Plans Abandoned for First 1,300-Mile Carbon-Capture Pipeline Across the US (arstechnica.com) 85
"A company backed by BlackRock has abandoned plans to build a 1,300-mile pipeline across the US Midwest to collect and store carbon emissions from the corn ethanol industry," reports Ars Technica.
The move comes "following opposition from landowners and some environmental campaigners." Navigator CO2 on Friday said developing its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project called Heartland Greenway had been "challenging" because of the unpredictable nature of regulatory and government processes in South Dakota and Iowa. Navigator's decision to scrap its flagship $3.1 billion project — one of the biggest of its kind in the US — is a blow for a fledgling industry... It also represents a setback for the carbon-intensive corn ethanol refining industry, a pillar of the rural Midwestern economy which is targeting industry-scale CCS as a way to reduce emissions...
The project faced opposition from local landowners, who expressed concerns about safety and property seizures, and some environmentalists who describe CO2 pipelines as dangerous and a way to prop up the fossil fuels industry, which already has a network of such infrastructure. Addressing the decision by Navigator, the Coalition To Stop CO2 Pipelines said it "celebrates this victory," but added: "we also know that the tax incentives made available by the federal government for carbon capture, transport and storage likely mean another entity will pick up Navigator's project, or find a different route through Illinois."
The article cites one analyst at energy research firm Wood Mackenzie who believes this cancellation could benefit rival carbon-capture companies like Summit Carbon Solutions, which is planning an even larger network of CO2 pipelines throughout the Midwest, and could try to sign deals with Navigator's former customers.
The move comes "following opposition from landowners and some environmental campaigners." Navigator CO2 on Friday said developing its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project called Heartland Greenway had been "challenging" because of the unpredictable nature of regulatory and government processes in South Dakota and Iowa. Navigator's decision to scrap its flagship $3.1 billion project — one of the biggest of its kind in the US — is a blow for a fledgling industry... It also represents a setback for the carbon-intensive corn ethanol refining industry, a pillar of the rural Midwestern economy which is targeting industry-scale CCS as a way to reduce emissions...
The project faced opposition from local landowners, who expressed concerns about safety and property seizures, and some environmentalists who describe CO2 pipelines as dangerous and a way to prop up the fossil fuels industry, which already has a network of such infrastructure. Addressing the decision by Navigator, the Coalition To Stop CO2 Pipelines said it "celebrates this victory," but added: "we also know that the tax incentives made available by the federal government for carbon capture, transport and storage likely mean another entity will pick up Navigator's project, or find a different route through Illinois."
The article cites one analyst at energy research firm Wood Mackenzie who believes this cancellation could benefit rival carbon-capture companies like Summit Carbon Solutions, which is planning an even larger network of CO2 pipelines throughout the Midwest, and could try to sign deals with Navigator's former customers.
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"gasoline more expensive."
I thought up something that could get your gas down to a dollar a gallon,
maybe less. Uses coal and a little electricity from solar.
Any big renewable project has to make some liquid hydrocarbon fuels,
they are just too useful. So I have watched synthetic fuel production
for a long time. Recently it dawned on me that intermittent renewable
energy might be useful.
H2O + C H2 + CO (H = +131 kJ/mol)
The water gas shift reaction would let you run up the hydrogen at the
expense of the CO.
Of course it was. (Score:4, Insightful)
They were never serious about it. Carbon capture is just greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry: "It's okay to keep burning stuff 'cause we can just capture the emissions and [redacted] it!"
(Don't worry about what [redacted] means. Don't think about if it'll actually work, or even if it might actually make things worse, like using it to extract more oil from fracking sites...)
=Smidge=
Re: Of course it was. (Score:4, Insightful)
Blackrock being a backer of that is no surprise. Literally anything they back is for the opposite of making the world a better place.
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Blackrock owns bits of a huge chunk of companies on the market.
It's much simpler: Blackrock only cares about making money. If it saves the world, they're in. If it hurts the world, they're in. All they care about is the bottom line.
Re: Of course it was. (Score:3)
"Right, because it is the industry that forces you to use oil and gas based fuels. This is such unadulterated nonsense, I feel nauseated every time someone says something like that. How about show us all an example and stop using all oil based products"
Congratulations, you have just posted the shittiest of shit takes.
