greenhouse gas / CO2 recapture or sequestration is not new. The problem is the laws always gets in the way... the law of thermodynamics.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics basically tells you that if you get X Jules of energy from burning a hydrocarbon, you need need (X + Y) to rebuild that hydrocarbon.

i.e. It takes more energy to remove the greenhouse gasses than you initially got from burning the fossil fuels.

If you are doing it using surplus 'off-peak base load' that your power grid produces - assuming you're in one of the few locations blessed with enough clean off-peak energy like Hydroelectric that there is a surplus - then it makes sense.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Well, right now it looks like they are just testing the solvent that they are using to collect the co2. The hope with that would be that it is more efficient and/or cheaper than current operations. They are testing at a biomass plant, but I can’t imagine the tech is all that different than doing ccs from coal. They are only trying to capture 1mt per day, it’s about as small a pilot as you can get.

The bigger issue (not that efficiency and cost aren’t issues) with CCS is storage. If you can use for EOR, you have a outlet and income stream for it. If you don’t, you have to figure out where to put it. If there are underground caverns nearby, great, if not welcome to interstate pipelines. But no one really knows what would happen when you inject all that co2, and if something blows up a few years later, who is at fault.

I couldn't let this one slide by without this opportunity for a chuckle. Drax corporation

Stop splitting atoms here and bringing science into the discussion. Blasphemy!

This is a promising step.

It’ll be pilloried.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

I guess you know this, but, fortunately, it doesn't take caverns, it just takes porous rocks, which can be all over the place. But then pesky little things like low permeability, leakage, potential water contamination (and other things) and migration get in the way. So you are right, the need for transferring it to the correct location can be a big issue. And yeah, liability... who cares what happens to it in 20 or 50 years, right?

I am a bit out of touch in recent years, but until some government "incentives" come in, it will be difficult to make it happen.

Utilities care what happens in 30 years. These companies have been in business for over 100 years; they plan to be in business for another 100 years. And they are, by definition and regulation, a risk adverse group of folks. They are companies made up of 70% engineers, 20% accountants, and 5% lawyers, and 5% other. Would you expect anything less? Who has responsibility for what happens longterm and through unintended consequences of doing something new was very much a huge issue when CCS was all the rage 2008-2011. None of those questions have been answered.

I don’t see incentives occurring in the US until the inevitable consequences of poorly thought out energy policy rears it’s ugly head. Right now they are at least trying to solve the nuclear plant problem in “deregulated” markets.

Edit: I think we are all a little out of touch with ccs these days. Everything has really been shut down by $2-$3 natgas

What makes you think it’s a promising step? It could be be a promising step. It could also be a big joke that creates more issues than it solves. I’m not finding anything beyond what they have publically outlined, so it makes it hard for me to judge if this is better than currently used methods.

To me, a promising step would be that they are testing a 25MW portion of the unit for removal and they are finding that the all in cost (equipment, solvent, landfilling, parasitic load,etc) is cheaper than current ccs.

At 1mt/day, I would consider this pre-pre-testing.

Your signature line is incredibly accurate.

This isn't how carbon capture and sequestration works. The goals isn't to burn hydrocarbons, and then transform them back into the same hydrocarbons. The goal is to take the product of hydrocarbon combustion and collect the already produced CO2 and then store the CO2. It does not take more energy to do this than is produced from the initial combustion. It just takes a little more input hydrocarbon (and cost). The process is getting better and better though.

If it was as simple to shoot it down as you say this approach would have been abandoned long ago. Scientists aren't even that dumb.

Underground storage/sequestration isn't the only outlet for the captured CO2 - reduction to methanol (and other products) has been a pretty hot area of research. Here's a decent review of the state of the art (circa 2018) - as the article states, photoelectrochemical methods are particularly attractive, albeit more long term (>5 years out). Given sufficient advances, it's not that difficult to imagine a closed loop capture & reduction cycle that gives methanol as the only product.

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"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare" - Juma Ikangaa

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Very cool article/paper. Some of the chemical analysis went over my head, but I think I got the gist. Love to see this type of research still going on. If they can get something like this to scale and get costing down, it could definitely be a game changer.

Totally unrelated but I’m pretty sure I put a couple of the chemicals discussed on my face on a regular basis. Not sure how I feel about that.

Sorry, my comment about liability was intended to be (mostly) tongue in cheek. Certain parts of the sector care, but nobody wants the liability. I was involved in setting up legislation in Aus in the early days and just as you say, it was one of the biggest issues. Nobody wants to take on the long-term liability and they want it to transfer to the government at some point, and probably fairly early on. Perhaps that's reasonable and the only way, but there is something unsettling about the lack of responsibility it can allow. The desire is obvious from a corporate point of view but less so from a societal point of view.

Yes, it never completely died in Aus but was drastically reduced like most places. Research has continued but I have tried to stay away!

Interesting. Thanks for that. It's all new to me. Maybe I better start paying attention again. Or maybe not! :)

Everyone should do their part.
I don't know the current legislation, but in 1989 the proper method for sequestration of captured butt gasses was to release them in your 14 year old sister's bedroom, and then hold the door closed shut.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

No worries! I’m probably just a little hyper sensitive to those types of comments.

I totally see where you are coming from on the liability angle. You want industry to have some skin the game to encourage best practices and safety. Do the right thing becomes much likely when there’s a few billion on the line. You don’t want slacking off on maintenance for an extra penny a share because if something explodes or leaks, it’s not their problem. On the other hand, injecting 100s of millions of tons of co2 annually is something that would be new to everyone and asking generators to absorb 100% of the liability, especially when most if not all of that liability can’t be recovered also feels unreasonable.

Unless market conditions change dramatically, all this is really more academic at this point.

One thing that has surprised me with Australia, Texas, and California is their seeming willingness to accept rolling blackouts. Although maybe you could speak more to that.