Carbon Capture And Storage

[Methuselah]

Carbon-capture at power stations seems like a viable option, considering the amount of waste produced already by such installations...Where does the waste end up? And, what's done to it? Surely, it should be possible to produce useful materials from carbon-based waste; building materials or ceramics, perhaps??

Sooner or later, we'll need to address many shortages...

[jethro]

Carbon-capture at power stations seems like a viable option, considering the amount of waste produced already by such installations...Where does the waste end up? And, what's done to it? Surely, it should be possible to produce useful materials from carbon-based waste; building materials or ceramics, perhaps??

Sooner or later, we'll need to address many shortages...

The waste is already largely put to good use Pete, in the building industry:

http://www.eon-uk.com/about/521.aspx

There was some talk about a new super garden compost coming from similar sources but I can't for the life of me remember the details.

Chris: the drive to re-cycle instead of landfill is purely a financial one. The EU dictates we have quotas for landfill sites (diminishing every year), each council in the country has an individual quota they can send to landfill, over and above this amount costs them dearly in fines.

[Methuselah]

Thanks for the link, Jethro. So, in-effect, apart the carbon-capture bit itself, a fair part of the necessary infrastructure should be already in place?

Sustainability seem like the only future option...

[Chris Knight]

Chris: the drive to re-cycle instead of landfill is purely a financial one. The EU dictates we have quotas for landfill sites (diminishing every year), each council in the country has an individual quota they can send to landfill, over and above this amount costs them dearly in fines.

Yes Jethro, and there you have it - purely financial. But if we called it Carbon Capture, instead, and buried high carbon plastic waste in specially designated carbon prisons, we could claim carbon credits instead, and sell our services as waste reclaimers, like we did (still do?) with nuclear waste processing. We could become the Steptoe and Son of Europe. :lol:

I loved the e-on article. The last bit on Gypsum left out the chemical reaction between limestone and sulphur dioxide:

CaCO3 + SO2 + 1/2 O2 + 2H2O -> CaSO4.2H2O + CO2

The rest of it seemed to be on construction waste and ash, nothing on reclaiming carbon as such.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Chris Knight

[jethro]

Yes Jethro, and there you have it - purely financial. But if we called it Carbon Capture, instead, and buried high carbon plastic waste in specially designated carbon prisons, we could claim carbon credits instead, and sell our services as waste reclaimers, like we did (still do?) with nuclear waste processing. We could become the Steptoe and Son of Europe.

I loved the e-on article. The last bit on Gypsum left out the chemical reaction between limestone and sulphur dioxide:

CaCO3 + SO2 + 1/2 O2 + 2H2O -> CaSO4.2H2O + CO2

The rest of it seemed to be on construction waste and ash, nothing on reclaiming carbon as such.

No, nowt to do with carbon capture - Pete asked what happened to waste products from power stations, suggesting it could be put to good use, the link was to demonstrate it mostly already is.

Plastic dumps aka carbon capture, I like that; have you ever considered a career in marketing/advertising? It's very lucrative.

[Chris Knight]

No, nowt to do with carbon capture - Pete asked what happened to waste products from power stations, suggesting it could be put to good use, the link was to demonstrate it mostly already is.

Plastic dumps aka carbon capture, I like that; have you ever considered a career in marketing/advertising? It's very lucrative.

A career in Marketing/Advertising - no, I see myself more as a WALL-E, picking up the plastic waste, and squeezing it into little cubic bricks. I even have a border collie to play M-O.

[jethro]

I can't see our dependence upon fossil fuels ending any time soon; reliance upon Gas is set to increase and the government is declining to invest financially in Nuclear.

Can renewables, wind farms and the like make up the shortfall when nine oil and coal fired plants close by 2015? It looks unlikely atm.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6118113/Britain-facing-blackouts-for-first-time-since-1970s.html

[Methuselah]

I can't see our dependence upon fossil fuels ending any time soon; reliance upon Gas is set to increase and the government is declining to invest financially in Nuclear.

Can renewables, wind farms and the like make up the shortfall when nine oil and coal fired plants close by 2015? It looks unlikely atm.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6118113/Britain-facing-blackouts-for-first-time-since-1970s.html

I think you are right in your analysis, there.

That said, I quite favour the idea of dumping plastics in deep-ocean trenches/subduction zones. Once there, they should be exposed to millions of years at immense pressures and temperatures, and become metamorphosed along with all the other chemical compounds?

[jethro]

It's quite a grim prospect really. If the Sun really does enter into a prolonged minimum around about the same time that we're running seriously short on energy supplies, we could all be in for a bit of a shock to the system.

We don't have our own oil and gas and yet we continue down the road of reliance upon them, regardless of the degree of AGW, whether it's real or not; that's lunacy IMO. We'll increasingly be held to ransom, probably leading to more and more conflict.

