Thanks a lot for this post

CCS is really a typical "bad good idea", for each 3 moutain tops blown up, blowing up a fourth one in order to call the energy from the first three clean ? Really gross, and simply a scandal.

Moreover we are talking tons and heavy industry here, no Moore law to be expected.

If CCS gets implemented, it will be a perfect example of a "technological easter island statue"

And without going into GW controversy, CO2 isn't a polluant per se, and for sure the solution is in efficiency and burning less, consuming 25% more to maintain BAU ? Outrageous ...

Have the Chinese talked about the introduction of CCS? Concidering the amount of coal they use that would be a fairly large carbon wedge created if it was implimented nationwide.

Like a lot of other green ideas, CCS makes sense, only when it makes sense. In my opinion, that is where there is a beneficial use for the CO2, as in the enhanced oil recovery operations.

Doing large scale injection is risky - it can still work it's way to the surface.

But for the 25% increase in energy to do it (if there is no side benefit like EOR), we are simply better off to find 25% decrease in energy use, and then the coal will last 50% longer.
Of course, the 25% decrease in energy would make a lot of coal plants redundant, so the CO2 would decrease anyway.

Industrial type CCS may yet be a piece of engineering mastery, but that doesn't mean it is worth doing. The best way to sequester coal sourced carbon is to simply leave the coal in the ground!

the strict Norwegian carbon dioxide emission taxes of 45 euros per ton of emitted CO2

Good. We are on the way to a carbon tax and eventual Capital punishment for burning carbon..

For the more squeamish amongst us, the result of not taking extreme measure is to condemn millions to starvation. This is a fate we may not avoid, in any case.
The choice is between evil and worse evil.
Such a choice may be viewed as a good thing, in light of the alternative.

On a lighter note I see in the Scientific American (March 2010 pp 9) that basalt can be turned into calcium carbonate. The idea is to use the Decan Traps to store CO2.
Is there any merit in this idea, assuming we will have the spare wealth to accomplish this trifling task?
I did wonder what was the half-life of CO2.

Well, enough gaity.

Excuse me if I'm mistaken or if I have oversimplified, but:

The atomic mass of carbon in 12, and oxygen 16, which gives a molecular mass of CO2 of about 44. So to go from CO2 to C you would multiply the mass (5.5Mt here) by 12/44 = 0.27 which leads to 1.5 Mt of carbon (not 1.27 Mt).

This would lead to ~785 CCS equipped coal-fired power stations (same ballpark).

I was in the SPE conference in NOLA October 09, I listened a paper presentation very interesting about sequestration of CO2.
I take the “risk” to give you the reference and the abstract. The full paper is available e mailing me….or through the SPE.org
SPE 124430 Sequestering Carbon Dioxide in a Closed Underground Volume
M.J. Economides/University of Houston, C.A. Ehlig-Economides/Texas A&M University
Abstract
The capture and subsequent geologic sequestration of CO2 has been central to plans for managing CO2 produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. The magnitude of the task is overwhelming in both physical needs and cost, and it entails several components including capture, gathering and injection. The rate of injection per well and the cumulative volume of injection in a particular geologic formation are critical elements of the process.
Published reports on the potential for sequestration fail to address the necessity of storing CO2 in a closed system. Our calculations suggest that the volume of liquid or supercritical CO2 to be disposed cannot exceed more than about 1% of pore space. This will require from 5 to 20 times more underground reservoir volume than has been envisioned by many, and it renders geologic sequestration of CO2 a profoundly non-feasible option for the management of CO2 emissions.
Material balance modeling shows that CO2 injection in the liquid stage (larger mass) obeys an analog of the single-phase, liquid material balance, long-established in the petroleum industry for forecasting undersaturated oil recovery. The total volume that can be stored is a function of the initial reservoir pressure, the fracturing pressure of the formation or an adjoining layer, and CO2 and water compressibility and mobility values.
Further, published injection rates, based on displacement mechanisms assuming open aquifer conditions are totally erroneous because they fail to reconcile the fundamental difference between steady state, where the injection rate is constant, and pseudo-steady state where the injection rate will undergo exponential decline if the injection pressure exceeds an allowable value. A limited aquifer indicates a far larger number of required injection wells for a given mass of CO2 to be sequestered and/or a far larger reservoir volume than the former.

When atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration stops rising the oceans will continue to absorb only 6% of today's emissions so no matter how much energy we save or how many windmills we build if we burn more carbon than that we need to capture it to stop global warming. Refer http://jemsavestheplanet.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-on-global-warming.html

It is only fair that all those (and only those) who burn fossil fuel should contribute to the cost of capturing the carbon dioxide produced. My proposal would be that fuel producers would place contracts for the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide equivalent to an increasing proportion of the carbon in the fuel they produce. Inevitably the cost would be passed on to the consumer but if capture cost say $75/tonne of carbon dioxide, this would add only $32/barrel of oil, which is modest compared to price movements in recent years.

Raising the cost of using fossil fuel would drive energy saving, renewables and nuclear in just the same way as a tax or a cap but without the intractable problems of agreeing emission limits for every sovereign nation. See my article at http://www.ngoilgas.com/article/sorting-climate-change

Wouldn't using oxygen enhanced combustion generate additional emissions of NOx? The volume of pollutant is much smaller than the CO2 stream, sure, but I imagine if the idea is to generate little else besides CO2 and H2O, and removing or treating other contaminants is important (e.g. sulfur) then this could possibly cause some problems too, and even the most advanced and efficient selective catalytic reduction systems are only around 80% effective at NOx removal.

Of course there are still the larger concerns of how many suitable sites even exist for CCS or what it will take to transmit power from those sites to demand centers. Clearly the net energy from CCS coal is going to be much lower than coal today and the plants will be far more expensive than existing coal plants as well. Do these factors, combined with coal peaking/depletion of course, not negate the primary advantage of using coal today (i.e., low fuel cost)?

CSS appears to be a PR ploy. That's how I have viewed it after my initial investigation and this article confirms my opinion. CSS is not a serious solution, but a 'demonstration' project. What have they gotten out of it? A confused public who believe there is 'clean coal.' One of the industries that rivals the oil and gas empire is the media, a force that has turned into PR for BAU.

As an advocate of CCS I think the numbers used here are generally correct with the exception of the Energy Watch Group peak for coal which is doubly laughable because unfortunately the idea of thousands of coal fired CCS plants being all retrofited post-combustion in the next twenty years is just beyond belief.

I agree that post-combustion retrofit is the quickest fix to CCS but is the least efficient and given the quite ancient state of coal generating plants, I think that with some government proding IGCC-CCS would be the major replacement as IGCC-CCS have higher thermal efficency ~40% than conventional pulverized coal plants at 30%. They also can produce valuable by-products like methanol.

We also know that CCS will work with lignite as Dakota gasification uses straight lignite ore which other conventional plants require higher grade bituminous coal.

The 'penalty' of the energy inefficiency of CCS is no different than the penalty of using brown coal instead of black coal.
Germany uses lignite to make 49% of their electricity with an energy value of 60% of the US coal mix and haven't exactly collapsed.

https://www.iea.org/stats/electricitydata.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=DE

As to the safety and practicality of carbon sequestration, it is proven for
smaller demonstartion plants. FutureGen was supposed to be a full demonstration plant but Bush delayed it in an effort to stop CC legislation of coal power plants.

The one single policy to meaningfully reduce CO2 that exists is CCS for coal plants.

CCS coal reduces CO2 emissions 85% from coal on a btu basis while switching from coal to clean natural gas in CCGT reduces emission by 66%. The amount of natural gas on earth ~7000 quads is far less than the proven coal reserves at 21000 quads.
If all the proven coal reserves were burnt to provide electricity without CCS it would be about 2400 billion tons of CO2 and the world produces 30 billion tons of CO2 per year now.

