DOE Pumps $126.6 Million Into Carbon Sequestration

RickRussellTX writes "The DOE awarded $126.6 million in grants today to projects that will pump 1 million tons of CO2 into underground caverns at sites in California and Ohio. Environmental groups call carbon sequestration "a scam", claiming that it is too expensive and uncertain to be competitive with non-coal alternatives like wind and solar. I just hope nobody drops a Mentos down the wrong pipe."

So...

[stubear]

..."claiming that it is too expensive and uncertain to be competitive with non-coal alternatives like wind and solar."

Why can't we do both? Damn environmentalists meddling again. Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives.

Safety?

[jmv]

Actually, my main concern is "what if it escapes?". Considering that CO2 is heavier than Oxygen, I wouldn't like to be anywhere near (i.e. within tens of km if not more) a site that stores thousands of tons of CO2.

That's the main problem with environmental groups

[MarkusQ]

That's the main problem with environmental groups. At their core, many of them are just as immune to rational argument and unwilling to consider proposals that don't line up with their pre-conceived notions as the fossil fuel industries and their pet politicians.

The arguments against sequestration are (so far as I've seen) just as bogus as the anti-nuclear waste disposal arguments. I'm glad that these groups recognize when there are problems with any given technology, I just wish their response to any attempt to address the problem wasn't a knee-jerk claim that the proposed fix was a scam and that the only solution was to abandon the technology and switch to moonbeams.

--MarkusQ

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't we do both? Damn environmentalists meddling again. Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives.

Actually, they are annoyed because unlike the indulgences^Wcarbon credits the money is not going to the environmentalists.

Re:So...

[timeOday]

Why can't we do both?

The point is, how much more carbon could they have kept in the ground by using the same money to subsidize a carbon-neutral energy source.

Re:So...

[kaos07]

"Why can't we do both?

Why should we? Sequestration has only been proven effect in labs, and the coal industry accepts that it won't be completely up and running by 2030. Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free. Carbon sequestration doesn't get rid of the fact that we're un-sustainably mining the earth, creating vast amounts of CO2 and then *hoping* that when we bury it underground there won't be any negative consequences.

"Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives."

This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise, and instead of looking to the REAL future like some companies (BP?) they'd rather try and flog of unproven and, even in theory, ridiculous ideas to the public.

Re:Safety?

[v1]

when they say sequestered, I assume they mean it's going to be locked into a solid form? The only example of a gas being stored in a geological formation is all that helium they set aside for the airships way back when.

That and I don't understand why they can't just make use of it. I'd expect a biodiesel plant would love to be piped into that, making good use of all that CO2 to increase their yield.

This whole idea is basically the same as a landfill. Burying a problem never makes it go away, and almost always causes it go get worse for later generations.

Bamboo

[bigattichouse]

1. Grow Bamboo 2. Drop down old salt mine or other large hole. 3. ??? 4. Profit!

Re:That's the main problem with environmental grou

[kaos07]

"many of them are just as immune to rational argument"

Your statement hinges on the fact that coal industry has indeed given any rational arguments to support the burying of CO2 (A very literal way of 'burying your head in the sand', don't you think?). Let's step back and look at the problem. The main issue we have the moment is global warming being caused by an excess of greenhouses gases, predominantly CO2 in the atmosphere. We need solutions. Renewable energy is a solution. Cutting back on energy usage is a solution. And yes, even sequestration is a solution. However, what are the best and most effective solutions to take? Cutting back our usage can be done now and it can have significant effects in the area of reducing CO2 output. Renewables are already a proven technology and lack only significant funding to make them more common. That said, in many countries and states funding is significant and renewable energy targets are set to be met. Now let's look at sequestration. Is it proven? Only in laboratories. Which if you consider the scale and possible ramifications of the process is a fairly useless sticking point. Is it safe? Well you decide for yourself. Pumping millions of tonnes into underground caverns? Versus building windmills, hydro plants and solar farms. Does it solve our problems? In the short term it prevents CO2 from immediately going into the atmosphere but burying it can't continue indefinitely, and it does nothing to reduce our reliance on coal - a finite source.

The idea virtually is a scam, it's the coal industry asking for grants and subsidies all across the world to support a dying business instead of looking the facts in the face and realising that renewables are the way of the future. No amount of exaggeration (Moonbeams?) on your part will change that.

