Carbon capture and storage: a coming reality?
Photo by ljpixie75
Carbon capture is a way of taking carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas – out of industrial emissions …
Carbon storage involves creating a pressurized form of this gas and – in some scenarios – injecting it into rocks beneath Earth’s surface. Earth & Sky spoke to Elizabeth Wilson at the University of Minnesota. She’s been working on the issue of carbon capture and storage for the past seven years.
Elizabeth Wilson: I wonder sometimes politically, I’m thinking about the U.S. primarily here, if this technology has allowed groups that were before vehemently opposed to any type of carbon policy or regulation to at least think about coming to the table. I’m thinking here about the coal power industry, the oil industry.
Wilson said carbon capture and storage are estimated to add 30 percent to the cost of conventional electricity, making gas or coal usage cost roughly the same as wind or solar energy in today’s dollars.
Elizabeth Wilson: When you think about it within the center of the risks of climate change and the challenge of this deep, deep emissions reductions, I think it’s a relative risk proposition. What’s the risk of not doing anything? And for me, that’s the piece that’s terrifying.
Elizabeth Wilson also said, “The goal here is to move towards a carbon–managed energy system. So we need to change the technology, but also the sociopolitical framework. And both of those need to happen.”
Carbon capture is well understood, but carbon storage is not an easy process. Scientists are working now to understand the risk of carbon leaking out of the rocks where it’s stored. Carbon storage sites would have to be monitored and regulated not for a decade or a century – but for the thousands of years they’re expected to last.
Elizabeth Wilson said, “Clearly, this is going to be driven by some kind of larger climate policy, or concerted effort and desire to manage carbon dioxide emissions while still being able to use our fossil fuel infrastructure.
She added, “And if you think about our political process, and how policy is actually formed and how regulations are created, without at least some political will to move our climate policy forward… we’re kind of at a stalemate. Just think back four years ago. So I wonder if this technology has thawed a little bit of that freeze in that camp.”
Scientists consider carbon storage a ‘bridge’ technology
Our thanks to:
Elizabeth Wilson
Assistant Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Elizabeth Wilson is a member of the World Resources Institute’s Working Group on Carbon Capture and Sequestration
I DON’T BUY THIS “BRIDGE” BULL#$&t. IT IS BIG OIL’S WAY OF KEEPING US IN ITS TALONS.
Sure, why not? Everyone knows we are going to use up all the oil and coal for energy, and why shouldn’t we? Where’s the law that says that we are the criminal species? Once it’s gone, or almost gone, we’ll have to figure out other energy sources. It would be a good idea to start on that now, but not because we are BAD for using fossil fuels. Do we think the industrial revolution should not have happened? I hate this current portrait of the modern human as the bad guy. It lacks historical perspective, at best.
A huge waste of money. To remove carbon from the atmosphere mechanically is very expensive and takes huge amounts of energy. In fact you will burn as much or more carbon as fuel than you will remove from the atmosphere. Injecting it into the mantle of the earth will take more, much more, energy. Plants fix more carbon as a way of life than man could ever hope to artificially remove from the atmosphere. Also, carbon is absorbed into the oceans, lakes and streams of the world. At a much greater scale than we can match.
Carbon in the atmosphere as a result of human activity is not a problem. In case no one has told you, the earth is now cooling and has been for over a decade. Why? Who knows?
Oil will eventually become too expensive to use as our energy source. If governments let inovators alone, a new way will be found and wealth will continue to increase and living standards will advance. If we let governments screw up natural capitalism and innovation, I fear a rerun of the dark ages for humanity. Nothing good has ever come from a collective. Only misery, poverty and death.
If there is something that we need saved from, it is runaway government, not SUV’s.
We really do need to move towards a more environmentally friendly and replenishing resource. The ethanol bio-fuel is a start, but since that creates more local pollution, we need to get to something better. Electricity is good but may use too much other energy sources to create.
Carbon capture and sequestration is a “Bridge To Nowhere” if you think about how much energy is needed to cool the power plant’s 100,000 daily tons of 1,000+ degree F exhaust gases. We’ll just burn coal faster to power the cooling equipment.
Remember, each kiloWatt hour of electricity you buy – at about 10 cents per kWh – causes two pounds of CO2 to be made.
There is a quick way out of Global Warming but the idea isn’t at all popular. There may be too many people riding the “Global Warming Gravy Train” already.
What’s the quick way?
Thankfully, there could be at least one thing about which we can all agree:
If we keep doing what we are doing now, we are going to keep getting what we are getting now.
If we keep doing what we are doing now by continuing the unbridled expansion/globalization of large-scale business activities on a planet the size of Earth, and simultaneously resist taking necessary action on the finally established scientific consensus on the human-derived sources of global warming, will we not run the unacceptable risk of endangering the integrity of God’s Creation?
If we continue to argue about the scientific facts of climate change and not respond ably to what the scientific consensus tells us is necessary to protect the Earth, will we not get more of what we are getting now…..biodiversity loss, natural resource dissipation, enviromental degradation?
Is right-sizing the global human economy necessary to preserve Earth’s ecology?
Boo gas pices are going up for no reason. Were not running out. And if we did it would do us some good. The human population will stop becoming more obese and weaker. People would actually walk somewhere! I read one out of five people on Earth are obese! Thats just sad! Weve bin controlling this planet for like a few thousand years and now were getting obese! The dinosours probably died out from obesity not from some meteor. They had to much to eat because they controlled the Earth like us! Its just sad.