Cheaper Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/515881/cheaper-ways-to-capture-carbon-dioxide/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Cheaper Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide[/font]
[font size=4] Techniques developed at MIT and Pacific Northwest National Lab could make it more affordable to burn fossil fuels without releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.[/font]

By Kevin Bullis on June 12, 2013

[font size=3]Capturing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and then storing it underground could make it possible to continue using fossil fuels without making such a large contribution to global warming. But the current method of capturing the carbon dioxide requires a lot of energy—it can lower the output of a power plant by a third and nearly double the cost of electricity.

Two novel approaches—one developed at MIT and the other at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory—could lower these costs by up to half. Both provide a low-energy way to trigger the material that captures the carbon dioxide to release the gas so that it can be stored. Then the material can be reused. The MIT process uses electrochemical reactions, instead of the steam used now, to trigger the carbon dioxide release. The other uses a solvent that can be triggered to release carbon dioxide by mixing in certain chemicals. Papers describing the approaches have just been posted online by the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

Existing carbon capture technology has not been widely deployed because it is expensive (see “Grasping for Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide on the Cheap” and “Will Carbon Capture Be Ready on Time?”). In the conventional approach, the gases in power plant exhaust are separated using a solution containing amines that selectively bind carbon dioxide. The amines will release the carbon dioxide if they’re heated up, but this requires a large amount of energy, which would come from steam that could otherwise be used to generate power.

Researchers at MIT developed a way to get the amine solution to release carbon dioxide without heating it. They run it through a device that resembles a battery—it contains positive and negative electrodes made of copper. But instead of producing power, it uses electricity to regenerate amines (see “Fuel Cells Could Offer Cheap Carbon Dioxide Storage”).

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[Nihil]

1. "could make it more affordable to burn fossil fuels"

Could also make it more palatable to continue to burn fossil fuels (a.k.a. "greenwashing&quot .

There is not a chance in Hell that any industrial process can capture & store carbon
at anything like the efficiency of the coal that is being dug up by the megaton every day.

Leave the f*cking stuff in the ground and quit with the greenwashing agenda folks!


(*Not* aimed at OKIsItJustMe but at the people behind the post.)

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. (Leave it in the ground…)

Yes, obviously, this is the best approach.

I keep telling people “Fracking is a side issue. If they could get it out of the ground using “conventional” drilling technology, I still wouldn’t want them to do it.”

However, since you and I both know it isn’t going to happen… what’s “Plan B?”

[wtmusic]

3. The real question is: does Plan B make the problem worse

by not forcing us to address its root?

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Does Plan B make the problem worse?

Last edited Thu Jun 13, 2013, 12:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Shouldn’t we address its root cause? Well, yes, we certainly should have, decades ago.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid it is too late to address the root cause.

We’re looking at 400 ppm of CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] and rising.

Hansen and co suggested that we need to lower it, “to a level of 350 ppm or lower.”

Now, how are we going to do that in a timely manner? (Hansen and co. also warned, “If the present overshoot of this target CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”) If we stop all emissions tomorrow (based on ice core data) the levels may return to 350 ppm in as few as 50,000 years.


Recent discoveries tell us that the last time CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] levels were about this high, temperatures in the Arctic were about 8°C warmer than today.

This tells me that we will need to find some artificial means of capturing and sequestering GHG’s.

[wtmusic]

5. The logical leap is assuming a CCS program won't lead people to believe the problem

is being taken of - and burn even more carbon.

A band-aid for a gangrenous limb.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. OK, let’s look at this logically

• If we implement a CCS program, there is a chance we might kill ourselves.
• If we don’t implement a CCS program, we will certainly kill ourselves. (We have, for all intents and purposes already done it. According to Hansen et al the warming, “in the pipeline,” is already too much, )

…



…

Warming “in the pipeline”. The expanded time scale for the industrial era (Fig. 2) reveals a growing gap between actual global temperature (purple curve) and equilibrium (long-term) temperature response based on the net estimated forcing (black curve). Ocean and ice sheet response times together account for this gap, which is now 2.0°C.

The remaining gap between equilibrium temperature for current atmospheric composition and actual global temperature is ~1.4°C. This further 1.4°C warming to come is due to the slow surface albedo feedback, specifically ice sheet disintegration and vegetation change.

…

Please recall that at the time this was written, atmospheric CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] stood at 385 ppm.

[wtmusic]

7. You forgot: "If we implement a CCS program, we might kill ourselves faster

than we already are."

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. An interesting way of dealing with risk

To avoid a perceived risk, you’re apparently willing to accept certain disaster.

Given that, how can you accept nuclear power?

http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2013/june/name,38773,en.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Four energy policies can keep the 2 °C climate goal alive[/font]

[font size=4]IEA report shows how to stop growth in energy-related emissions by 2020 at no net economic cost[/font]

[font size=3]10 June 2013

Warning that the world is not on track to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency (IEA) today urged governments to swiftly enact four energy policies that would keep climate goals alive without harming economic growth.

“Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away – quite the opposite,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in London at the launch of a World Energy Outlook Special Report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, which highlights the need for intensive action before 2020.

Noting that the energy sector accounts for around two-thirds of global greenhouse-gas emissions, she added: “This report shows that the path we are currently on is more likely to result in a temperature increase of between 3.6 °C and 5.3 °C but also finds that much more can be done to tackle energy-sector emissions without jeopardising economic growth, an important concern for many governments.”

New estimates for global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2012 reveal a 1.4% increase, reaching a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt), but also mask significant regional differences. In the United States, a switch from coal to gas in power generation helped reduce emissions by 200 million tonnes (Mt), bringing them back to the level of the mid‑1990s. China experienced the largest growth in CO2 emissions (300 Mt), but the increase was one of the lowest it has seen in a decade, driven by the deployment of renewables and improvements in energy intensity. Despite increased coal use in some countries, emissions in Europe declined by 50 Mt. Emissions in Japan increased by 70 Mt.

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[wtmusic]

9. The only way, AFAIC.

There is no such thing as future certainty (the acceptance of your own opinion as certainty is a quaint characteristic of Homo Sapiens exceptionalist thinking, which is probably the most predictable term in this equation).

CCS is an unproven technology which would require a huge investment of resources. An ineffectual gamble on CCS could bring on climate change even faster than if we spent those resources on proven strategies like efficiency, public transit, etc. An unacceptable risk, IMO.

Unlike CCS, nuclear power has already proven itself as the cleanest practical form of power generation.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Nuclear fission has proven risks

Personally, I am willing to face the risks associated with nuclear fission, in as much as I don’t believe we can afford to immediately shut down all nuclear power plants.


You perceive possible risks with CCS.

Unless our understanding of Greenhouse Gases is completely wrong, we need to reduce the levels of CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] in the atmosphere dramatically and soon.

Build all the nuclear plants you like, but unless they are capturing and sequestering carbon, they won’t avoid a climate disaster.

[wtmusic]

10. Same principle as this

'Self-cleaning' pollution-control technology could do more harm than good, study suggests

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112746729

[FogerRox]

12. IF we can take all the Co2 from smokestack emmissions

then why cant we also scrub the atmosphere of Co2.... Not today, or this year or this decade.

I'm not sure that large scale Carbon capture would spur more coal use. There will be a cost to CCS, which would/should/might prohibit expansion of coal use.

I've always thought that is Polywell fusion worked, making the increased availability of electricity possible that X amount of electricity could be for widespread CCS. Relaying on such huge technological leaps is of course a fantasy today.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. In my opinion, “scrubbing the atmosphere” is a necessity

Perhaps this is a way to do it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/112744958


I think nuclear fusion is also a necessity (it’s been a while since I’ve heard any news from EMC2.)

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42292

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Climate Conditions in 2050 Crucial to Avoid Harmful Impacts in 2100[/font]

January 11, 2010

[font size=3]…

The team focused on how emissions levels in 2050 would affect the feasibility of meeting end-of-century temperature targets of either 2 or 3 degrees Celsius (about 3.5 degrees or 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively) above the pre-industrial average.

-----Mid-century thresholds-----

The study identifies critical mid-century thresholds that, if surpassed, would make particular long-term goals unachievable with current energy technologies.

…

One "business as usual" scenario showed that global emissions would need to be reduced by about 20 percent below 2000 levels by mid-century to preserve the option of hitting the target. In a second case, in which demand for energy and land grow more rapidly, the reductions by 2050 would need to be much steeper: 50 percent. The researchers concluded that achieving such reductions is barely feasible with known energy sources.

"Our simulations show that in some cases, even if we do everything possible to reduce emissions between now and 2050, we'd only have even odds of hitting the 2 degree target-and then only if we also did everything possible over the second half of the century too," says co-author and IIASA scientist Keywan Riahi.

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[FogerRox]

14. I started leaning to scrubbing about 6 yrs ago

EMC2 ran Wb-8, and got more money to deal with anomalies near the E-guns. This was predicted by Bussard in a medium sized reactor like WB-8. IT appears they have not gotten to what the contract calls WB-8.1, which would be using WB-8 with Proton Boron11 fuel. The current contract phase appears to be over this September, after which we may hear something.

One thing I'm positive about Wb-8 uses liquid nitrogen to cool the magnets. Weather this is to allow more shots per time period, or longer shots past the 6 milli seconds WB-6 & 7 ran, I dont know. I will guess that Ln2 cooled magnets might allow runs as long as 5-10 seconds, not that thats required.

300 gigs of Polywell P-B11 electricity might get us to the point where dedicated scrubbers could run 24/7 - years on end. Now that we're at 400ppm, the only way to get back to 350ppm is take it out of the air.