The WSJ has a story today about the high hopes riding on the few large-scale carbon-capture demonstration projects under construction. The entire global political and economic elite desperately wants carbon sequestration to work, so they can keep us hooked up to the fossil fuel mainline. But as the WSJ notes, it's a tough row to hoe:
Unlike oil or gas fields, power plants aren't always conveniently located near geological formations where carbon dioxide can be stored. In many cases, pipelines will be needed to transport carbon dioxide over great distances to underground storage areas.
There are safety risks. Carbon dioxide could seep out of geological formations where it is warehoused and affect the surrounding environment.
And even proponents of the approach acknowledge that it could be as long as 20 years before carbon-capture technology could be applicable on a wide scale.
Sounds awesome! (Again, I refer you to Jeff Goodell's recent article on clean coal.)
In other Big Coal news, Big Coal has a vital role in our energy future, according to Big Coal:
"You're not serious about global carbon stabilization unless you're serious about increasing investment in coal technology," Steven Leer, chief executive of Arch, the second largest US coal miner, said Wednesday in an interview at a conference on coal's future.
In yet more coal news, coal companies want you to know that even though the first-gen gasification-and-sequestration technologies are not mature or deployed, they already have shiny new second-gen tech in the works. Ooh, shiny new tech, just around the corner! Sound familiar? Perhaps we should call it cellulosic coal.
And finally, Politico has a great article examining the sudden, frenzied battle over coal liquefaction (which, remember, is not the same as coal gasification). On one side: industry-friendly legislators, the coal industry, and mining groups. On the other: green groups. Sounds fair! This paragraph makes me want to cry:
In the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) is expected to offer an amendment that adds liquefied coal to a bill that would increase the current renewable fuels standard; under this law, a certain amount of fuel used for transportation must come from renewable fuels, such as ethanol. As introduced by committee chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), and ranking member Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), the measure focuses only on biofuels, but Domenici and several other members have expressed support for broadening the standard to include liquefied coal.
OK, it's bad enough that we have a bill on "renewable fuels" that is focused almost entirely on biofuels. But adding coal to it? The semantic abuse alone boggles the mind.
And see if this sounds familiar:
Industry advocates say technological advances in the works now could be ready when the first coal-to-liquid plants open for business in five or six years.
Shiny new second-gen tech? Sign me up! Let's call it cellulosic liquefaction.
The hidden costs and benefits of things we take for granted
Comments
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:01 pm
26 Apr 2007
Under the President's proposal, the fuel standard will be set at 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017. This will displace 15 percent of projected annual gasoline use in 2017. The President's proposal will also increase the scope of the current Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), expanding it to an Alternative Fuel Standard (AFS).
The Alternative Fuel Standard will include sources such as corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, methanol, butanol, hydrogen, and alternative fuels. [emphasis in the original]
Most people recognized immediately that by "alternative fuels" he had in mind those derived from coal.
But I think you are on to something labelling any new shiny technology that is meant to divert people from the dirty reality of the here and now as "cellulosic". (Cellulosic tar sands -- sounds like a winner, eh?) The MSM will then start poking around and asking what is this new-fangled technology you guys are talking about? Let's just hope they appreciate the irony and the humor.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:26 pm
26 Apr 2007
Would be a lot easier than canceling all the existing coal fired power plants.
And it's multiple orders of magnitude more energy effecient than liquid or gas biofuels.
Lastly it's a lot more realistic than carbon capture and sequestration.
_
Not to mention, when it comes to oil.
We can always switch to electricity.
But when it comes to electricity, it's reliable and dispatchable unlike solar/wind/wave and it's safe unlike nukes.
Not to mention, it could be done quickly.
(Unlike both solar/wind/wave and nuclear)
Geothermal, and Pumped Hydro Storage + Renewables those can work great in the longer term, but we're gonna need something in the meantime while we build those up.
_
Not to mention, or demand for electrical energy is about 10x less than our demand for transportation energy.
But it makes up a larger portion of our CO2 emmisions.
And Oil is going out the door whether we like it or not.
Getting off Coal, now that ones going to be difficult without a ready subsitute.
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Billhook Posted 5:43 pm
26 Apr 2007
Battery-Chicken Dung Power or the Mega-Hydro dams
with their emissions per MWH as bad as Coal-fired power ?
If we're serious about Sustainable Energy, then lets use the term accordingly.