“Plus for instance, I'm all in favor of a high carbon tax.
Again CCS is completely in the BAU line : "Ok the system is messy, let's add one to make it cleaner even if it consumes more in the end" (ie infinite ressources mindset)”

Remember who is controlling money collected. Politicians who seem to be a collection of liars and thieves regardless of which party they represent. Overpopulation is really the problem, so why not nip it in the bud. Enforced sterilization on a worldwide scale is the only solution. Otherwise any action is only pushing the problems down the road where they will be much worse. The human population will be much larger. The environment will be decimated. Starvation and war will be the end result. Stop the breeding of humans or just limit it as much as possible. Unfortunately we do not have a world government so there is not way to implement any uniform action worldwide………. We’re doomed.
hotrod

The dog represents human society. The biscuits represent the additional energy and costs required to sequester CO2.

You can't do this trick easily or for long with a hungry dog.

CCS will not be done long-term. It is a semi-plausible rationalization now, but environmental concerns will go out the window as people start worrying about their own families in the near-term.

a pity, but there it is.

You don't necessarily need to store CO2 produced in a coal power plant.
One can also consider using wind power to produce O2 and H2 and then use pure O2 to burn coal and subsequently turn CO2 into CH4 using H2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

After all, natural gas distribution is already in place. Combined heat and power (CHP) plants are efficient and run well on natural gas and so do cars, trucks, tractors and if necessary even aircrafts:
http://www.steyr-traktoren.com/Pages/en/Aktuelles-Veranstaltungen/Aktuel...

http://www.tupolev.ru/English/Show.asp?SectionID=82

And CO2 produced in a CHP plant can be used to boost crop production:
http://www.power-technology.com/contractors/cogeneration/jenbacher/press...

The plant is equipped with GE’s Jenbacher cogeneration-rich exhaust (the CO2 fertilisation process treats the engines’ CO2), allowing the gas to be recycled in the greenhouse as a special fertiliser to help boost crop production instead of venting the gas into the atmosphere.

As I see it CCS faces a triple whammy
1) the energy penalty
2) the storage volume requirement
3) killer carbon carbon tax rates.

The waste volume requirement will be different for liquefied CO2 as opposed to saline absorbed CO2. If I recall Richard Heinberg discussed a case where liquid CO2 required double the volume of the original coal. The planet just doesn't have enough empty spaces underground.

I've also seen estimates that carbon taxes or spot permit prices would need to be $100 per tonne of CO2. It would be hard to live with that on the present energy mix as it would add 25c per litre of petrol and 10c per kilowatt hour of conventional black coal fired electricity. Those price increases might be too big an economic shock to undertake on a voluntary basis.

double post deleted - satellite signal glitch

You left out another method namely extracting the CO2 directly from the atmosphere. Nature has provided us with a device which can be cheaply produced in large numbers that extract carbon from the atmosphere. These devices run on solar energy and can be used for multiple purposes such as building materials, food production, and heating buildings. By producing charcoal from devices which can no longer do the job of extracting CO2 the future production of these devices can be done more efficiently. The charcoal stores carbon in a solid state which has been shown to not degrade for thousands of years. The charcoal manufacturing process produces gaseous fuels which can be used instead of coal in electricity generation. Therefore there is a way to do CCS which could actually reduce the amount of coal being mined.

How is this for a solution to coal-fired power plant emissions?:

Clean the coal of its impurities BEFORE you burn it.

Burn clean, high-purity carbon solids from the cleaned coal.

No ash; no sulfur -- just CO2 emissions as a result of oxidation.

C02 emissions for each coal fired power plant could be reduced by >30% since you need less higher purity coal to burn.

Ash impoundment would be reduced signficantly, because the coal would burn cleanly without ash waste.

So the future of clean coal is Cleaned Coal -- clean the coal of its impurities before it is burned.