It is not feasible for a person to avoid all products derived from petroleum, unless they want to go all hair shirt. Everything you can buy in a store was produced with a mix of energy source
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right, dymb fucking moron, who is always on the wrong side of every argument, there is 0 reason for anyone in the entire oil and gas production industry to bother convincing anyone at all on this planet about the obvious superiority of their product The product that is readily available pretty much in any quantity that is needed at the lowest price that is possible for the energy density that the product provides, the convenience of it.
All YOU have to do, you fucking moron, is provide any one of those alt
Re: Of course it was. (Score:2)
Aren't you tired of being ratio'd for flaming me yet?
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You're entirely misunderstanding their point. They're arguing about the attribution problem: the problem is one of demand, not supply. If *you* are providing demand for a product, *you* are the problem, not the company that provides it for you. They're not providing it for the LOLs - they're providing it because *you* want to buy it. And if they were forced out of business, someone else would step in to provide it for you, so long as *you* want to buy it. So attempts to pin the blame on suppliers are j
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> So attempts to pin the blame on suppliers are just hypocrisy and blame deflection
Everyone else: "I think we should improve society somewhat."
You: "And yet you participate in society! Curious! I am very intelligent!"
Okay so like... what if the supplier leveraged their near market monopoly status and obscene wealth to actively suppress competition for alternatives? What if they used patent portfolios to stifle innovation that might reduce demand for their product? What if they lobbied for legislation tha
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I'll repeat: YOU are missing the point. Going after *producers* doesn't "improve society somewhat". It just means swapping out whatever was the most efficient producer for one that's less efficient.
Oil producers are not "suppressing competition". There is TONS of competition among oil companies. There are TONS of EV makers as well. Going after suppliers does NOT fix anything, so long as there's still demand, because even if you kill off individual companies, others will gladly fill in the role.
You're N
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You "go after" the producers because they are, very literally, enforcing demand. They enforce it through laws. They enforce it through propaganda. They enforce it through suppression.
> There is TONS of competition among oil companies.
Such as? Do you have any idea how the global petrochemical industry actually works? You think there is any real competition there ensuring the best price of diesel fuel or something? Different brands of gas station does not a competitive market make.
> There are TONS of E
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There is NO LAW that makes you buy a gas car. Go buy an EV! There's tons of them! There is no law that makes you buy goods bottled in plastics! Buy ones with glass or metal or ceramic packaging! They cost more ***because plastics are cheap***, of course, but it's not LAWS that make them that way - it's the fact that you ca
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Suppression of what, you motherfucking crazy idiot, you believe the earth is flat too? Nobody needs to suppress absolutely anything in the world where the best goddamn fuel is available as cheap as it is, it is a energy dense as it is, it is as convenient as it is, it is as plentiful as it is.
You are a complete psycho idiot.
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The industry sells you what you are willing to buy, you don't like it - don't buy it.
We are a captive audience. I don't have a choice to not emit carbon at home if I want to keep my lights on. I don't have a choice not to emit carbon to get to work. You act like it's a consumer choice, it's not. It's a choice that stems from the extreme privilege of being wealthy enough to substitute these sources of carbon yourself.
Not everyone can afford an EV
Not everyone can afford a heatpump
Not everyone can afford batteries and solar to make sure the above two don't simply substitute oil for natural ga
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it is a consumer choice. You choose the cheapest, most efficient way of buying energy, it the cheapest, most efficient and most convenient energy that is available, most energy dense and most plentiful. Nuclear is a good option, but vast majority of the population are complete idiots and they oppose it due to ignorance. If you want to exclude yourself from using oil and gas you can, it will cost you much more, not because of any conspiracy, because everything else is more expensive by its very nature. M
Re: Of course it was. (Score:2)
What does it matter if I burn it from fossil fuel at the pump or the coal fired power plant
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What does it matter if I burn it from fossil fuel at the pump or the coal fired power plant
It's potentially easier (or better / more effective) to install / monitor / upgrade pollution controls on the fewer stationary power plants than the millions of vehicles of various ages owned by millions of people.
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The thing is, this is neither: these are corn ethanol fuel plants. Which shouldn't even exist. I can't believe these are still a thing.
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Agree on that, am not a fan of ethanol -- production or use...
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Besides the theoretical benefit of being easier to control emissions from a single, stationary source, there's also a matter of efficiency.
There is a paper which I don't have time to find right now - will dig it up later if I remember - that essentially shows using a well-to-wheels analysis that an EV charged entirely on coal-generated electricity has the CO2-per-mile emissions comparable to a Toyota Prius. It is notably more efficient to burn coal to make electricity to charge an EV than it is to burn gaso
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To me, a CO2 pipeline is actually a good thing. I've done work for a CO2 liquification plant located near a refinery, so I understand a tiny bit of the process. There is a commercial need for CO2, but that is not well matched geographically to easy sources. The opportunity that the pipeline presents is access to a variety of sources and sinks for CO2 without some of the convoluted inefficiencies that the current system necessitates.