Re:Better solution exists

[corsec67]

One issue is that it is very easy to covert trees and other plants back into gasses [flickr.com].

And then as you plant more of them, and get a forest that looks like a tree farm [flickr.com], fire becomes a larger risk.

And then your carbon sequestration devices are threatening surrounding communities.

A huge issue across the US is overpopulation of forests because we have been preventing forest fires for so long, so there is definitely no shortage of trees in many areas.

Other than that small detail, yeah, plants are one way to easily store carbon.

Please be honest

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cutting back on energy usage is a solution."

What you really meant to say is that massive depopulation of the earth is the solution, since at this point we can only reduce the rate at which energy consumption grows, not the overall rate at which energy is consumed.

Re:Progress?

[techno-vampire]

What exactly is the point of this endeavour?

It makes the people doing it feel good. That's all it does and all it needs to do.

Stupid

[tsotha]

I wonder if Greenpeace realizes the choice isn't between coal plants with sequestered carbon and windmills. In reality, barring some fortuitous breakthrough in solar power, as oil gets more expensive the choice will be between coal plants with this technology and coal plants without it. I believe Greenpeace has completely overestimated the average person's willingness to make lifestyle sacrifices for the sake of atmospheric carbon reductions.

I wish organizations like this would try to be part of the solution instead of just trying to limit our options. You can't accuse the coal companies of proposing a technology that isn't economically feasible on the one hand and then propose wholesale conversion to technologies that are even less economically feasible.

We wouldn't even have this problem if the very same people hadn't killed the nuclear industry through scaremongering and excessive litigation.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenpeace wants alternatives, not technology that might arrive in 10+ years, only to prolong the existing energy production system.

Huh? They've been kicking and screaming for decades to shut down our current power generation systems to replace them with unworkable, economically infeasible systems, when France has been using a safe, zero-carbon power generation system for decades as well. They're the ones living the pipe dream, not the rest of us.

Re:So...

[R2.0]

"Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free."

Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind. Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc.

I have a coworker that is very interested in living off grid, and is also an engineer, and cheap to boot. As much as he wanted solar, he couldn't afford it. Why? The payback period (without subsidies) is 100 years! Even with a 50% subsidy, it is 50 years, which still exceeds the life of the panels (which are NOT "emissions free" to manufacture).

Coal and mining won't be going away anytime

[Anonymous Coward]

Not except in some green fever dream.

We will need everything we got including wind, thermal, biomass, nuclear, and good old black gold just to keep up with the inevitable buildout of the third world.

And you if think enough wind farms, biomass farms, and solar panels to supply our demands won't harm the environment as much as oil and coal, you are naive.

Everything we use for our energy supply will have costs to the environment. We must be smart. Scrub the smokestacks, reclaim the mines, kill the birds but try to minimize, plow over the forests for more farms, but use the best techniques and preserve the remaining forests smartly with corridors for animals.

There is no choice between a dirty hydrocarbon past and a clean green future. There is no such thing. There are no free lunches in anything.
 

Re:So...

[Wrath0fb0b]

Wind and solar have been proven to work now.

Sorry, it's not that I don't wish that were true but it's just not. Look up the annual energy consumption of the US (105 exajoules (29000 TWh) -- according to Wikipedia) and try to come up with any reasonable scenario in which that much energy can be produced by wind and solar. I've tried to run the numbers even in the most favorable cases and they just aren't there without a huge boost in the efficiency and economy of those alternative methods.

Don't get me wrong, I think we are on the same team here but I refuse to believe, in the face of hard evidence, that wind + solar + geothermal + hydrodynamic + tidal energy will be sufficient to meet domestic US demand for the foreseeable future. Even the most aggressive energy efficiency plans won't kick in in earnest for a decade (cars turn over roughly 10 years, home appliances every 25, homes every 50 and the more you impose, the more costs go up and the slower the turnover happens).

This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise

News of their impending demise is highly overrated. The US has enough coal to last us 50 years at current growth rates and China likely does too. With oil capacity down and natural gas reserves dwindling, Americans will either have to consume much less energy (not likely) or tap into coal.

Re:So...

[kaos07]

There's an inconsistency in your post. You're basing your figures for renewables on current energy usage rates and current technologies, but you're saying that if we use coal we have to reduce energy consumption. We have to reduce consumption regardless. Sooner or later we're going to be on all renewables. Why not invest in it, cut consumption so we can do it sooner, rather then completely mining everything out of the ground and destroying a fair chunk of the environment?

