An Inconvenient, Dirty Truth About Cheap and Plentiful Coal

This column from the Canadian Globe and Mall gives the writers opinion of the role coal will play in our future energy needs. For those of you that thought renewable energy, conservation and perhaps a new fleet of nuclear reactors were going to save our climate, this article gives a rather dismal picture.    

If you want to make money and don't mind spitting up black phlegm and destroying the planet, buy coal. While the energy markets and the media are obsessed with rising oil prices, the developing world is quietly gearing up for a coal development and consumption spree of astounding proportions. The energy markets of tomorrow are not about oil and hydrogen and wind turbines spinning lazily on ridges. They're about coal, which is cheap and plentiful but also the worst news for the environment that you could imagine in the post-Al Gore world.

The investor case for coal is hard to beat.  . . .

In a gas-fired plant, 3 per cent to 4 per cent by volume of the flue gases flung into the atmosphere are carbon dioxide. The figure in a coal plant is 15 per cent. No wonder the IEA predicts coal's share of global carbon dioxide emissions will rise from 38 per cent in 2000 to 45 per cent in 2030.  .  .  .

In fact, no large coal plant anywhere on the planet uses carbon capture. The technology is said to be coming but you can bet it won't arrive quickly. Designing and building a plant that uses carbon capture can add 50 per cent to the capital costs.  . . . more

Thanks to Tyler of Clean Break for the tip.

Comments

[Benny]

The first world will regulate Coal plants and create carbon markets, soon. It is already happening. Texas voted against some coal plants. CA has pretty much banned them, no? Europeans are not all fond of coal plants, the French use nuclear. The post coal age will come, driven by natual and market forces.

Coal will fuel the developing world. It will do the same thing to them as it did to us - make them rich and dirty. At which time they will have the means as well as the will to use the technology that we will have by then developed, from thin film solar to advanced wind, to Geothermal to third generation nuclear and the Smart Grid to tie it all together.

It's a world that is 20 years out, technologically for us. By then, the coal plants built today will be nearing the end of their shelf lives, and will many of them retrofitted by clean technology not yet invented.

The Coal Age is simply a technilogical one, and it's time will soon have gone. Good legislation and Carbon markets will help, and are inevitable given growing public opinion around the world.

[Kit P]

Benny, you do not have a clue do you? A 'English and French Literature' major does a fair job and reporting and you miss the salient point.

“The U.S. Department of Energy predicts the construction of more than 1,000 coal plants in the next five years, most in China, India and other parts of the developing world. China alone opens a new coal plant every week.”

Let me explain a few thing, California 'has pretty much banned them'. California has no coal plants because California has no coal and terrible air quality. California gets lots of electricity from coal, it is just burned someplace else.

“French use nuclear” France has no coal.

“Texas voted against some coal plants.” No, as part of a buy out of a large utility plans to build coal plants were canceled but no other generation was specified.

Engineers build and operate power plants not public opinion. Bad legislation and Carbon markets will not change reality. Countries with coal will continue to rely on coal. Countries without coal will use nuclear or import fossil fuels.

[Benny]

Your Malthusian predictions rely on several assumptions – that we will build coal plants forever, or always need to use coal to generate electricity. You assume no technological advancements or legislative victories.

We have, in the last one hundred years alone gone from the bicycle to the Biplane to the moon but you cannot foresee clean coal technologies? Or any eventual successor fuels to coal? For countless centuries, Wood and coal reigned as the power kings. In just the past 2 we have invented Bio fuels, Fuel Cells, Clean Gas, Biogas,Nuclear and Solar, and have vastly improved an old standby, Wind. Yet we will burn coal, no matter how dirty, forever?

You assume there will be no good legislation or regulation. In fact the green movement, merely 35 years old, has been a success

Top 10 environmental success stories
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2004/aug/business/js_top10success.html

You simply miss the salient fact that expenditure on Green energy has exploded in the last 20 years.

Venture Capital spending on Green technology has increased by a factor of ten in the last decade:

http://www.data360.org/graph_group.aspx?Graph_Group_Id=369

Here is one network of green technology investment s-

Our network contains over 8,000 investors, 6,000 companies and 3,500 professional services organizations that specialize in cleantech globally. Included in that number are an elite group of 1,300 affiliate members with over $3 trillion in assets under management.