Will it solve global warming... of course not! but it is an incrementall
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Technically it will work fine. Economically it's a disaster especially at 5% interest rates. A lot of grand ideas won't pay off at what was once a normal interest rate. Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen bent the economy into odd shapes with their zero interest rate policy. Sorting it back out will be painful.
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They were never serious about it.
Except they were. You don't spend lots of money getting to the point where people are actually campaigning against you if you're not serious about something. This project got way beyond the "we're not serious" stage. Actual regulatory filings were made.
Carbon capture is just greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry: "It's okay to keep burning stuff 'cause we can just capture the emissions and [redacted] it!"
A technical development on the back of billions of dollars of investment that materially has an impact on reducing the emissions is not greenwashing. Please use English words correctly.
Don't worry about what [redacted] means.
We know what [redacted] means. It means putting the carbon back where it c
Environmentalist know-nothings (Score:5, Insightful)
The "danger" of a CO2 pipeline? If the pipeline were to break, it would release the same amount of CO2 into the air that we're now going to have in the air if the pipeline is not built.
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Yes, but the vegetation around the leaking pipe may get a momentary growth spirt. That could be... terrible.
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Turns out vegetation is great at cleaning the air.
Re: Environmentalist know-nothings (Score:3)
Turns out that plants can't use much more CO2 than they normally get without a carefully controlled environment because they literally evolved to make use of the amount we have had in the atmosphere for millions of years.
In order to increase photosynthesis by increasing co2 you also have to increase insolation, but that raises temperatures so you then have to control those to avoid the plants' stomata from closing to protect the plant from losing moisture. So this works well enough indoors but really doesn'
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Actually, green plants evolved in a period of 10x the CO2 we presently have, and that means now only those that can cope with starvation have survived.
It doesn't mean that's what they evolved to, just what they can tolerate.
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Yes, good in the way that sugar is good for people, though for sugar and people it is fat people while plants get leggy and weak with too much CO2.
Plants, like people, need a balanced diet, for plants along with increased CO2, you need to increase N,P,K, perhaps calcium and then micro nutrients starting with iron.
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Yes, but the vegetation around the leaking pipe may get a momentary growth spirt. That could be... terrible.
You gest, but only in ignorance. The risk here is not that CO2 diffuses up into the atmosphere, the risk is that dense phase CO2 lingers at grade and would kill anything (with legs anyway) that is within a significant radius of the release zone. There's a reason the UK HSE regulates CO2 pipelines like a high pressure natural gas pipeline, which itself carries a significant higher risk than a diesel / crude oil pipeline.
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Re: Environmentalist know-nothings (Score:2)
It all came from a couple locations, it's not like the pipeline was collecting CO2 from "around the world" - it was from a bunch of Ethanol plants across the midwest...
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Technically, it's the lack of oxygen that kills you. With CO2 that can happen only if the particular local environment favors CO2 accumulation at ground level instead of atmospheric dispersal. It can be easily predicted and avoided. If the CO2 is dispersed in the atmosphere, it won't be a danger to anyone, at least directly.
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CO2 in pipelines is transported in a dense phase at significant pressure and volume. There is no atmospheric dispersion. A pipeline rupture would lead to a prolonged unbreathable atmosphere at a significant distance from the source that lingers at grade and will only slowly disperse over time.
The risk here is incredibly significant. Significant enough that companies are scrambling to provide suitable products for safety systems to address the potential causes of pipeline rupture (such as moisture in the CO2
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Please tell me you are trying to be funny and you actually understand the difference between producing a waste gas and concentrating and compressing that gas at around 50 bar in one place.
But hey if you think it's all safe why not go sit in your car with the engine running and the garage door closed. Clearly the concept of gasses concentrating doesn't apply so you'll be fine right?
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The "danger" of a CO2 pipeline? If the pipeline were to break, it would release the same amount of CO2 into the air that we're now going to have in the air if the pipeline is not built.
Actually it does sound pretty bad [icheme.org].
The problem is that the CO2 in the pipeline is highly compressed, and it sounds like it can be pretty hard on the pipes (making leaks more likely). But more importantly in the case of a leak all that compressed CO2 is getting dumped out into a small area, and since CO2 is odourless* people don't necessarily realize why they can't breathe, so anyone nearby is at serious risk of asphyxiation.
