The Case for Carbon Capture and Storage

[zeleneye]

Personally, I dont think this is the route for Ireland to go down but there are some countries who are going to have to use it as a medium term answer to their problems.

If you look at who is actually 'going down' this route - it is not countries, it is companies. If you look at who those companies are, you will see why: Vatenfall, Eon, BP, Shell...would be the most prominent.

Why? Because it helps them preserve and prolong the development of their pre-existing carbon-intensive infrastructure. CCS is a veil for business-as-usual. Vatenfall and EoN can continue to build new coal power plants today in the hope that CCS might be commercially viable in 10-15 years time (the current best estimate). BP and Shell are trying to get public money to allow them to fill their drying oil reserves with CO2, while dredging the remaining oil through 'enhanced oil recovery'.

If you even stop for a moment to think about the scale of the infrastructure necessary to 'bury' the emissions from all power plants, you would quickly realise what an illogical hoax CCS is. Rather than stopping to build coal power plants or only building the best performing fossil fuel-fired power plants (using an emissions performance standard), utilities can continue to build polluting and dirty (there is no such thing as clean coal) power plants with the illusory promise of CCS.

This is made even worse by the fact that public funds are being given to these big (profitable) energy firms to develop pilot projects - particularly in the UK and at EU level. Crazily, CCS got twice as much as renewables in the recent EU economic recovery package for energy and is set to get at least twice as much as renewables from the 'New Entrants Reserve' under phase 3 of the EU's emissions trading scheme.

[amblincork]

Madness.

This "global warming" lark is nothing more than a scam to make people feel guilty and extract more tax money out of them.

You are confusing 'global warming' with religion.
Global warming is only going to warm the world by 2-4 degrees, whereas your lot say we will burm in hell for ever - thats quite a difference !
P.s didnt you notice Pope Benny is going down the G ' warming road as well ?

[zakalwe1]

what bullshyte!!!!

"carbon capture and storage"...whats next...carbon capture and release????

i have images of bearded green activists running through meadows in their tie-dye shirts and hemp sandals with a butterflynet and a glass jar chasing "carbon"!!!

[zeleneye]

i have images of bearded green activists running through meadows in their tie-dye shirts and hemp sandals with a butterflynet and a glass jar chasing "carbon"!!!

I don't think any "green activists" are fond of CCS. CCS is a construct of the coal and oil industry.

[amblincork]

If you look at who is actually 'going down' this route - it is not countries, it is companies. If you look at who those companies are, you will see why: Vatenfall, Eon, BP, Shell...would be the most prominent.

Why? Because it helps them preserve and prolong the development of their pre-existing carbon-intensive infrastructure. CCS is a veil for business-as-usual. Vatenfall and EoN can continue to build new coal power plants today in the hope that CCS might be commercially viable in 10-15 years time (the current best estimate). BP and Shell are trying to get public money to allow them to fill their drying oil reserves with CO2, while dredging the remaining oil through 'enhanced oil recovery'.

If you even stop for a moment to think about the scale of the infrastructure necessary to 'bury' the emissions from all power plants, you would quickly realise what an illogical hoax CCS is. Rather than stopping to build coal power plants or only building the best performing fossil fuel-fired power plants (using an emissions performance standard), utilities can continue to build polluting and dirty (there is no such thing as clean coal) power plants with the illusory promise of CCS.

This is made even worse by the fact that public funds are being given to these big (profitable) energy firms to develop pilot projects - particularly in the UK and at EU level. Crazily, CCS got twice as much as renewables in the recent EU economic recovery package for energy and is set to get at least twice as much as renewables from the 'New Entrants Reserve' under phase 3 of the EU's emissions trading scheme.

If you think countries with large coal deposits are not gong to continue to exploit them then you are living in cloud cuckoo land, so if these technologies are effective in limiting emmissions they are to be welcomed.
This is really frustration that your particular vision of how the world should be run is not receiving the amount off attention and resources it should be receiving. In other words you want ideological solutions and not just practical ones.

[fiannafailure]

If you think countries with large coal deposits are not gong to continue to exploit them then you are living in cloud cuckoo land, so if these technologies are effective in limiting emmissions they are to be welcomed.
This is really frustration that your particular vision of how the world should be run is not receiving the amount off attention and resources it should be receiving. In other words you want ideological solutions and not just practical ones.

And that I think is the weight hanging around the neck of the green party

[zeleneye]

This is really frustration that your particular vision of how the world should be run is not receiving the amount off attention and resources it should be receiving. In other words you want ideological solutions and not just practical ones.

The point is that CCS is not practical, feasible nor even logical - regardless of how much I or you or BP or Vatenfall want it to be. An emissions performance standard for power plants would be so much more effective in terms of ensuring less polluting electricity generation - if that is our goal. It already exists in certain parts of the world but not yet in Europe, which shows it is practical and feasible - depending on how you set it, it ensures only the most efficient CHP plants can be built: a good objective regardless of your political standpoint.

I do not have a 'vision' and am not proposing "ideological solutions", I am simply saying it is a mistake to give public funds to the oil and coal industry to allow them to continue with business-as-usual. The time for business-as-usual has passed. There are other alternatives, which do not allow inefficient, polluting power plants to continue being built ad infinitum, which is what is being planned in Europe.

By all means, we need to find a solution for countries like China but it is completely naïve to think that there is going to be some massive CCS infrastructure installed there in the next 20 years, given the technology is only likely to be viable around that time. For starters, it is generally accepted that China has no immediate access to sufficient storage sites - 'storage' being a crucial part of the CCS acronym.