Yep, that’s Trillion.

Ending the coal age will also happen, because you and I want to pay for it, apparently

http://cleantechnetwork.com/index.cfm?pageSRC=WhoWeAre

The consumer is adding to this toll in growing numbers – 50 million now such that we have been labeled with an acronym – Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS). We are also Cultural Creatives:

http://www.lohas.com/about.htm

I have spent a llot of time supporting websites like this, getting a “clue”, as you call it. Happy reading.

[Clee]

Benny writes:
It's a world that is 20 years out, technologically for us. By then, the coal plants built today will be nearing the end of their shelf lives

Apparently China is building coal plants to last up to 75 years, so 20 years from now, they'll still be in their first third of their shelf lives.
http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?article_id=13052

[Daryl]

Read this book for a non-hyped analysis of global warming:

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming by Bjørn Lomborg

[Danzig]

Clee hits the nail on the head, Benny. When you suggest that "it's a world that is 20 years out . . .", you are probably off by a multiple of 5. All of us who participate in the Energy Blog will be taking the Big Dirt Nap before human-produced green house gases begin a downward move. We can all pretend to know what the answers are; but we will never see the answers. Your great grandchildren might.

[djahna]

Please forgive my ignorance but I thought coal wasn't that plentiful. They're not renewable, right?..

[Kit P]

Benny, when you make assumption about other peoples assumptions you are likely to sound very stupid. In fact the green movement, merely 35 years old, has been a success. If you mean a bunch of watermelons protesting, let me explain they are also against renewable energy in the backyard. I have found only a few groups like the Nature Conservancy that actually do something positive for the environment.

You have a debatable point with venture capitalist. Please notice the growth after 2001. Also look at #5 on the Top 10 environmental success stories.

“States seized the initiative through passage of renewable energy portfolios...”

Yes, Governor Bush of Texas lead the movement and now we are building renewable energy projects as fast as we can.

However, Benny's logic is flawed if he thinks his trillion in assets is going to do anything more than shift a few LNG tankers from the US to Spain. No less electricity will be produced with coal.

Let me apologize to the readers of this blog for not identifying Benny as a con artist sooner. If you go to his links you will find sexy pictures of anorexic women not dairy farmers explaining how anorexic digestion improved the environmental impact of dairy farming. GREENPOWER is about marketing to people with low self esteem.

Is Benny a clueless pixie dust advocate or a clever thief? Shows us the good work being done by your investors and spare us the 'dirty coal' song and dance.

[bigTom]

The vast majority of scientists think Lomborg is an idiot. There will be severe consequences if this energy scenario plays out as currently expected. Yes renewables are growing rapidly, and if their exponential growth can continue for the next 15-20years might become a real alternative. I've been trying to get people interested in CCS, because I don't think the developing world will want to pay the price of not using coal. But the hatred of coal is so great among greens, that they oppose even this. We need to develope CCS to make it available to those who are unlikley to not use coal.

The current Amine based methods are pretty expensive, larger capital costs, and fewer KWthours per ton of coal. Some are developing Amonia based capture which is supposed to be cheaper, but I've seen no numerical estimates.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119112231.htm

We are probably going to need something like this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119112231.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071107074316.htm

Despite the widespread belief that it isn't nice to mess with mother nature, we are likley to need some form of geo-engineering to mitigate the damage we are doing.

[Mike]

Here's some interesting reading:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/

[fjh]

The vast majority of scientists in disciplines relevant to global warming thing LOMBORG a genius who makes rational arguments using cogent facts.

I'm on other technical blogs where people with post doc's regard CO2 theories as 'junk science' designed for mass consumption.

COAL.

Plenty of it; DOE has 'perfected' gasification to a fine art and incorporated carbon sequestation into the plants.

Unfortunately, mining and transportation hasn't changed much.

Europe will pay twice the domestic price for coal--See Economist last week.

OTHER FOSSIL FUELS.

NEW OIL FIELDS..Oil fields in odd regions of S. America and Africa keep being discovered...net reserves have increased over the past decade; and the Russians haven't even started drilling in the Arctic yet.

If you look at shipped oil products, you'll find that demand has slackened over the past few years, conservation is finally kicking in.