Regards,
Bill
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theBike45 Posted 9:58 pm
26 Apr 2007
major source of CO2 emissions via compressed air
strategies to achieve reliability) probably aren't
affected by emission facts. But the facts are clear - coal has become a very clean, cheap technology. Anyone serious about reducing emissions who doesn't embrace clean coal shouldn't
be paid attention to - they are living in some alternate energy universe. Let's start ripping down wind turbines and get into advanced energy
technologies that can actually make a difference.
Alternative energies will now have to prove themselves worthy of their often exorbitant price tags (which, in the case of wind, are preposterously underestimated and bogus). The
free ride is over for technologies that don't deliver. Note that the emissions reduced by just the first two test Alstom test plants will
run towards 2000 MW of clean power. Compare that with the trivial output of the existing 7500 wind turbines - about 2700 MW of average output (less than 1/2 of 1 percent). Anyone who sees those stats and does cost comparisons will never choose wind over clean coal, at least not without facing the prospect of being laughed out of the room. Coal and other fossil fuels will be the only means possible for achieving significant CO2 reductions. Once acheived, any alternative energy technologies that hold real promise of having a
capability of producing RELIABLE power at a competitive price wil be examined and adopted as
needed. We need to create a new energy system based on logic, not emotional hysteria, which is virtually the only reason anyone would ever errect a wind turbine, perhaps the stupidest method ever conceived for generating energy.
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Energy745 Posted 12:48 am
27 Apr 2007
Bottom line: in the mid term (10 to 15 years) I would not expect to see coal to liquid production plants being built.
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GRLCowan Posted 12:49 am
27 Apr 2007
I'm not "really keen on fast-breeder nuclear reactors", although if someone who can pay for one wants to build it over my back fence, that wouldn't bother me. Ordinary nuclear reactors are built without subsidy, operated without subsidy, and are safe.
The fuels they burn is exceedingly cheap, and many in government would prefer something more expensive to be burned, like maybe natural gas or petroleum, for those fuels are negatively subsidized; the more we're shepherded into burning, the more numerous and comfortable our government-employed friends become. So it's hard to get nuclear construction permits and there are astroturf protest groups. But when members of these groups have the personal choice of getting on a nuclear boat or a diesel, they choose nuclear.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:40 am
27 Apr 2007
You must be kidding, right?
Nuclear reactors live and breath subsidies.
And the few things they do pay for have never been adjusted for inflation, or are capped way below what would be needed, or are guaranteed by nontaxable low intrest government loans. (i.e. net subsidies)
Besides which, this whole reprocessing thing does virtually nothing to reduce the high level waste, since high level waste storage is restricted by temperature, not volume.
All it does is allow people to reuse the U238, and a bit of the U239. But all the nasty tranurenics are still around to haunt you.
Which is great if supplies of U235 are so scarce that you otherwise couldn't operate. But in the current scenarios, it's just an expensive solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
Mainly used as political cover since Yucca Mountain may never open given the staunch opposition from Nevada.
And the fact that we've already passed the legistlated limit of storable high level waste in Yucca mountain.
If you want to compare France, Russia, Japan, or England. Where the Nuclear reactors are literally owned and payed for by a government monopoly.
I'd hadly call those "unsubsidized".
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Energy745 Posted 1:43 am
27 Apr 2007
Here is my prediction for the future:
A tax on carbon emissions imposing $8 per MwHr cost increase put in place in the next two years.
Revenues from this tax will be earmarked for Carbon sequestration, and will be used to build one or two plants in ten years.
By this time higher costs from other government operations will divert funds from the carbon tax to Medicare or other social programs.
There will be no tolerance for yet another tax on power consumption for another 10 years.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:52 am
27 Apr 2007
greyfalcon.net/fossiltaxes.png
greyfalcon.net/fossiltaxes.png
Just like that "cheap" corn Ethanol.
Something is only "cheap" if it's Full Cost is inexpensive.
The cost of building that one Alstom plant is more than the DOE budget for Solar and Wind combined.
(700 million dollars)
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:01 am
27 Apr 2007
(Note, the nuclear subsidy isn't on the chart, but was worth 12 billion)
Annual Energy Growth Rate from 2000-2006
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:01 am
27 Apr 2007
The Texeme Construct
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:05 am
27 Apr 2007
Same way that Oil isn't considered a BioFuel.
