This should be obvious, but of course you never hear it mentioned in stories about carbon capture and sequestration (CCS): capturing and sequestering carbon requires lots of energy; thus, plants that do it have to burn more coal to create that extra energy; thus, the other pollutants created by mixing, transporting, and burning coal will increase if CCS is widespread.
It follows just based on logic, but if you prefer peer-reviewed scientific studies, here's one for you:
Even with this extra burden [of having to generate more power], a CO2-burying plant emits between 71 and 78 percent less CO2 than a normal coal-fired plant for each unit of usable electricity produced, Koornneef and his colleagues report. But when the researchers factored in all the "cradle to grave" pollution of a CO2-burying plant, emissions of acid rain-causing gases like nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides were up to 40 percent greater than the total cradle-to-grave emissions of a modern plant that doesn't capture its CO2.
Doesn't sound very "clean" to me ...
Soil carbon—a blind spot in the debate on carbon
Comments
View as Flat
dcwedgewood Posted 10:30 am
14 Aug 2008
Thanks for the article. It was great.
Sometimes it's difficult to decide whether to be more "global" or "local." Today, it's local.
I live in the middle section of New England - NH, to be exact. Acid rain, from my fellow citizens in the West and MidWest, is a huge problem. It's irritating because there's nothing we (in NH) can do to directly stop it - and the coal fired power plants don't listen to us.
So, given the choice between warmer days, loss of coastal areas, and other bad events, I would have to say that the cost of storing carbon emissions is not a great solution (for us).
I wish the management of and the investors in those coal fired power plants would build some windmills or solar panel farms - or come swim in some of our lakes...
- Dan
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 11:31 am
14 Aug 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:49 pm
14 Aug 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 10:35 pm
14 Aug 2008
And bad as CCS is, it is only the natural extension of the Clean Air Act, which follows the same approach. But you've heard that rant before...
Permalink
jamesmackenzie Posted 10:54 pm
14 Aug 2008
Permalink
sindark Posted 4:58 am
15 Aug 2008
a sibilant intake of breath
Permalink