OIL SANDS

NEW YORKER did a big piece last week on the Oil Sands extraction in Alberta...very dirty; results in a lot of material and uses tons of water; but there are many years left in the known reserves of oil sands; and there is a growing industry oriented to extraction; nor does Canada have any qualms about extracting them and the US greedily buys them up, and looks the other way.

PEAT BOGS.

Maine has 201 peat bogs that can be mined or already are--for mulch, etc.

NATURAL GAS.

Seemingly endless reserves, esp. under sea beds...real growth is in LNG; Canada is on Board and planning terminals in New Brunswick to feed the backbone pipeline running down the East Coast...No wonder Canada's economy is so hot!

Meanwhile, New England dithers and enviros fret and engage in fear mongering.

PE

[Adam]

I'll just mention two things I think the discussion has overlooked thus far: (1) externalities and (2) relative prices.

Until the price of coal reflects the *true* price of its use--i.e., that the cost of the resulting greenhouse gases is priced into the equation--it will remain cheap. Very cheap.

Oil is near $100 a barrel. While not a perfect substitute, coal is becoming more and more attractive by the day, even when you have to ship it all the way across the Atlantic.

Yes, it will take a while for alternatives to become comercially viable/competitive. Perhaps 20 years, perhaps more. But the trend has already begun. It's inevitable that the price of renewable energy--solar and wind, in particular--will continue to come down relative to coal and oil. This becomes particularly true if we make responsible moves to start pricing carbon, either through a tax or a trading scheme.

Of course, nuclear here is the wild card...

[RJJ]

The theme of this article is very correct and we have already seen the CO2 levels in the atmosphere spike during the last few years. China and India remain the two biggest new problems as they are building low technology coal plants that operate at low efficiencies and dump out CO2, sulfur and particulates. I've read that 8% of the LA smog now comes from China and Tokyo is having new problems with pollution from China.

The power companies don't have a real plan on what to due with the CO2 even if they capture the gas. The only workable solution which is in a demonstration phase uses the coal plant's CO2 to grow algae. The only issue here is that the algae is then converted to biodiesel which is then consumed so the CO2 still ends up back in the atmosphere.

[bigTom]

Conversion to low carbon power is not that difficult, but it is currently more expensive. My local utility PG&E is a leader in this area (for large utilities) the estimated 2007 mix of generation:
biomas&waste 4%
geothermal 3%
small hydro 3%
solar <1%
coal 2%
large hydro 12%
nat gas 49%
nuclear 25%
other 11%

If I assign a carbon intensity of 1 for coal, and .5 for natural gas, that would make our emmisions a quarter of those for coal power. Of course PG&E rates are among the highest in the country -it hasn't come cheaply, and the availability of NG is likley to decline in the futire. fjh's seabed methane is methane-hydrates. So far no-one that I have heard about has proposed a method to economically, and safely tap these (if you've heard otherwise let us know). The methane hydates are a real wild-card, as the are estimated to be considerably larger than all the other fossil fuels combined.

[Clee]

The article claims:
In fact, no large coal plant anywhere on the planet uses carbon capture.

fjh writes:
COAL.
Plenty of it; DOE has 'perfected' gasification to a fine art and incorporated carbon sequestation into the plants.

Can someone tell me what is the largest (or any) coal plant that incorporates carbon sequestration? I couldn't find a single CCS coal plant running. All I could find were plans to build some.

There is the 20 MW natural gas (not coal) power plant where MIT is growing algae which remove only 40% of the CO2 emissions. As RJJ pointed out, this does not sequester the CO2, it just recycles it for later emission into the air.

[GreyFlcn]

$3000/KW for Coal IGCC
$6500/KW for Coal CCS

Coal just costs too much.

[Kit P]

“All I could find were plans to build some.”

Clee is correct. AEP (my utility) is one of those companies building a demonstration project. I have no problem with CCS being incorporated into power plants if the technology is proven sound. I think my utility provides electricity in a very environmentally sound manner.

The interesting thing about the 'dirty' coal debate, is that I have seen lots of coal plants and strip mines. Given a choice between living within five miles (and I have made that choice before) of a coal operation and a big dirty city, I would pick the coal operation fro many reasons including a cleaner environment.

[petr]

China also uses cheap compressed coal cakes for home heating. That has contributed greatly to the poor air quality in it cities, with all sort of health problems that go along with that.