So yeah, if I had to live next to a pipeline I'd rather oil or even natural gas, at l
Re: Environmentalist know-nothings (Score:3)
No ... please stop
Unless there is a full rupture of the line in one spot, a leak is not going to release all of it in one imaginary town
And if a rupture does happen in imagination, the explosion would give a pretty big warning signal
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No ... please stop
Unless there is a full rupture of the line in one spot, a leak is not going to release all of it in one imaginary town
And if a rupture does happen in imagination, the explosion would give a pretty big warning signal
The concentration doesn't need to be that high to make the air unbreathable so I don't think you'd need a complete rupture.
And even if you did get a rupture with an explosion are people going to understand where that explosion came from and what it means? Or are some folks going to wander over to see what caused the bang?
All I know is I found one paper on the topic and it seemed to indicate the risk was legit.
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The paper was written by the UK Health & Safety Executive (equivalent to OSHWA in the US?) justifying the need for regulating CO2 pipelines in a similar method to natural gas pipelines. There are a fair number of "guestimates" required as the number of CO2 pipelines is far smaller than natural gas pipelines but the conclusion that was being made was:
"Therefore in terms of both hazard and risk, CO2, when used for CCS, has sufficient toxicity to be regulated as a dangerous fluid under the Pipeline Safety
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Unless there is a full rupture of the line in one spot
The primary concern about compressed gas pipelines is *always* rupture. The assumption is that all areas around the primary leakage point will be equally weakened (due to over temperature or corrosion) and due to the amount of energy contained in a compressed fluid the pipeline will catastrophically fail. Leakages are a function of joints, flanges, instrument fittings, none of these are the ones being considered here in the risk as they are trivially inspectable.
Make no mistake, even the oil industry itself
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Unless there is a full rupture of the line in one spot, a leak is not going to release all of it in one imaginary town
And if a rupture does happen in imagination, the explosion would give a pretty big warning signal
You mean like what happened in this not-so-imaginary town? [npr.org] (read to find out what happens in real life even when there is some type of "warning" from a noticeably violent pipeline rupture)
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That statement is true for just about everything, too much oxygen, too much water .. except too much spare time.
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That in no way detracts from the point that it can kill people and has to be managed accordingly.
On the other hand, other products we're shipping in pipelines have the same problem plus more problems, so it seems like if you ran it along a similar route to those, you'd be doing no worse at planning for problems than with those others.
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The statement is true for everything, but the risk is not. A water pipeline rupture makes you wet, and who knows you may even have the ability to run away. A dense phase CO2 pipeline rupture will kill you on your next exhale (why exhale? because it's a asphyxiant).
I think we should be thankful that actual experts have enough "spare time" to conduct risk assessments. To be clear I'm sure the environment groups are talking out of their arse, but no where near as much as those ignorant people who dismiss this
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That statement is true for just about everything, too much oxygen, too much water .. except too much spare time.
Yes.
And a CO2 pipeline creates one of the scenarios where there can be too much CO2, and therefore it is dangerous.
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False. There's actual material problems here and they aren't easy to resolve. Here's some risk information from an actual CO2 pipeline project that hasn't been cancelled:
- Firstly the CO2 is compressed and in the process generates quite a bit of heat. Pipelines are typically not built to withstand more than slightly above ambient temperatures. Failure of the cooling systems after compressor can lead to pipeline rupture.
- Secondly CO2 in the presence of moisture creates carbonic acid which is highly detrimen
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CO2 is not ordorized like natural gas, so you typically have no warning...
How about instead... (Score:3)
Stop growing so much goddamned corn! It's in your filing cabinets! It's in the cushions of your couch! You can't get change for the toll booth out 'cuz there's so much corn in there!
WTF, dude, we've got so much corn we don't know what to do with it, MAINLY because of the Iowa Caucuses.
Stop it.
Grow something else!
Re: How about instead... (Score:2)
K how many billions do we give to farmers to grow corn we can't even give away, that burning it as E85 is better than letting it rot
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The one good thing I see about corn ethanol is that if there is ever a food shortage then we could free up a lot of corn for food by diverting the corn put into ethanol production into the food supply. It encourages growing more food than we need which is a buffer against some large crop failure or some such that could cause starvation if we could not find more calories quickly.
There's many downsides to corn ethanol, among them is encouraging the growing of a mono-culture of crops that could be a breeding
Re: How about instead... (Score:3)
Ethanol corn isn't eating corn, it's - lord help us - Genetically Modified to increase Ethanol yield...
