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CCS - Carbon Capture and Storage

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dpeilow

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May 23, 2008
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Netherlands stops Shell's CO2 storage project

Netherlands stops Shell's CO2 storage project

The Dutch government said Thursday it will not allow oil giant Shell to store millions of tonnes of arbon dioxide in a depleted gas reservoir under a small town, upholding the fears of townspeople.

The previous Dutch government last November provisionally authorised Anglo-Dutch Shell to undertake a project to store some of the 5.0 megatonnes of CO2 emitted each year by the company's refinery in Pernis, Europe's largest, about 15 kilometres (10 miles) from Barendrecht.


Shell’s Barendrecht Carbon-Capture Project Canceled

The injection of CO2 could have begun at the end of 2012 or at the beginning of 2013. The plan was to send emissions through a pipeline from a gasification hydrogen plant at Shell’s Pernis refinery near Rotterdam, about 20 kilometers away (12 miles).
 
Living on Earth: Death of Carbon Capture?
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The first carbon capture and storage project at a US power plant just ended. The pilot program in West Virginia proved the process could capture 90% of a power plant’s CO2 emissions. Host Bruce Gellerman asks American Electric Power CEO Mike Morris why they pulled the plug on the success. And Steve Holton, the business director of environmental systems development at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries explains why that company is beginning its own ambitious carbon capture program.
...
 
Some more quotes:

(Since it costs extra money to operate, they only intend to take it past the demonstration stage if it is government mandated...)
...it has zero opportunity of moving forward, but it still is a great concept because it sets the standard for economic creativity, engineering creativity and a means by which one could go forward and handle the carbon issue by buying credits and trading for credits. But it wasn’t the will of the elected officials of this country, and therefore, as a regulated utility, we simply are not able to go forward and scale this project up...
...we’re capturing 90 percent of the CO2 in the flue gas which amounts to five hundred tons per day, up to about 150 thousand tons a year. We’re not currently compressing it, but we are doing a capture and release while we set up and stabilize the system. GELLERMAN: Boy, you can capture 90 percent. So what you’re proving is that you can get the CO2 out of the flue, but then you’re just letting it go because you haven’t put it into the ground.
HOLTON: Correct. Currently, as I said, what we call catch and release - so we’re capturing the CO2 and then putting it back up the stack, releasing it to the atmosphere...

So they demonstrated that some parts of the technology can work, but that is about it.
 
It might work, but does the gas really stay in there long-term? After all they've made a bunch of holes in the reservoir. Can you tell if it doesn't stay in there? Also it takes about 30% more coal to generate the energy required to capture the carbon.
 
Storage of CO2 underground is just kicking the can down the road to future generations. Solar and wind, please! Wave, geothermal, and anything else we can think of! Let's not waste time and money on something that puts CO2 somewhere that might end up back in the atmosphere eventually. Let's put all of our efforts into fixing this problem!
 
The best way to store carbon - keep the fossils in the ground. No need to store C02. What about the oxygen? - The level will be sent down will burning fossils. Or we can turn wood to charcoal and burry the charcoal into the ground - an great fertilizer.
 
The public reaction to these plans makes no sense in terms of science. What possible danger could CO2 present in an underground reservoirs? If the reservoirs did not already exist, then I would certainly understand opposition to drilling or digging, since that might upset things above ground. However, they were considering using natural gas reservoirs which have already been emptied in the past. If anything, it seems that it would be safer to replace that natural gas with CO2 instead of leaving it empty (well, I suppose there's 'air' in there now, not a vacuum).

Does anyone have actual scientific reasoning to fear storing CO2 in existing, depleted natural gas reservoirs?
 
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It might work, but does the gas really stay in there long-term? After all they've made a bunch of holes in the reservoir. Can you tell if it doesn't stay in there? Also it takes about 30% more coal to generate the energy required to capture the carbon.
Good points. Maybe these systems will always be "catch and release," except that they'll get carbon credits for catching the CO2 and then it will end up being released while nobody is watching.
 
One of the neatest ideas I have heard to capture CO2; is to use power plant flue gas to make a type of calcium carbonate cement. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cement-from-carbon-dioxide The idea is to scrub about 90% of the CO2 from the flue gas by combining it with calcium in seawater to make calcium carbonate cement. With cement production being the #3 emitter of CO2 this solves two problems by eliminating this large source of CO2 emissions and by helping to scrub it out flue gas in a coal powered plant. If we make buildings and roads out of the stuff it would effectively sequester CO2 for centuries. And there is no chance of CO2 seeping out and suffocating people.
 
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CCS sounds fishy to me. It reportedly takes 30% more energy, and therefore more than 30% extra coal (the extra coal produces more CO2), to produce the energy needed to pump the CO2 into the underground reservoir. That's a pretty big overhead. Plus if there is any risk of the stuff leaking out, it will make things worse instead of better.
 
One of the neatest ideas I have heard to capture CO2; is to use power plant flue gas to make a type of calcium carbonate cement.

I am not sure if this will help. Turning CO2 into carbonic acid and making it react with Calcium from sea water will speed up the acidification of our oceans.

It is a lot easier to leave the carbon in the ground then to sequester it.
 
I am not sure if this will help. Turning CO2 into carbonic acid and making it react with Calcium from sea water will speed up the acidification of our oceans.

It is a lot easier to leave the carbon in the ground then to sequester it.

I agree it is far better to leave the carbon in the ground. But it will take time to make the switch and we will need concrete. This process does not lead to acidification as the CO2 ends up being locked in aa solid concrete.