SO is the Chinese leadership which plans decades into the future, completely ok with increased coal pollution ? Seems to me they have already shut down inefficient and polluting steel plants.

Also my understanding of coal electricity plants is that pretty much stay in a baseline production - theres no way to increase or decrease for peak periods.. How are they handling that.

At some point you have to have a cost on polluting the atmosphere.. Norway (an oil producing) country has successfully had a carbon tax since 91 - the co2 is pumped deep underground in offshore drilling. In Canada, the province of Quebec has already implemented it and BC will be doing the same. (There is a question of whether they are implementing it well) but the fact is that it is coming in the US as well.

[petr]

China also uses cheap compressed coal cakes for home heating. That has contributed greatly to the poor air quality in it cities, with all sort of health problems that go along with that.

SO is the Chinese leadership which plans decades into the future, completely ok with increased coal pollution ? Seems to me they have already shut down inefficient and polluting steel plants.

Also my understanding of coal electricity plants is that pretty much stay in a baseline production - theres no way to increase or decrease for peak periods.. How are they handling that.

At some point you have to have a cost on polluting the atmosphere.. Norway (an oil producing) country has successfully had a carbon tax since 91 - the co2 is pumped deep underground in offshore drilling. In Canada, the province of Quebec has already implemented it and BC will be doing the same. (There is a question of whether they are implementing it well) but the fact is that it is coming in the US as well.

[petr]

China also uses cheap compressed coal cakes for home heating. That has contributed greatly to the poor air quality in it cities, with all sort of health problems that go along with that.

SO is the Chinese leadership which plans decades into the future, completely ok with increased coal pollution ? Seems to me they have already shut down inefficient and polluting steel plants.

Also my understanding of coal electricity plants is that pretty much stay in a baseline production - theres no way to increase or decrease for peak periods.. How are they handling that.

At some point you have to have a cost on polluting the atmosphere.. Norway (an oil producing) country has successfully had a carbon tax since 91 - the co2 is pumped deep underground in offshore drilling. In Canada, the province of Quebec has already implemented it and BC will be doing the same. (There is a question of whether they are implementing it well) but the fact is that it is coming in the US as well.

[petr]

China also uses cheap compressed coal cakes for home heating. That has contributed greatly to the poor air quality in it cities, with all sort of health problems that go along with that.

SO is the Chinese leadership which plans decades into the future, completely ok with increased coal pollution ? Seems to me they have already shut down inefficient and polluting steel plants.

Also my understanding of coal electricity plants is that pretty much stay in a baseline production - theres no way to increase or decrease for peak periods.. How are they handling that.

At some point you have to have a cost on polluting the atmosphere.. Norway (an oil producing) country has successfully had a carbon tax since 91 - the co2 is pumped deep underground in offshore drilling. In Canada, the province of Quebec has already implemented it and BC will be doing the same. (There is a question of whether they are implementing it well) but the fact is that it is coming in the US as well.

[GreyFlcn]

The vast majority of scientists in disciplines relevant to global warming thing LOMBORG a genius who makes rational arguments using cogent facts.

Uhg no.
Lomborg has a political science degree with a background in statistics.
Which doesn't really make him a "scientist".

And has been prosecuted by Danish Authorities for flamboyant acedemic dishonesty.

Lomborg 2001
Debunking Lomborg 2007 - part 1
Debunking Lomborg 2007 - part 2
Debunking Lomborg 2007 - part 3

In particular Lomborg keeps hinging his argument on the concept that sea level rise won't be a big deal.

Even though the current IPCC synthesis report mentions that:
"Because understanding of some important effects driving sea level rise is too limited, this report does not assess the likelihood, nor provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise. The projections do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedbacks nor the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow, therefore the upper values of the ranges are not to be considered upper bounds for sea level rise."

[Demesure]

"prosecuted by Danish Authorities for flamboyant acedemic dishonesty."

GreyFlcn, do you seriously believe someone could be "prosecuted" (I presume by a court, rather than "authorities" ?) for "flamboyant acedemic (sic) dishonesty" ?
Man, if you believe this, you'll believe in everything !