Kinda like 'cattle corn'
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Ethanol corn isn't eating corn, it's - lord help us - Genetically Modified to increase Ethanol yield...
Kinda like 'cattle corn'
The same thing that makes corn valuable for ethanol is what makes it valuable for sweetener. It is the sugars in the corn that is fermented into ethanol, if not fermented then those sugars end up in soft drinks, candies, ketchup, and so much else that contains high fructose corn syrup. The vegetable oil used for cooking comes from what you call "cattle corn". I'm pretty sure that corn flake breakfast cereals, corn bread, and so much else made with corn flour is also "cattle corn" not the "sweet corn" we
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Ethanol corn isn't eating corn, it's - lord help us - Genetically Modified to increase Ethanol yield...
Kinda like 'cattle corn'
It's not sweetcorn, but it's certainly edible. I've actually eaten some off the ear out of curiosity, it's just tougher and less sweet. Easily ground into corn meal/flour and eaten, substituted in recipes, etc. We mostly process it into sugar additives or animal feed because it stores well, is easy to transport, and consumers prefer sweetcorn for direct consumption. Sweetcorn isn't as hardy so its production tends to be localized around consumption centers like canning factories.
People don't realize that
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The corn ethanol industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: The corn ethanol industry (Score:2)
Maybe we should stop requiring it be added to our gasoline and paying farmers to grow it...
Re: The corn ethanol industry (Score:2)
We are literally in the middle of an ethanol reduction plan
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Maybe we should stop requiring it be added to our gasoline and paying farmers to grow it...
Not as simple as it sounds. What is your ethanol replacement to increase the Octane? "Straight gasoline" doesn't have a high enough Octane rating to be used in high compression engines.
note "straight gasoline" is in quotes because there are many formulations in use.
We've had a number of Octane boosters in the past, like Tetraethyl Lead, and MTBE, the former being extremely poisonous, the latter able to foul groundwater easily and semi permanently. Let's not forget Benzene either. Way back in 1948 the A
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Here, Chevron sells 94 octane fuel with zero ethanol, Shell's premium (91 octane) also has zero ethanol while all other gas is up to 10% ethanol, made from wheat here in Canada, It raises the question of what they do use to boost the octane.
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As a fuel ethanol is a poor choice long term as the majority (not all) light road vehicles will electric vehicles. Heavy road vehicles currently don't use ethanol (energy density too low) but too hard to guess where the future lies. Potentially the current EV focus is simply to stretch out the remaining oil resources so it is available for twice as long.
As a precursor for petrochemical feed-stock ethanol is a "greener" alternative to generating a significant proportion of plastic monomers. Heat ethanol over
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Figure out a cellulosic ethonal process and it would. (The only commercially viable cellulose process today, is done of the fiber material left over from corn ethanol.)
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This pipeline is the epic B.S. end to a total B.S. economy.
Help rivals? (Score:2)
The project faced opposition from local landowners, who expressed concerns about safety and property seizures, and some environmentalists who describe CO2 pipelines as dangerous and a way to prop up the fossil fuels industry, which already has a network of such infrastructure.
The article cites one analyst at energy research firm Wood Mackenzie who believes this cancellation could benefit rival carbon-capture companies like Summit Carbon Solutions, which is planning an even larger network of CO2 pipelines throughout the Midwest, and could try to sign deals with Navigator's former customers.
I wonder how a rival company plans to overcome the fundamental issues that caused the first company to cancel their pipeline plans... Oh, right, they'll find a new route across Illinois!
Better idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Great idea, let's just burn oil instead. You know, the thing that releases even more CO2 per unit of produced fuel?
That was an insane idea from the outset & was never going to reduce reliance on oil
We're never going to reduce our reliance on oil because we use oil for an insanely fucking wide variety of practical applications well beyond what you choose to put in your car. The idea is itself incredibly sane, even if you manage to get every car in the USA to be an EV, you'll still need to look into CCS for a fuckton of other reasons, including not just other industry but the continued synt
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agenda (Score:1)
hilarious (Score:3)
So, we need carbon capture from the corn ethanol industry, which exists for the alleged sole purpose of reducing carbon emissions from gasoline use.
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Which we now know creates much more CO2 than it prevents.
Environmentalists are the real risk to the planet.
Text him on spyhackelite @gmail com, veritable!!! (Score:1)
Special thanks to spyhackelite @ gmail com (Score:1)