‘CLEAN’ COAL TRIAL PROCEEDING APACE, RESULTS DUE IN 10 YEARS

This slightly dated but highly relevant May 15 news item just came to the attention of NewEnergyNews.

Almost 3 months old and only slightly dated? Well, it’s about scientific research on "clean" coal and not expected to produce final conclusions for 10 years, so there didn’t seem to be any hurry reporting on it.

Which brings up Point Number One about "clean" coal, or carbon-capture-and-sequestration (CCS), the widely-heralded so-called “solution” to global climate change. Television commericals and politicians on both sides of the aisle keep talking about CCS like all the world has to do is implement it tomorrow and stop worrying about climate change the next day. Thus, Point Number One: SCIENCE HAS NOT PROVEN CCS IS SAFE.

Going forward with a plan to pump gazillions of tons of gas into rock formations underground without proving it is safe is reminiscent of something…oh, yeah! It’s like generating nuclear power without having any place to put the radioactive waste. Ready to leave an even larger-scale problem for the next generation?

Those who would overconfidently move forward on storing CO2 gases on the assumption the theory is sound and oil field injection experience has already proven the technology practical need to know it would be in opposition to the best scientific advice.

Anders Hansson, doctoral candidate, Department of Technology and Social Change/Linköping University: “In full scale this technology only exists in the imaginations of the people developing it…It’s overly optimistic to place such great faith in it, considering all the uncertainties found in the scientific literature.” (See ”CLEAN’ COAL NOT READY – SWEDISH STUDY)

And that brings up Point Number Two: SCALE. California Institute of Technology Professor Nathan Lewis likes to joke that at the scale it will be necessary to inject CO2 into geologic formations in order to go on generating electricity with coal, there is likely to be a beneficial unintended consequence: The rising of the earth’s crust on the injected gases will postpone the worst impacts of rising sea levels.

NewEnergyNews would (ironically) add it will make elevations everywhere higher and thereby cooler, a good thing since continued massive use of coal means continued uncontrolled spewing of greenhouse gases in the coal mining and coal transport processes and thereby a continued worsening of “warming” in many locations.

Burying that much CO2 would also require moving it to sequestration sites, a task experts have suggested would require a new pipeline system as big as the one built up over the second half of the last century to transport oil and natural gas. Building such a system would add incalculable costs to a technology already being rejected by the coal industry because it is so costly to implement.

The real point, of course, is that the scale of the matter makes the likelihood of burying the problem unlikely.

John A. Rupp, assistant director of research, Indiana Geological Survey: "Large fossil fuel-burning facilities can generate tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide per year…If we want to reduce anthropogenic emissions using carbon sequestration, we will have to deploy this technology on a massive scale…"

Burying is a solution to energy issues unworthy of humankind, whether it is the burying of nuclear or coal waste. Burying is something cats do with their waste. It is an instinct. Humans can be smarter than that, can rise above the instincts to burn and bury. Or, at the very least, consider the familiar instincts of dogs to stick their noses in the wind, splash in the waves and sleep in the sun.

Schematic of the concept. (click to enlarge)

Indiana Geological Survey scientists to evaluate carbon sequestration technique in large-scale test
May 15, 2008 (Indiana University)

WHO
Indiana Geological Survey (Indiana University) scientists; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)

WHAT
As part of the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, a public-private research consortium led by Battelle Memorial Laboratories, the Indiana Geological Survey will sequester a million tons of CO2 in saltwater-filled sandstone formations and study the site.

click to enlarge

WHEN
- Evaluation of the CO2 sequestration will be over a 10-year period.
- This will be Phase III of the DOE study of CCS as a solution to the mitigation of global climate change-inducing greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning fossil fuels in power plants by capturing and burying them.

WHERE
- CO2 used for the study will be captured from a Greenville, Ohio, ethanol refinery.
- The gases will be injected into the saltwater-filled Mount Simon Sandstone formation 3,000 feet underground.
- Survey scientists will also evaluate the area around a Duke Energy Corporation gasification power plant under construction at Edwardsport, Ind.
- Battelle Memorial Labs are in Columbus, Ohio.

WHY
- The question of the sandstone and saltwater to contain the injected gases will be evaluated.
- The theory that the dense shale caprock of the formation will keep the gases from rising up through it will also be studied.
- Phases I and II of the DOE/Geological Survey program determined locations for injection and studied small-scale (10,000 metric ton) injections.
- 6 Phase III (one million ton) tests are funded at locations around the U.S.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
John A. Rupp, assistant director of research, Indiana Geological Survey: "As experts on the regional geology, the Indiana Geological Survey will support Battelle's overall evaluation of the sequestration technology by providing detailed information about the character of the reservoir rock as well as the seal…"