[bigTom]

Well even as a big supporter for substantial efforts to stop AGW, I have to admit that the popular press has scare-mongered the sea-level rise thing. While I think a catastrophic meltdown of the GreenlandIceSheet is likely, a geologically significant meltdown would take a few centuries. So sea level will only rise a cm or two per year. Not exactly like a tsunami rolling in. It will still mean expensive infrastructure abandonment, and high expenses for seawalls, but these will likely only cost a few percent of GDP.

Similarly for warming induced liberation of CO2/Methane from the earth, the time span for this is thousands of years. The likelyhood of a of rapid climate shift to a hothouse is actually very small.

[GreyFlcn]

Yes, the timespan is thousands of years.

Assuming it's caused by changes in earth's orbit. (And consequently changes in it's proximity to the sun)

What we're seeing however has almost thing to do with that.

The solar intensity is staying practically flat for 40 years, but the temperature is going way up.

Whats more we can know it's not solar intensity because otherwise the Stratosphere would be heating up. But it's actually cooling. Which means that the heat is getting stopped before it reaches the stratosphere by a lower atmospheric level, likely the greenhouse layer.

[desoto]

Duke Energy is building a coal plant in Indiana that is designed to capture CO2 emissions. I am not a scientist but this plant sounds promising.
Please see the link below.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/CLTU08620112007-1.htm

[John]

There are two main technological elements to clean coal with CCS. The first is the significantly cleaner IGCC plants. They work best with CCS systems. The second is various CCS technologies.

There are at least 6 commercial CCS plants in North America, and dozens of R and D projects. The six commercial projects use 3 different technologies – Solvent Absorption, Capture and Compression, and Pre Combustion capture.

A list of them, courtesy The IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG).

http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/cont_northamerica.php

European has 4 CCS commercial projects and over 20 R and D efforts using Aquifer Storage and Solid Sorbents among other approaches:

http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/cont_europe.php

Here is some info on IGCC plants –

IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) plants significantly lower NOx, Sulfur, Mercury and particulates. These plants are just now being built. One of the first is The Peabody Mustang Clean Coal Project.

Here is a CBC TV news story. The link is to the home page of a pioneering company in clean coal:

http://www.airbornecleanenergy.com/aboutus.html

GE is now selling several Gas turbines for IGCC technology

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/gas_turbines_cc/en/igcc/benefits.htm

Wiki on IGCC:

“There are currently (2007) only two IGCC plants generating power in the U.S.; however, several new IGCC plants are expected to come online in the U.S. in the 2012-2020 time frame.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle#Efficiency_of_CCGT_plants

If America is smart enough to clean up it’s coal act, do we not think enough of the Chinese to say that they cannot figure out, or are too stupid and greedy, to use IGCC like plants with CCS within 20 years?

The Arabs sure aren’t waiting around for us to see the end of the fossil fuel era. They’re buying up Solar:

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8167

http://www.arabenvironment.net/archive/2007/2/161471.html

I am betting the Chinese will somehow manage to catch on to the clean energy thing. In fact, they already are:

“The Green Leap Forward
Environmentalism is China’s fastest-growing citizen movement. Beijing isn’t cracking down on these new activists—it’s empowering them.”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0707.Larson.html

Technology marches on. Carbon is being regulated all over the world. Carbon trading markets are here. We make electricity from coal far cleaner today than we did 20 years ago. We will make it cleaner 20 years from now than we do today. And before the century is out, the era of dirty fossil fuel usage will be ending.

The technologies to replace coal are already here. Nuclear, NG/Clean gases, Solar, Wind, and Geothermal are all already seeing a boom in spending as the century is in it’s infancy. From biplanes and bicycles….

3 trillion dollars is a sizeable portion of the US economy, sniff at it all you want. – Those trillions of dollars are hard proof that the Green Revolution is here.

[Benny]

Sorry, that John post is me Benny. I am new here and thought it would prefill my username.

[Clee]

6 commercial CCS coal plants operating in the US?
Thanks for the links!

[bigTom]

GreyFlcn:
Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in AGW. I spent last weekend reading the IPCC 4thAR. I was commenting about the quality of mainstream media coverage. Too many people either think it is a fraud, or think it is the end of the world. Either view is wrong, and not very helpful.

