Carbon Capture and Storage

CCS via Picking Losers.

CCS means that the CO2 from your favourite project is captured at great expense, converted to a liquid form and then stored in a hole in the ground.      Where your source does not have a hole in the ground you can package your waste and send it to one in a remote part of the world.   (I’m suggesting Brussels)

Now the government has, finally, approved some new power stations.   Unfortunately not nuclear but coal and with some extra costs added on.  The cost of the CO2 capture equipment.   Now from my understanding from the articles the capture is very power intensive.  It will take between 10% and 40% of the output of the power station to capture around 90% the CO2.  That’s if it works properly at all.   What a waste.  That means we need much larger power stations just to stay in the same place as stations are decommissioned.  It also will mean that the cost of power will increase because while the inputs will be the same, the outputs will be significantly less so the costs must increase to keep the profits up.

We need to remember that there is only one plant, in France, where this technology is in place on a power station and we have not even got any decent reports from it yet and already our government is mandating that it’s fitted or they won’t approve the new stations.  

In addition they make the assumption that the liquefied CO2 will remain in the ground forever.   Two things leap at me immediately.   The CO2 is kept liquefied by power during collection and transport what is going to happen to it when it is put in the ground unpowered.   My understanding is it will turn back to a gas.   What will stop it leaking through the rock and escaping?  Now as it’s the middle east, not in my backyard, I don’t really care but I wouldn’t want it here because even one container load leaking would not be very good for our health.  Never mind the hundreds of containers worth we are talking about.   It’ll be like a poison gas attack to any nearby towns.

On the other hand it probably won’t really be an issue.  After the collection of all the taxes from this excercise the government will send them all off to China or the Middle east who will plug them into a socket and suck the liquid out.    Squirting it out into the atmosphere after they have the signature for where they can send the bill.  Bit like what happens with our household recycled materials now.

Bet China isn’t being so stupid as to hamper it’s power stations and my understanding of our contribution to the CO2 output means we will have made very expensive empty gestures.

Just out of interest though.    As this CO2 is so powerful at changing our climate if we were to sent it to Mars somehow then it would change it’s environment to make it more friendly for us.  Remember Mars is much smaller than the Earth therefore easier to terraform.   If we are terraforming Earth on our own just with CO2 then we should be able to terraform Mars easily if we can get the CO2 there.  Maybe a bit of a logistical problem there though atm.  Maybe soon.

Now another question I have is if we are so sure we can keep a massive amount of a poisonous gas locked away safely why can’t we manage to keep a significantly smaller amount of liquid and solid nuclear waste.  Especially as they are already in sturdy containers.   Now I know that the half life means they need to be stored for thousands of years but as technology improves, either conversion to an inert material or transport to the sun, or Brussels, would become safer.    It won’t have the same issue as CO2 and we can get greener power.   Winners all around.  Except for the whingy whiney greens but they are never happy anyway so can be ignored.

And to cap it all we are in the middle of a recession.  We will never get on our feet at this rate with politicians putting our costs up all the time for no benefit.