Since writing this article in April 2006, the debate has moved on from one of technical feasibility, to it being almost inevitable that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will play a major part in our future. The widespread promotion of deep saline formations as a location for sequestered carbon has opened up more options, although I still see few authors, particularly those allied to the coal industry, demonstrating that the storage formations are widespread enough to accommodate the diverse locations of coal-fired power stations.

The debate has also changed; for with inevitability has come the need for safety and energy efficiency. The debate, especially in the political arena must press for a reduction in energy use above all else, for the sake of the climate, the natural environment that continues to be destroyed by coal extraction, and the long term future that the captured carbon may re-emerge into when we least expect it. The carbon calculators must include this stored carbon whilst there are no guarantees as to it's stability. CCS is not a panacea - it is a short term respite for a species that has to radically change its habits.

Keith Farnish : 13 September 2006

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Clean coal is here, energy for all, burning brightly with life giving heat, powering our world into the foreseeable future so we can live our lives and the billions in the developing world can grow and flourish the same way as the developed world. And who are we to deny them this?

We have no worries as coal is plentiful and the carbon dioxide can be tapped off and pumped into safe secure locations never to be seen again, and on and on we go, using the bounty that nature has provided us to keep the race moving in its rightful direction towards oblivion!

Sorry, did that jar a bit?

Do you really think that the brave new world of clean coal is here? Do you really think that the hundreds of new coal-fired power stations in China, and the dozens being built in the USA will utilise carbon sequestration technologies? Do you really think that all of the carbon dioxide will be neatly captured and pumped into safe, eternal storage underground?

Once pumped beneath the earth, and only into those places that once held natural gas and oil is this possible, it has to stay there. Beneath the sea it is a possibility...unless those geological formations extend under land into a fissure that once safely held oil but will not safely hold the gas evaporating out of the liquefied CO2. And where are all these oceans in Dakota and Wyoming or Shanxi Province? How much will it cost to move all of this carefully harvested and converted liquid (or gas) to the ocean bed?

Remember, this is forever - nothing else is morally, or logically acceptable. Or should we let our inheritors deal with the risks that we confidently placed out of harm's way?

Sequestration is no more than offsetting. There is no reduction in use of coal so the damage to the habitats and landscape continue from strip mining, the toxins continue to leak into groundwater, rivers and seas, and it will run out eventually. Some day, not too far away, it will no longer be possible to economically extract the energy from coal that we need. By then the oil may have also run out (the price will most certainly have gone sky high)and we will have wasted our time gloating over our splendid use of clean coal, whilst forgetting the continued growth in energy demand and the wonderful natural renewable resources that, given the right investment, could have produced our energy far more cleanly than the dirty black rock we depended on.

At best, carbon sequestration can be used as a temporary measure while the energy balance is turned over to renewables, the global demand distribution is flattened out, and the overall demand is reduced. The last two parts are called Contraction and Convergence, and we ignore it at our peril.

If we are happy to continue to use offsetting, trading and sequestration as an excuse for not doing anything useful then we deserve our destiny - what a shame we have to take such a wonderful ecosystem with us.

 

Hello, I just finished a master’s thesis assessing the sustainability aspects of carbon sequestration using 'The Natural Step' framework and offer a couple of comments: first, I agree that any money spent on CS is a missed opportunity for investment in sustainable energy options and ideally CS would not be required. The unfortunate reality is that India, China and the U.S. will continue to burn vast amounts of coal even as they decarbonise their energy supply. CS could reduce CO2 emissions during this transition. We will need to keep our minds open and use all means at our disposal if we are to have any hope of averting catastrophe. I suggest checking out Socolow and Pacala's 'carbon wedges' framework (Scientific American, Sept’06) that identifies CS as one option of fifteen that could contribute to holding global emissions at seven gigatons per year even as population and energy use increase.
An additional interesting possibility is that large scale biomass combustion in converted fossil fuel generating stations with CS could be a way of removing excess atmospheric CO2 and burying it back where it came from.

Thanks Chris. I have read te article you mention, as well as various other "carbon wedge" type ideas, and one observation is that they are very conservative when it comes to energy efficiency and energy reduction. Essentially they assume that all of our economic systems proliferate and we can only act within their bounds. Socolow and Pacala seem to be in awe of Business As Usual; I suppose they are being realistic, but realistic is also conservative, something which we will have to stop being if the increasingly dire warnings about the planet even partially come true.
Biomass also makes me shiver a bit - it can be sustainable, but I bet it just becomes another profit earning industry :(

recently i m working with CO2 acpture and storage. basically im a geologist but looking for a technologies how CO2 capture from coal? if any papers or workshop arrange regarding this topics pls inform me.
ashfaq

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