As far as I can tell from reading the reports (I was in geophysics in grad school, but not professionally) the time scale for the feedbacks involving carbon are pretty long. Long because if takes hundreds or thousands of years to heat up the deep ocean, and then conduct the heat pulse into the methane hydrate deposits. There are other faster processes at work, but I don't think the volume of carbon involved is sufficient to be catastrophic. None of this means BAU and absorb the damage from climate change is a good way to go. But it wouldn't be the end of life-on-earth. The planet has seen much larger upsets (leading to mass extinctions) then we are likely to cause.

To we get back to coal usage. One of the concerns I have about rapid development in Asia is that the aerosol induced regional loss of sunlight could make it difficult to adopt the solar technologies, that are probably only about ten years away. It may be hard to reverse a premature decision to go to coal.

[Don B.]

Lot's of assumptions, lot's data, lotsa politics....
I work around engineers and scientists all day long. They rarely agree on anything in common! How did the media get all these "Brainiacs" (seems like a majority), to agree on AWG?
When you convert fossil fuels (coal & oil) into electricity and/or useful work...doesn't about 60% to 70% of the energy become waste heat? Does ALL this waste heat go BACK into outerspace (Conservation of Energy). Do Greenhouse Gasses stop a portion of emmitted or re-radiated longwave radiation? You gotta break this AGW question down to it's smallest subset of questions; bring back some of the basics from Physics 101. Then the Big Picture starts to become much clearer...
At the present rate of emerging Alternative Energy Technology going from Labratory to Market, COAL will not be a cost effective energy source in the next 20 years. This assumes a few key issues: 1) the EXTERNAL (carbon, enviornmental, health, transport)costs of coal are factored into it's pricing 2) PV prices drop to $1/watt or less in the next few years (think Nanosolar or AVA Solar) 3) Energy STORAGE (chemical, mechanical, thermal) devices continue to rise in storage density while lowering in price.
The lower 48 states + Hawaii contain approx. 2,874,000 sq. miles of land mass. If approx 3% of our land mass(think rooftops and desert arrays) became a PV /Thermal Solar collector (combined with storage devices)...it could supply ALL our energy needs. How much land mass does the Coal and Utility industries use to provide us with just electricity...(Think power plants, coal fields, transmission lines?
It's just a thought, I wouldn't BET my soul with the Devil that coal's external costs will ever be factored-in! But within 20 year, if nothing changes, we will have already sold our soul to the Devil anyway.

Energy Independence is big step AWAY from slavery.....

Don B.

[fjh]

methane hydrate, NOT!. undersea deposits of natural gas, i.e. Sable Island, etc. Many more being found and in the 'to be developed' column...in fact, there is a lot of action in off shore claims to underwater oil/gas deposits by small developing countries. LNG terminals are the connectors to the developed world, and CNG power is the demand.

SEA LEVEL RISES...been measuring the gradual rise of the ocean off the coast of Maine since the mid 1600's; and more precisely at the Portland Head Light since 1912

And the Trend is:

"The trend of the line, determined by a linear regression, shows that sea level has risen at a rate of 1.8 ± 0.1 mm/yr (or 0.6 feet per century) for the last 94 years" http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/marine/sites/mar07.htm

No indication by the Maine Geological service that there is any increase in this rate since 'global warming' was first 'noticed'.

The 'damage' you keep hearing about is from higher tides resulting from coastal storms occuring during naturally high tide; the howl is from beachfront owners watching their beach wash away and blaming global warming; then demanding Bush replace the sand.

So who do you believe?...the actual evidence of the slow increase in the ocean level as recorded at the Portland Head Light or some computer models developed by CCHP and the hysterical reaction by the Natural Resource Council of Maine lobbyists who panicked the Maine Legislature into signing onto the Regional Greenhouse Gas Iniative(REGI)?

...and 'yes', NUKES are coming back!

Solar is nice if you live in the Southwest; not so great if you live in Maine---five cloudy days in a row!

[Kit P]

There are zero CCS at commercial coal plants in the US. Many someone should read what the 6 projects are. The 'S' in CCS stands for storage. CO2 is a byproduct of many processes. There is no shortage of CO2 to put into soft drinks.

What has to be established is feasibly of large scale separation of CO2 from large power plants and storing when there is no value in the CO2.

[Kit P]

Fjh, please provide me with you plan for mankind to adapt to sea level increase of 0.6 feet per century. There is no need to explain to me, try explaining it to those fools who can not figure out what an ice scraper is used for.