Locally, there's huge opposition to the prospect of some kind of tidal power being generated from the Severn estuary despite it being so vital for the future and it being an ideal candidate for green energy. Every application for wind turbines is held up interminably by planning objections and appeals; the hoohar about Hinkley Point has to be heard to be believed. I'd bet quite considerable sums of money on those same people being some of the first to jump up and down complaining when the power cuts happen. Electricity doesn't happen by magic, it's got to come from somewhere but to listen to the folk around these parts, you'd think it was a gift from the Pixies.

Perhaps it's time to start stock piling logs and knitting big jumpers...

[osmposm]

(and by the way, yes, if you've been buying 'organic' food - you've been done. Even the 'natural' fertilizers used in the product of these foods (which incidentally has the same chemical composition as the manmade stuff) either hasn't been tested, or if it has, it produces the same level of cancer in rats in a lab - in sufficient doses)

That's essentially right, VP, if they've been buying only for personal health reasons - though as with most of these things, there is an unquantifiable psychological element that may, perhaps, benefit the health of those who believe they have a healthier, more "in control of my body" lifestyle. In my experience this does exist - I have been noticeably healthier since losing a lot of weight last year, which I take to being at least as much to do with feeling so much better on every level (though ironically the mechanism in my case didn't involve turning to 'natural' or 'healthy' food or anything else.....and did involve an increase in my smoking!).

However, for most people the organic/natural food argument is at least as much to do with the benefits (real or hoped-for) for the countryside where the food is produced. Clumsy, inefficient, small scale, pest-ridden agriculture is undoubtedly better for wildlife....but probably only the rich can afford it (I usually can't).

All of which is way off-topic, sorry.

Chris, I am very taken with your argument about plastics as carbon-capture. Huge food for thought: I won't even attempt a comment until I've thought it through thoroughly. But thanks indeed for raising it.

Ossie

[VillagePlank]

That's essentially right, VP, if they've been buying only for personal health reasons

All of which is way off-topic, sorry.

Perhaps off topic for the physical fundamentals, but spot on in terms of 'philosophy' of risk. Which is what I was getting at, and why I drew an analagy.

Human beings, as a collection of people, skilled or otherwise, are horrendous at assessing risk in a rational manner. For sure, we all feel that we do it rationally, but, really, next to none of us ever do.

So, onto carbon capture, carbon rationing, etc etc ... what is the risk that we are trying to offset here? Do we understand that, before we understand what we are doing subsequently? Can it actually be understood, properly?

For sure, the IPCC has specified very high risks of 95% (which, in terms of science, is just about certainty) And, of course, it should read as a risk, and not a measure of certainty (95% certainty is not the same as a 95% risk of an event occuring - there is a subtle difference)

Nevertheless, firstly, if the CO2 hypothesis holds true (and, frankly, I have no compelling evidence that it isn't - and science is about confirming or otherwise a theory. People might like to point me to the LI work, but it's woefully incomplete - at the moment) then the easiest answer is to stop pushing out CO2. That's it. Stop pushing out CO2.

If we (demonstrably) cannot achieve that, say, in a generation, then, we need to look at space reflectors, carbon capture technology, ocean seeding and all of the rest of it.

Dev, I think, got this one right. Sort out the source of the problem. Even most sceptics will subscribe to that one on the basis of a risk based approach, and I'm not talking about the precautionary principle, either. That one's for another debate in another thread, sometime in the future.

[laserguy]

Dev, I think, got this one right. Sort out the source of the problem. Even most sceptics will subscribe to that one on the basis of a risk based approach, and I'm not talking about the precautionary principle, either. That one's for another debate in another thread, sometime in the future.

Yes,even this one,as I readily stated the other day. And it's nothing to do with one's conclusions re CO2/AGW etc. It's like saying that you can now smoke as many fags as you like because we've invented this fantastic new drug which negates all the risks - maybe. It most likely carries it's own,however. If you want to remove the risk,remove the culprit (imagined or otherwise) instead of trying to keep up with it. Or something like that....

[Thundery wintry showers]

So, onto carbon capture, carbon rationing, etc etc ... what is the risk that we are trying to offset here? Do we understand that, before we understand what we are doing subsequently? Can it actually be understood, properly?

VP,

That post (you can correct me if I'm getting the wrong end of the stick here) seems to be lumping the idea of carbon capture together with those "generate anthropogenic global cooling to offset global warming" policies like putting vast sheets over areas of the Earth's surface. Many other posts that dismiss the idea of carbon capture make the same assumption. I am in complete agreement with those who suggest that policies like the latter should only be last resorts, as we don't know what we're tampering with and what extra risks we're generating.

But carbon capture and storage is merely about offsetting the anthropogenic contribution to the levels of atmospheric CO2- so if we can find ways of doing that which have minimal or no side-effects, isn't it more a case of neutralising one of our impacts on the system, rather than increasing our impacts on it?

Of course ideas like carbon capture and storage should not negate the need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in the first place. We need that for all kinds of reasons and not just AGW. But reducing our reliance on fossil fuels isn't going to happen overnight, so this carbon capture type of idea is meant as a temporary measure to help reduce the extent of any damage while we're still pumping out lots of carbon dioxide.