Re:So...

[rkcallaghan]

R2.0 wrote:

Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind.

How about from Slashdot [slashdot.org], still on the main page as of my writing this post?

~Rebecca

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Re:So...

[falconwolf]

Coal + sequestration is still *significantly* cheaper than solar and will be for the next 20 years at least.

That's because coal is subsidized and external costs are passed on the everyone, whether they use coal or not. If coal plants had to make it on their own and pay for their Externalities [wikipedia.org] electricity costs would be a lot higher. Heck, even the Nuclear Power Industry [nci.org] uses coal's external costs as a selling point.

And dont mention Hydro.
The greenies hate that because it destroys habitats. :)

Some don't like hydro because frequently dams do not live up to their promise [dams.org] or the costs out weight the benefits [pdf] [panda.org]. "World Commission on Dams Report vindicates unjustifiability of large dams" [unep.org].

Falcon

Wood

[Toonol]

Doesn't nature provide carbon sequestration in the form of Wood? Wouldn't cutting down a forest and building stuff out of the wood, meanwhile letting the forest regrow, effectively remove carbon out of the system?

Re:So...

[Adambomb]

Right, which is research and will give them the data to know if its viable or not.

Do you honestly believe that once we have one option we should stop researching alternatives? and do not forget that the coal fired power plants are still running right now, is it not a good idea to try to get them as clean as possible until we're self sufficient otherwise?

What's with the tunnel vision here, this amount of money is a small amount for us to be able to know more than we do. You complain about how carbon sequestration is unproven, and then complain when they try to research it?

Seriously, back off from the emotion and get some objectivity.

Re:So...

[evanbd]

So, have you looked at how much radioactive waste comes from burning coal? Hint: it's not zero.

Re:So...

[rs79]

" Sure, that may work for a town of 1,300, but how about a city of 13,000? 130,000? 1,300,000? 13,000,000?"

Use more wind turbines? Is this a trick question?

Re:So...

[dangitman]

Damn environmentalists?

Sounds more like you're describing industry and government. They are only interested in milking fossil fuels for all their worth - and then getting government contracts to "clean up" their output. If they listened to environmentalists, emissions could be cut for a fraction of the cost (or for a profit) - but that's not what the men who run powerful industries care about. It's all about the gravy train of massive infrastructure projects (which often cause more problems than they solve).

Re:So...

[dangitman]

when France has been using a safe, zero-carbon power generation system for decades as well.

Wait, you're not talking about nuclear, are you? Because there's no way nuclear power generation is carbon neutral. It takes plenty of fuel and carbon emissions to dig up that uranium, transport it, dispose of it, and to built the power plant and infrastructure. Zero-carbon? Hardly.

Re:So...

[Raptoer]

*sigh* I'm tired of people not being informed... but such is life. Nuclear waste should not last a million years. It can be reused, again and again and again, until it's half life comes down to be about 10 years. The problem? doing that produces plutonium, which is bad because of "terrorism!!!". Nuclear power is not an engineering problem anymore, nor is it an environmental problem, nor a storage problem, it all comes down to politics, and "Not in My Back Yard" policies.

Re:So...

[cheater512]

People want to have their cake and eat it as well.

They will do anything possible to be environmentally friendly as long as they dont have to change their habits, spend money or essentially do anything at all.

Re:So...

[evanbd]

Because, while I like a variety of forms of renewable energy and think they should be supported far more than they are, I realize that it will take a while before they can provide a substantial fraction of our energy needs. The same is not true of fossil fuels, and is true to a much lesser degree of nuclear plants. I didn't say to ignore alternative options; I was simply pointing out that coal is worse than nuclear in a wide variety of ways. The parent was comparing nuclear and coal, and I added a counterpoint to his argument. I did not feel a particular need write a treatise intricately comparing the pros and cons of all plausible energy sources.

Not everyone who fails to trumpet the virtues of renewable sources in every post is a troll, or even dislikes renewables.

Re:Once again some basic math.

[lusiphur69]

The Chinese are exempt from Kyoto...

