Plan to bury CO2 waste under North Sea.....

[Pert_UK]

"Millions of tonnes of the polluting greenhouse gas carbon dioxide could be piped from the power stations that produce it and dumped underneath the North sea, under controversial plans being considered by ministers.

A report to be published later this month by government scientists will warn that the scheme may be the only way for Britain to meet its ambitious targets aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which researchers think are contributing to global warming.

By pumping the gas down into waterlogged rock formations and empty gas reservoirs underneath the seabed, the scientists say they could effectively dispose of decades of pollution produced by burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas. But environmental groups say the proposals are unsafe, unproven and will divert funds away from research needed to develop such renewable energy sources as wave and wind power."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1036113,00.html

This is, without a doubt, the stupidest thing I've heard in a long, long time.

I know - why not just sweep the nuclear waste under the rug while we're at it?

Idiots. Let's find more ways of deferring the problems of conventional power stations, rather than new ways of generating power cleanly.....

[ixion]

1. they should just declare that CO2 isn't a pollutant....

that seemed to work for the morans over here. :eyes:

[PATRICK]

2. heard this before

A favorite copout solution from the people who we sure they knew how to deal with nuclear waste, etc. Anything but surrender their business dominance and ways of doing things.

Blair favor this? It figures.

[tlb]

3. Actually, why not ?

To a layperson such as I, pumping Co2 gas into depleted natural gas wells doesn't seem like such a stretch. Carbon is hardly an alien substance never found in rock strata.

Looking past kneejerk reaction, is there an actual scientific basis this should not be done ?

[Kolesar]

4. Sequestration and CO2 gas injection

Good question by tlb.

First, the aforementioned sequestration is definitely an unproven technology. In any integration of that technology, it would require more energy just to accomplish it.

Pumping CO2 gas into existing oil wells is a proven technology. My lament is that it would require constructing a huge infrastructure to pipe the CO2 from the generating plants to the oilfields. That would lay waste to much land in the corridors to the sea, cause erosion, destroy streambeds, use resources to construct, etc.

A better solution would be to have consumers leave the television on for 2 hours per day instead of 6, and adopt other conservation methods. Photovoltaic to produce electricity at the time when air conditioning demand is highest would be a good technique. We could paint the roofs of our large commercial buildings white to save air conditioning costs. The article mentioned that for the cost of these CO2 storage technologies, we could just proceed with wind generation technologies.

"The biggest obstacle, however, will be cost. The DTI report estimates the CCS storage scheme would cost between £34 and £93 to prevent each tonne of carbon dioxide being emitted, putting about 1p to 2.3p on to the price of a unit of electricity. It says this is about the same as the cost of building offshore wind farms and developing tidal and wave energy systems."

[tlb]

15. Thanks.

Reading the article my, minds eye was picturing inland coal fired electric generating plants returning their co2 emissions to underground reservoirs in their own locality. The cost estimates seem very vague at this point. This may be quite do-able.

Not every facility would be located in areas this would be feasable. Still I can think of several in a radius of a hundred miles to me now that have access to neabry depleted gas fields.

Your conservation ideas are correct of course but they will be inadequate. For better or worse, global energy use will be rising sharply. As an example, think of France. Next spring will be an air conditioner salesman's bonanza after the heat wave deaths of this summer.

The wind farms and such alternatives are necessary and eventually forhtcoming, despite the opposition of Walter Cronkite types who don't want their view spoiled. In the meatime though this co2 removal idea intrigues me. We will have a mixed package of energy sources for a very long itme to come. If this makes coal cleaner to burn, I'd not be opposed.

[Kolesar]

5. this thread would really fit in in the Energy/Environment forum

Believe it or not, I use that forum for research.

[Gman]

6. CO2 does not dissolve into water..

if I remember correctly from chemistry class. So the issue should not be polluting water with CO₂.

[paulkienitz]

7. it does work, in theory

Actually, if you pump CO2 into seawater at a deep enough depth, it not only dissolves, but it reacts with stuff to form solid compounds that sink to the bottom and stay there.

One of the major threats of global warming is that carbon that has sunk this way over millions of years may bubble up again if the ocean gets warm enough, meaning that warming could go into an explosive runaway acceleration if we cross a threshold. This has apparently happened at least once in the Earth's history.

[enki23]

10. i was under the impression...

that these gas hydrates weren't from it "reacting with stuff." i thought they were a product of the way a gas like methane can pack between water molecules in a semi-crystalline structure under high pressure.

[paulkienitz]

16. it reacts with calcium compounds

Methane is a whole 'nother issue. There is also a danger of bulk release of methane, under some circumstances.

CO2 reacts best with limestone, forming calcium bicarbonate, and some sequestration plans include mixing limestone powder with the CO2 before pumping down into the water. This would require a lot of strip mining, though. The other plan is to just pump the CO2 to the bottom in liquified form. This would acidify the water, forming carbonic acid as an intermediate stage before eventually producing calcium bicarbonate. At that depth the pH shouldn't matter so much, though, ecologically.

As for the danger of a smothering cloud being released from the ocean, it would be far too gradual and diffuse for that to be a risk.

[treepig]

11. another danger of rapid CO2 release

is that CO2 is deadly - remember the lake nyos tragedy?

if not see

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/africa/nyos.html


in this case, there was a natural source that provided deep-water build-up of CO2 levels - doing it on purpose doesn't sound like all that great of an idea (i suppose safety issues, like keeping the sequestration site away from a populated coastline will be addressed, but who knows for sure)

on edit, there are now efforts underway at lake nyos to do exactly the opposite - specifically, to degas the lake of CO2:



http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mhalb/nyos/

[newyawker99]

12. Hi paulkienitz!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DrWeird]

8. Where do you think those bubbles in soda come from?

nt

[MostlyBlackCat2]

9. there are no whales in Coke.

or any of my other sodas for that matter. damn. i've been robbed.

personally, i think this idea is intellectual entropy at it's finest. we're screwed.

"the planet is fine. the people are f*cked" - George Carlin

[tlcandie]

14. ROFLMAO ~~

OMG! That is the funniest thing I've read in a LONG time .. I am seriously laughing here cuz it is soo true!!! :hi:

[chasqui]

18. Yes, it does dissolve in water

Carbon Dioxide is very soluble in water, since it essentially combines with a water molecule to form carbonic acid. This has the effect of driving the pH down, making the water more acidic.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. more phucking stinkin thinkin.....sigh

[Skittles]

17. I used to swim in the North Sea when I was a kid

my grandparents lived in a small village near Great Yarmouth.