Sweep it under the carpet
Always room for more
Until it hits the ceiling

It wasn’t too long ago that I was busily writing about the folly of Carbon Capture and Storage as a supposed solution to the release of huge, totally unsustainable amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Back then my main objections were (a) that we had no idea whether it was feasible or safe and (b) coal mining would continue to carry on its destructive activities. I stand by both of those points. But things have changed in two dramatic ways, which make a reopening of this issue imperative.

First, support for CCS has gone beyond politicians and businesses, and beyond the conservative “light green” writers who are relying on businesses and politicians to make things better for all of us (ha!) Eminent writers and scientists, like Jim Hansen, who I have a great deal of respect for as a scientist are saying that coal fired power stations should not be built at all unless they have CCS built in. This is from Hansen’s recent letter to British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown:

A firm choice to halt building of coal-fired power plants that do not capture the CO2 would be a major step toward a solution of the global warming problem. Germany has strong interest in solving the climate problem. Citizens in the United States are stepping up to block one coal plant after another, and the next national election is less than a year away.

If Great Britain and Germany halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the CO2, it could be a tipping point for the world. There is still time to find that tipping point, but just barely. I hope that you will give these considerations your attention in setting your national policies. You have the potential to influence the future of the planet.

Now, on the surface this would seem to be a reasonable request, and certainly would prevent the release of a lot of carbon dioxide. In addition, if CCS becomes mandatory on all coal-fired power stations, the electricity generators will weigh up the costs and start to invest in other forms of generation, rather than put all their investment in coal. This is a good thing…if you are only interested in the short term. But there are two huge logical flaws in this thinking: what about all the other carbon dioxide, and what about all the existing coal plant? Carbon dioxide from coal is only one constituent of total carbon emissions: in 2005 (the latest accurate figures available) coal burning was responsible for just over 11 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In the same year, the total carbon emissions from all sources was over 28 billion tonnes. Coal therefore accounts for about 40 percent of all carbon emissions (or about 25 percent of all greenhouse gases), which is significant, but not the whole story by a long way. Coal fired power stations typically last for between 30 and 50 years, so any plant built in the last 30 years (which accounts for the vast majority of global generation) would have to be retrofitted with CCS equipment unless someone was prepared to make some serious rebuilding investment. In fact, according to the IPCC (see Table 3.8 ) the cost of retrofitting a conventional coal-fired power station pales into insignificance compared to the increase in generation costs: they would have to go up by nearly 300 percent! So the simple answer is to rebuild – oh, about 900 gigawatts (based on http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2007/key_stats_2007.pdf extrapolated) worth of power plant. Yep! I can really see that happening voluntarily. But, just suppose it does happen – this would prevent growth in 40% of the global carbon source; but as Jim Hansen himself said, we have to be reducing the overall amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and by something in the order of 90% within the next two decades. It ain’t gonna happen with Carbon Capture and Storage alone.

Where does the other 60% come from? About two thirds of the remainder comes from the combustion of oil, the vast majority of which is used in motor vehicles. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that capturing these individual sources of carbon is nigh-on impossible, so the only alternative would be to convert every single vehicle on Earth to plug-in hybrids. Now, given that direct fuel combustion is considerably more efficient than burning coal, capturing the CO2, transmitting the electricity, charging the vehicle and using the batteries, we are talking about far more than just the equivalent amount of coal being used again to supply the global fleet: more than a doubling of the world’s coal generation plant! Most of the rest of the carbon dioxide (and I’m purposefully leaving out the indirect emissions from deforestation and agriculture) comes from natural gas – the vast majority of which is used for furnaces and domestic and commercial heating systems. Again, the carbon from this cannot be captured except at a large scale, or from the small percentage of gas used in power stations, so we are talking about converting the (majority) non-captive elements to electricity, further pushing up the electricity generation burden.