So, too, is the US, as it refuses to sign. Meanwhile, free trade agreements with every tinpot dicator and banana republic are signed without a second thought - see: Colombia. Your argument comes down to my neighbour won't do anything about the growing pile of garbage on their lawn, hence it's ok if I continue to pile garbage on my lawn. Plus, moving the garbage off my lawn will cost me money and let's face it, that's the real reason nothing is being done. There's no math here - only a refusal to deal with the real issue while shuffling blame on someone else. Other people doing nothing does not make an excuse for us to do nothing. Kyoto is obviously imperfect, but a refusal to do anything is not a plan - unless you call a suicide pact a plan.

Please see above, and while you are at it, also add carbon emissions for the developing third world ... what happens when Africa decides to get air conditioning?

This is precisely why renewable energy needs to be heavily subsidized and deployed, combined with reducing consumption. We need to improve and cheapen the technologies we can use to make 'green' power. What happens when you bury CO2 in the ground? Do you think it magically disappears from the equation? No, it simply becomes someone else's problem - likely someone who wakes up dead when a seal fails and CO2 displaces all the air near the leak site. Of course demand is going to go up, as I pointed out. I notice you abandoned your earlier argument of the 'biosphere' generating most atmospheric CO2 - that's progress, at least.

We have to be able to take CO2 out of the air, and put it somewhere

We're not taking it out of the air, we're taking it out of coal plants, plants will will increasingly use because of the sequestration. It would go into the air, because we keep burning coal - however, we could just reduce our dependency on coal, through reduced consumption, energy-efficient technologies and renewable power sources, and end up with a net plus that does not burden future generations with nightmare 'CO2 escape' scenarios. Yes, these things cost money, which is why storing gas in a hole sounds like a good idea to suits at the DoE - it's not cheap, but it's cheaper.

Sequestration is no panecea, no cure-all - it is at best an impefect solution to an intractable problem - there are no magic bullets. Using it to justify increasingly relying on coal is idiocy at it's finest.

Re:So...

[TooMuchToDo]

Building, transporting, and maintaining solar/wind/hydro/etc. isn't exactly carbon neutral either.

Re:Given that AGW is a scam....

[lusiphur69]

You're obviously right - those durn scientists just want more money. Noone is actually concerned about the future of the planet, the glacial sheets or the potential for civilization-ending change, clearly, they just want funding. That is, I'm hard pressed to find any other motive that could possibly rationalize your argument and place it in the realm of the possible.

Out of curiosity, are you also one of the card-carrying members of the 'Ozone hole is a scam' club? My landlady a long time ago was my first close encounter with one of this kind - when she said the ozone hole is a conspiracy made up by scientists, my eyes almost popped out.

Re:So...

[polar red]

um... good insulation is 10 times as cheap than wasting energy trying to keep your house cool or warm.

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Re:So...

[TheSeer2]

It was certainly implied. And don't throw any word twisting bullshit back. There's no such thing as a zero-carbon energy source due to the construction needs e.t.c

Re:So...

[goldspider]

Sell me a "carbon-neutral" energy source, and I'll sell you some coastal property in Montana.

Re:So...

[guruevi]

You could always switch to electrical energy for the vehicles that maintain the sites and transport/dig up the uranium. You would build one reactor that is not carbon neutral and then you'd be able to power enough vehicles to build all your other reactors fully carbon neutral.

Re:So...

[deKernel]

See, that is where you are wrong. It is worth investing because it can provide a HUGE boost in power to a region that needs it. Can the technology provide the "silver bullet"? No it can't, but noone will.

It is a matter of picking a replacement for a region that makes sense. We are far too large of a country to assume that one solution will fit in all places.

Re:So...

[bluie-]

Environmentalists are as diverse in opinion as any other group of people. Maybe you've never actually talked to one, or maybe the ones you've talked to have been excessively idealistic, but everyone I know that really gives a damn about the environment is quite interested in practical solutions.

Trees vs. Science Project

[Tisha_AH]

This is interesting... $126.6 million dollars to remove 1 million T of carbon through sequestration.

A forest removes about 2 T a year of carbon from the atmosphere.
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/fa04-catalyst-forest-carbon-sequestration.html [ucsusa.org]

It would take 500,000 acres to remove 1 MT of carbon from the atmosphere. (follow me so far?)

It costs approximately $68/ acre to plant forest.
www.alliancechesbay.org/pubs/projects/deliverables-77-7-2004.ppt

For $126,600,000, you could plant 1,861,764 acres.

This would remove 3,723,528 tons/ year of carbon. Roughly 3.7 times more carbon sequestration annually.

This DOE project removes one million tons once. Forests would remove 3.7 times more each year.