Talk:Carbon capture and storage

Up date needed on oxy-fuel and mineral sequestration.

Data and costing of oxy-fuel technology, Oxygen production costs and Carbonate production are out of date given that several companies are commercialising technology this year, 2008. All are technologies not expected before 2025 in IPCC 6 as far as I an tell.

Firstly Clean energy systems are at prototype with a cheap Oxy-fuel technology that has a capacity of 30-50MW. See http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/ The oxy-fuel combustion page also needs an update due to this and the new 60-90% efficient solid carbon fuel cell recently developed. http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemTech/Volume/2008/07/hybrid_fuel_cells.asp Note: This is an inherently new oxy-fuel technology because oxygen not air could be supplied to the device.

Secondly 'free' oxygen will be available from electrolytic hydrogen production for vehicle fleets and industrial chemistry. Assuming no-ones stupid enough to dump it back in the atmosphere unused. It needs to be noted and a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cars added.

Also carbon sciences has a working mineral CO2 sequestering technology. http://www.carbonsciences.com On their site there's a link to the National energy Technology Lab/ DOE paper on carbonate production. http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/6c1.pdf Carbonate production takes days not years, so time and space can be traded for the projected energy cost. The page as it currently is gives the impression that the process takes years.

Lastly there is no assessment of whether the energy needed to do carbon capture and mineral sequestration is high temperature or low temperature. If it is mostly the latter then the heat from the cooling steam might be used. (No-ones discussing this at all) Gathall (talk) 12:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Edited the "example CCS projects" section, deleted incorrect and improperly located info

I just deleted the following from the "example CCS projects" section:

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There is no commercial scale CCS project capturing carbon dioxide from a coal fired power plant and storing it anywhere in the world.

None are expected before 2020. The IPCC suggests that to mitigate climate change and global warming, all Annexe 1 (developed) countries need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas by 25 to 40% by 2020. CCS is not able to assist in these reductions.

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The first sentence does not refer to an example of what actually is out there (an example) but instead tells the reader what is NOT out there. In my opinion it does not belong in this section, as CCS and coal power generation, though commonly discussed in the same sentence, are not linked. In point of fact, the majority of the active CCS projects out there today are based on industrial gasification or gas processing facilities, which though they have elements that effectively are power plants, and could, if retooled, function as such, are primarily focused on other functions, primarily related to natural gas processing or synthetic natural gas manufacture.

The second sentence offers the opinion of the IPCC on a matter that has nothing at all to do with current and future example CCS projects, and which is quite factually incorrect. Any carbon emissions avoided at an industrial level make a contribution towards achieving reductions on overall carbon output, and are in fact doing so today. Many additional projects that will employ this technology in the future are on the drawing board. Ther are in fact proposed IGCC+CCS projects under development in the US, most of which ARE slated to occur prior to 2020. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sfj4076 (talk • contribs) 10:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms?

Where are the criticisms of this page, it seems really biased in favor of sequestration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thzatheist (talk • contribs) 17:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sequestration is what this page is here to talk about, right?

The criticisms of sequestration are discussed here, in the leakage section, and elsewhere. If you feel that there is an important factual criticism of CCS that is missing, feel free to post it up and provide a reference.

Unfortunately, many of the criticisms of CCS being thrown about by many otherwise well-intentioned organizations are very far from factual. Sfj4076 (talk) 14:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Any general chemistry book is a good reference to show that CCS is not a sound science. But then again, go back to the origin... why trap CO2 when it has never been proven to be the culprit for the global warming that was observed (ref. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.124.199.11 (talk) 19:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

All very well to say this, but why not explain it, reference it and add it to the article if it's true? I'd be really keen to see this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uradbean (talk • contribs) 20:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Is the bulk (weight and volume) of what's captured worth a mention? From the chemical formula CO2, it would seem that what's to be captured will be at least 3x the weight of the carbon burned. Possibly 4x the weight if loss of efficiency is taken into account. Then, also considering densities, in liquid form the volume of CO2 leaving a power station will be about 11 times the volume of coal arriving, and in solid form the volume of CO2 leaving a power station will be about 5 times the volume of coal arriving. Perhaps a mention under transport? Opinions please. Clive Harris (talk) 10:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't spend much time on the page (somehow it's on my watchlist), but it sounds like you know what you're talking about, so absolutely, go and dig up some references and edit the article itself. Thanks, Awickert (talk) 18:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

In criticism of CSS, I'll simply make this reference: http://pdfdatabase.com/download_file_i.php?file=965296&desc=Literature+Review+Greenhouse+Gas+and+Carbon+Sequestration+Implications+of+Silvopasture+.pdf 71.243.120.235 (talk) 16:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Carbon sequestration