But suppose, after all that, we have been able to capture all of the carbon being emitted by human activity. In theory, after about 50 years, the overall carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would begin to drop – the planet’s atmospheric systems could start to clean themselves up. Could someone please tell me where all this carbon is going to go? Two major locations are under investigation: geological storage and deep ocean storage. Geological storage depends on the availability of existing voids and suitable porous rock into which liquid or gaseous CO2 can be injected. No one has any idea whether there is enough space to store even the current CO2 being produced, let alone the increased burden discussed earlier (Note: If anyone does have any statistics, I would love to see them). As far as the IPCC is concerned, if we used the alternative location, beneath the ocean in solution, there would certainly be enough space, but within 300 years, all of that carbon could once again have returned to the atmosphere – this is all but guaranteed within 1000 years. Fine for the typical short-term thinker who only cares about their next term in office, but as a viable option for the future of humanity, this is a suicidal option.

And let’s not forget that global energy use is increasing year on year. Since 1997, according to BP, world energy consumption went up by 24.6%; if this trend were to continue, then in the approximately 22 years we have to cut down carbon emissions by over 90%, the amount of carbon that has to be stored will have increased by another 50% on top of all the other increases I have talked about. That has to be stored as well, doesn’t it? Energy use will only go down when it is profitable for it to happen – not through carbon trading, for this simply moves the money elsewhere – or if the systems that demand that the economy keeps growing, and profits keep being made, are no more. In fact, carbon storage will only happen, if it is profitable to do it; and in the short-termist view of Industrial Civilization, that’s a no-brainer: carbon storage on a global scale is not economically viable, so it won’t happen.

This leaves us with a very simple choice: we trust the future to the leaders of Industrial Civilization, who have got us into this mess in the first place; or we ensure that Industrial Civilization ceases to exist – getting rid of the problem at a stroke. And that’s where the second thing that has changed since I wrote the previous article, comes in.

The second thing that has changed since I wrote my original article is me. I once thought that, with enough effort, we could really turn around the way things are run; that technology might be able to give us some solutions; that politicians could be persuaded to make things better; that we could – as so many environmental groups believe – build our way out of catastrophe. And then I realised that the enormous chunk of humanity that lives under the yoke of Industrial Civilization was thinking the same: that we were all deluded, being actively deluded to believe that there was only one right way to live – the way of the machine. Even if carbon capture worked, it would only mask the continued destruction we are loading on to this overheated planet, and then only for long enough so that by the time everyone realised where things had gone wrong, it would be far too late to do anything about it.

Nature had carbon capture worked out long ago: plankton, trees, soil…but nature didn’t reckon on civilization screwing up its finely balanced system.

 

The Earth Blog’s “What If…” articles are thought experiments. The situations proposed are never likely to occur, but it is sometimes essential to go to extremes to see what kind of difference a positive radical change could make to the planet.

 

This is a ig step forward on reducing carbon emissions. I have run across an interesting way to reduce waste buildup and emissions at the same time. In the US there is a penchant for using carpet to make homes more luxurious. The problem is, that every 5 to 7 years the carpet needs to be replaced. Since it is not reused and does not compress well it remains an issue. Especially for land fills. There is a company that produces a unit that can convert waste into hydrogen. The details are too long to include here, but the company's name is Startech. They have a website. I work with a carpet recycling company that can recycle about 60% of the carpet, but the rest goes to landfills. This unit seems to provide a way to reduce the waste stream that even we produce into something more usable. It looks promising. If it works, millions of pounds of carpet waste could be turned into usable energy.

[Nothing wrong with recycling, Randy, but it's a drop in the toxic ocean; in fact only today it was found that in the UK, people who recycle heavily are actually *more* likely to have profligate lifestyles - evidence that superficial actions are making people complacent, hypocritical even.

Keith]

http://www.residua.org/book-xxxiv-2009/%e2%80%9ctime%e2%80%99s-up%e2%80%9d/

[Thanks the for mention, Ranko. I think you'll enjoy it. K.]