_
Lets just figure, if it wasn't produced in the last century. Then it's probably not considered a "biofuel" in what would be acknowledged in policy.
_
Hell, if we want to play games with semantics, solar power is based off of our own personal nuclear fusion reactor.
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cce Posted 2:09 am
27 Apr 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:42 am
27 Apr 2007
I couldn't really say.
But I can say it's getting down in price.
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45 ...
_
The reverse question is what is the cost of building 850MW of coal WITH carbon capture and sequestration, using existing technology.
Pretty sure you can't answer that one either.
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cce Posted 3:22 am
27 Apr 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:20 am
27 Apr 2007
If you're going off of the raw Capital cost only.
Since renewables don't have fuel costs
Don't have water rights costs
And their operation and maintence costs are neglible.
(And for good measure, they don't have high level waste, or decommisioning costs either)
_
When you take all that into account, wind still delivers electricity cheaper than Coal.
Abeit yes, unreliably.
But compared to Coal with CCS, storage for wind shouldn't be much of an issue.
Flow Batteries, for instance work pretty well for that.
_
But over all of that, wouldn't it be even cheaper just to switch existing coal plants to burning charcoal biomass instead?
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David Roberts Posted 4:27 am
27 Apr 2007
grist.org
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Energy745 Posted 4:47 am
27 Apr 2007
Site 1: 54 MW capacity, cost: 741 $/kw installed
Site 2: 310 MW capacity, cost:1,042 $/kw installed
Site 3: 20MW capacity, cost: 1,500 $/kw installed
These sites were installed in 2003 to 2005.
To calculate costs use the following for wind:
O&M $28.5 per kw installed
Back up power: depends on the state: $25/MwHr to $45/MwHr
Average capacity factor: 25%
If you do some basic project finacing calculations you will find the costs to range from $97/MwHr to $140/MwHr.
One quick point, to quote Charlie Maxwell, each wind power project is better than the last, and I would expect improvements in the future.
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Nucbuddy Posted 6:43 am
27 Apr 2007
Had reprocessing previously been mentioned in this thread?
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:24 am
27 Apr 2007
Remind me, where does plutonium for Fast Breeder Reactors come from?
Now remind me, how do FBRs achieve that miraculous moniker of reductions in high level waste?
What does a Fast Breeder Reactor imply for it's role as a sustainable energy source?
Reprocessing.
They're pretty much synonymous.
And without FBRs, LWR and PWRs are are just as unsustainable as Peak Oil.
_
About the only thing which can avoid centralized reprocessing, is onsite reprocessing.
And thats still reprocessing.
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Engineer Posted 7:50 am
27 Apr 2007
Not sure what you're basing this on. O&M on our wind projects is running ~$14/MWh. Without subsidy (these are public projects depending on annual Congressional funding for the Renewable Energy Production Incentive, which has not been and is not fully funded) the cost of output is ~$65/MWh, so O&M is a little over 21% of the cost of power.
Coal, (new) without a carbon tax or other mechanism to address externality costs, could produce power in the $40/MWh range, substantially less than wind. Coal plants aren't built because anyone has a particular desire to destroy the environment, they're built because the power from them is CHEAP! And power companies try to keep rates low. Existing coal plants (where the capital costs have already been amortized) produce power less than $20/MWh.
If wind (or any other renewable) produced power less expensively than coal, there wouldn't be a fight over building new coal plants!
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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sunflower Posted 7:57 am
27 Apr 2007
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GRLCowan Posted 8:31 am
27 Apr 2007
If this were true, it would have to be true that not just northern Alberta, but every square inch of land, everywhere on the planet, was paved with tarsand that was six mass percent tar, equivalent to rock that is 0.0004 mass percent uranium if the tar is burned and the uranium is extracted and run once through a PWR, a BWR, or a CANDU reactor. Either way the thermal yield would be 700 kWh per tonne. This is the grade that, in tar's case, is being extracted and upgraded today at a rate of a million barrels per day.
Moreover, the six-percent tarsand would have to exist not just at the surface, but solidly down ~30 km depth. "Bedrock" would have to mean "tarsand"; the continents wouldn't be made of anything else.
Read this now and remember it forever: nuclear power's very long-term sustainability does not depend on breeder reactors and reprocessing. Nor does it depend on crushing large fractions of the continents in any given 10,000-year period. Both breeder reactor enthusiasts and fans of the lying Dutchman tend to be stupid on this subject; you don't have to be.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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