[bigTom]

fjh: Estimates of global sealevel rise is currently 4mm/year. Local rates may vary. Maine is still rebounding from being depressed by the Laurentide Ice sheet. The viscosity of the earths mantle is high enough that this rebound takes tens of thousands of years. There are other areas where geologic forces are causing subsidence, the mississippi delta area is famous in this regards. Parts of New Orleans are sinking 1cm/year. A good part of this is due to the drying out of the ground. Pumping out aquifers (or oil) usually results in local subsidence.

Global sealevel rise has two main contributions, expansion of sea level, as the oceans warm up, and changes in land storage (mainly glacier changes, but filling/emptying of reservoirs is also important). Greenland glaciers appear to have dramatically speeded the flow rate into the sea. The real question is will this accelleration continue dramatically, or will the rate find some new limit. I don't think anyone knows enough to make any sort of decent prediction.

Yes, sea level rise damages, usually come with the ocassional large storm surge. Sea level rise (all other things being equal) gradually increase the vulnerability, and/or increase the cost of defensive measures.

[Clee]

Huh. Have to read these things so carefully. I noticed right off that the last of the 6 plants mentioned wasn't running yet. The first three supply food grade CO2, which means it gets into the atmosphere quickly. I got the impression that most, if not all of these plants capture only a small fraction, maybe up to 15%, of the CO2 generated, so even when the coal plant is a commercial plant, the carbon capture portion seems only demonstration-size.

The fourth one produces soda ash, and I can't tell how much of that gets sequestered in some form or another.

The fifth one was tricky. They say that the coal plant has the equipment since 2000 to capture the CO2 and that a storage facility receives CO2, but it doesn't actually say that the carbon capture equipment is in operation at the coal plant, or that the storage facility receives any CO2 from the coal plant. How disappointing.
http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/project_specific.php?project_id=119

[fjh]

KIT...all things are local.

SO I measure sea level rise at the Portland Head light...real time verification of those predictions.

Predictions of sea level rise don't match those based on the very slow rise at the Portland Head Light.

You believe what you want; I prefer predictions grounded in solid trends based on actual measurements, like .07mm a year!

[fjh]

Odd that no one wants to calculate the escape of C02 from beer and carbonated beverages....I wonder why?

[Paul Dietz]

Odd that no one wants to calculate the escape of C02 from beer and carbonated beverages....I wonder why?

Because it's blatantly obviously not significant?

[fjh]

NuCO2 is the beverage industry leader in bulk production and distribution of CO2. Their customers use enormous quantities of CO2 in carbonated beverages...It's significant!

"“It is curious that the Coca Cola Company and all other producers of carbonated beverages, from beer to champagne, have not become targets of political action,” say Christopher Essex and Ross McKittrick in their excellent book TAKEN BY STORM: The troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming. “A bottle of soda pop has about two grams of carbon dioxide in it, and that amount will eventually be released into the atmosphere in one way or another. That can translate into several hundred thousand tons of carbon dioxide every year. [Ed: this is far more than from secondhand tobacco smoke, which Al Gore stupidly claimed contributes to global warming] Wouldn't it be consistent with the moral tone of 'thinking locally and acting globally' to decline to drink carbonated beverages? Shouldn't those companies be required to produce flat beverages in the cause of stopping global climate change?”

“While the contribution of carbonated drinks to overall human carbon dioxide production in minuscule by comparison, it still amounts to maybe four million tonnes of CO2 per year"

burp!

[Kit P]

fjh, either you confuse me with another poster or you did not see the humor of my post.

The point I would like to make about sea level change is that most people will adapt to a small change in sea level over 100 years because twice daily very larges changes in levels called tides.

When you plot sea level increase verses time for the period starting 20,000 before present you get an interesting result. The slope is fairly steep for the first 8,000 years. For the last 12,000 years, sea level has been essentially constant.

The AGW alarmist may have not noticed most of the glaciers have melted 12,000 years before man started burning coal.

[petr]

I wouldnt say there is no value in co2 kitp
the Dakota Gasification Company Great Plains Synfuels plant in North Dakota has a 205 mile pipeline that carries 95 million cubic ft of co2 daily to an oilfield in Weyburn Saskatchewan where it is pumped underground to scrub oil from a depleting reservoir.
Since the year 2000.

