformation compound that can reduce the gigs to no more than a mere metal monument on a concrete plinth.
Was toying with the un-thinker but have decided this image to be a more appropriate fit.
20
Scaper,
Inland gigs can be used for target practice by the RAAF and Army whilst the ones on the coast could be used by the NAVY to calibrate their BFG’s etc
Cheers
50
Not sure but i think Victoria has put in place a bond system whereby the wind power operators are required to contribute to a bond system covering the removal of their wind generators when their useful life ends.
Certainly South Australia and NSW in their draft guidelines for wind farms which i have just glanced a few minutes ago at are floating the idea of or proposing decommissioning bonds to be paid for by the wind farm operators who are screaming about the imposts of such bonds.
Next up will be to make the wind farm operators fully cost accountable for any and every addition or change to the network required to accommodate their power operations and output, just like Spain is now doing.
Then some legislation that removes for all time the rights of the wind and solar power generators both large and small to have their power output accepted above anybody else’s which is of course the coal and gas fired base load generators;
Pending in the back offices I would think as a way to get the costs of energy down to the public and industry.
Next will be the consumers rights to only take the power from their chosen source. And that lets say with an IPCC 97% surety will be the cheapest source of power for most consumers and that ain’t wind or solar.
Are the long term contracts broken in these cases?.
I suspect not and I suspect the courts may uphold the rights of the consumer to select his own power supplier.
Wind is about finished with no new wind farms in Victoria after the imposition of the 2 kilometre clearance rule to dwellings plus some other wind unfriendly legislation.
Like so much other crap arising from the Great Global Warming Swindle of which carbon taxes and wind and solar energy are the greatest swindles against the public of the lot.
10
Sorry, but Edsel was ALWAYS a bomb..
no conversion needed !
00
A bit of clarification needed in my last post above.
[quote]; “Next will be the consumers rights to only take the power from their chosen source”
By that I meant from the actual power generator be it coal, gas, wind or a solar generated source of power, not the retail power supplier for which we can already designate our retail supplier .
With smart meters, attributing the power used by a consumer to a specific power generator via the usual retail network supplier should not really impose any problems on a competent retail supplier, thats if such a competent retail supplier actually exists.
00
A bloke that has information very similar to that of our own TonyfromOz:
00
Carbon capture can’t possibly be the Edsel of energy policies. The Edsel was recognized as the disaster it was and disappeared so fast you couldn’t even see the dust left by its retreat. Carbon capture isn’t being recognized for what it is and it’ll probably stick around to the bitter end. And it looks like being a very bitter end. 🙁
Ford had the wisdom to recognize its mistake and back out of it before sticking their corporate neck out any further. Does this sound like what energy policy is doing?
The difference is a simple one. Ford had a financial stake in the success of its products. Government has no financial stake in the success of its policies.
00
One of the more valid arguments against unrestrained use of fossil fuels is their finite availability.
So how can greenies justify CCS, when it uses far more coal to produce a unit of electricity?
00