I propose to use on the CO2 storage (sequestration) only summary of the current text and move most of the information into the Carbon sequestration. Beagel (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see a sandbox of this. It would be a massive edit. Don't forget that this article is quite high-traffic for a specific geoeng / mitigatin technique, so a fuller article may be better. I personally see the current format as reasonably OK, although I'm not going to defend it until I see your ideas.Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Reducing fatality chance restriction

Perhaps it can be mentioned in the article that legally reducing the national restrictions on the chance of fatalities would be beneficial to accelerating the setup of sufficient ccs storage sites. This as the risk of release of carbon dioxide (a lethal gas if inhaled for extended period and/or at extended dosage; aldough much more dangerous gases are used frequently in cities) needs to be very low, restricting the placement of ccs sites near populated places. As mostly old gas reservoirs are used, which are frequently located near towns, this restricts the fast placement a great deal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.243.183.4 (talk) 13:06, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Carbon storage by injection in soil

Can a seperate section include carbon capture & storage by injecting carbon directly into the soil ? This differs from the geological storage method as it does not use a underground cavity to pump the co2 in. Could be mentioned with biochar and terra preta See http://www.mistra.org/mistra/english/research/ideasupportgrant/ideasupportgrants/amobilepyrolysisunitforcarbonsequestrationandfertilizerproduction.4.87749a811cbd4c4fb4800036256.html

To state that "we cannot even inject a measurable amount of oxygen in the ground" in response to a criticism that CCS sequesters 2.5 times more oxygen than Carbon in turn proves that the amount of CO2 that can be sequestered by CCS must, by that definition, also be irrelevant. 174.3.17.10 (talk) 17:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Oxygen sequestration

I find this sentence in the introduction : "One must consider the long term effects of oxygen depletion" No, one must not : the quantities of molecular oxygen addressed by CCS are in the range of the ppm - parts per million. There is absolutely no way that we can even inject a *measurable* amount of oxygen in the ground. This paragraph is on the verge of childishness, and has nothing to do in an encyclopedia. Last but not least, it is not sourced, and I strongly suggest to suppress the following 3 paragraphs :

""Geologic carbon capture and storage" is a misleading term. This is because the technique stores more than twice as much (by mass) oxygen as it does carbon. For every 12 tonnes of carbon stored underground, another 32 tonnes of oxygen is sequestered. The math is simple high school chemistry - a tonne mole of Carbon weighs 12 tonnes and attaches to 2 tonne moles of Oxygen each weighing 16 tonnes. So 12 tonnes of Carbon plus 32 tonnes of Oxygen to yield 44 tonnes of CO2.

. The effects of CO2 took several thousand years to manifest themselves following the birth of mass agriculture. Even several hundred years of CCS might only capture several hundred atmospheric ppm of CO2—but also more than twice that amount of oxygen. As man continues to deforest, desertify and urbanize, Earth loses its ability to maintain global oxygen levels through plant-derived CO2 conversion to oxygen. This alone is resulting in a slow global decline in atmospheric oxygen content that is rather alarming. This from a recent UN study on climate change: [6]

Regarding percentage of oxygen present in the atmosphere in the geological past, it was revealed that air bubbles trapped in fossilized amber had been analyzed and found to contain oxygen levels of 38%. Yet today it is well known that the average content of the oxygen in air is only 19% to 21%. If we believe on the report of oxygen level in the fossilized amber, it appears that since the early history of our earth there has been a stunning decrease of 50% in the average oxygen content of the air we breathe. According to other report, analysis of the air in various parts of the world today reveals the frightening fact that the oxygen content continues to decline. In fact in some of the larger and therefore more polluted cities the oxygen levels have been measured at a disturbing level of 12 to 15%."

Thanks for your input. --Environnement2100 (talk) 14:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, oxygen content has varied very significantly over geological time. The first 3/5th of Earth's lifetime, there was no significant free Oxygen in the atmosphere - then those pesky algae started polluting everything with the emissions from photosynthesis. Take a look at File:Sauerstoffgehalt-1000mj.svg. But no, while there is a measurable reduction of O2 due to fossil fuel burning, it's not on the order of percents. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:08, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Need discussion of compression

This article moves directly from capture to transport. The need to compress the CO2 before transport or at least before sequestration is not discussed. This is a major energy sink and while it was included in the in the capture phase economics of the IPCC report on CCS, it needs a much fuller discussion here. This is one of the major reasons that electricity costs from coal fired plants would increase dramatically if they included CCS technology. In fact it would be nice to see how much the capture, compression, transport and storage contribute to electricity price increases. 96.233.108.14 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC).

I don't get it-or maybe they don't?

sections such as "what to do with spare CO2" miss the point that it takes energy to do things with CO2 and that as such it would probably be better to leave coal etc in the ground and generate electricity through renewables instead. Lowattboy (talk) 16:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)