[Kit P]

Yes, petr, but what would you say WHEN there is no value in the CO2?

Some yahoos that live in countries without coal want to make my electricity more expensive. Now these yahoos at the same time want me to buy more expensive energy from them. Now the words like 'clean' and 'dirty' get thrown around a lot. I might even consider paying more for that energy if they had a LCA that showed their energy has lower impact.

So my utility is investigating with others utilities CCS when there is no value in the CO2. We will learn what the cost and cost and environmental impact CCS. Should we peruse CCS if the impact of CCS is worse than the impact of the CO2?

[Clee]

Petr, can you give me a URL that shows that the Dakota Gasification Company Great Plains Synfuel plant actually sends 95 million cu ft of CO2 daily to Weyburn? All I can find at their site is a claim that:

"Beginning in 2000 the CO2 Pipeline will begin to supply approximately 94mmscfd of carbon dioxide to PanCanadian’s Weyburn Unit in Saskatchewan, Canada for injection into their oil field."

If they are actually doing this today, it is really bizarre that the wording is in the future tense. I more often see the future tense used when a company plans to do something, but the schedule keeps slipping and slipping and they finally give up on updating the projected date of operation, and just leave it some past date, even though operations never started on that past date.

[Clee]

The quotation in my last comment was from
http://www.dakotagas.com/ResponsibleCare/Pipeline_Information.html

[fjh]

Kit..hard to distinguish biting humour from sarcasm...but I play the same game, so I weather the lumps.

Ocean rises----my point is that someones computer model is a poor substitute for using real data that has been collected for hundreds of years.

Any one with a nodding acquaintance with ocean level measurement, knows that the levels were hundreds of feet higher after the glaciers retreated, then fell and started rising again several hundrend years ago in a fairly steady pattern statistically derived---otherwise there are a lot of peaks and valleys.

Maine's coast has a well defined waterline from the period when the ocean's level was a lot higher..I believe it was over a 100' higher.

So for global warming alarmists to use this fact to support their thesis is disingenious at best, and downright deceptive.

There are billions of dollars of property values and tens of thousands of coastal estates at risk...but like those houses in New Orleans people either knew or should have known N.O. was sinking; or the Atlantic Ocean was on the rise as it has for the past several hundred years.

Homeowners associations, realtors, condo developers, etc. all have a stake in holding back the rise in ocean levels...good luck with that!....meanwhile our politicans have, once again, secured an Army Corps of Engineers 'earmark' to spend on restoring the beach at Pine Point.

[petr]

depends on what you mean by 'value'
is there a value in not polluting kitp?

there probably isnt much value in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides which came from a lot of US coal power plants - and caused acid rain in a lot of Canadian lakes and made a lot of Canadian yahoos unhappy..

unless 'value' accounts for externalities such as costs to the environment..then the system of accounting is inaccurate.

since increased co2 leads to increased global warming there ought to be a cost associated with dumping it into the atmosphere.

regarding the links for dakota gas and co2 pipeline.. here
is one that states it has been operating since 2000 as well as here

and kinder morgan has a number of pipelines in Texas (check the links at bottom) the oldest one is from 1972.

[Clee]

Thanks for the URLs. So they sequester up to 16% of the CO2 from the coal. Not as much as I hoped, but it's a start. I suppose technically, they aren't a coal power plant since they produce natural gas, not electricity.

[Kit P]

Well petr, if you want to redefine the accepted meaning of words, we may have a bit of a problem communicating. Using CO2 to increase the production of oil produces value while CCS is expensive and does not increase value. The cost of mitigating pollution must be weighed against the benefit. If you disagree, I will be happy for you to volunteer petr to be among the first to forgo the benefits of energy.

[petr]

no redefinition of word meanings need be done.
Value simply means what other people are willing to pay- . And that changes over time; when people realize there is a third party cost.
At one time no cared about dumping waste into rivers. Of better still about dumping the pollutants from coal plants that cause acid rain.. Im sure that the coal power plants opposed scrubbers -from a cost benefit analysis..
You're absolutely correct costs of mitigating pollution must be weighed against the benefits.. The question is who decides those costs & benefits..
And as far as a carbon tax, everyone should pay not just coal powerplants.. And yes Im prepared to pay a carbon tax, are you?
Of course Im lucky to live in BC where we have hydro and williston lake.