CANADA SAYS CCS IS SHEER FOLLY

Carbon capture plan 'sheer folly'
Nathan VanderKlippe, September 24, 2009 (Toronto Globe and Mail)

"A major prong of Canada's climate change plan is so flawed that to pursue it now – with neither the proper science nor proper laws in place – would be “sheer folly,” concludes [BURYING CARBON DIOXIDE IN UNDERGROUND SALINE AQUIFERS: Political Folly or Climate Change Fix?, by Graham Thomson, for the Program on Water Issues of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto]…

"The risks of building a system to capture and store carbon dioxide underground include arsenic leaching into groundwater, unforeseen leaks, cross-border disputes and spiralling costs, according to [research compendium based on published reports and expert interviews]…"

click to enlarge

[Graham Thomson, Canadian newspaper columnist and report author:] “Given the paucity of groundwater information in Canada and lack of national water standards, the push to accelerate [carbon capture and storage] could pose real risks to our groundwater resources…In sum, the marriage of a brave new technology with a political fix for an immediate climate problem could have negative long-term consequences for Canadian taxpayers and water drinkers without stabilizing the climate…[and] would be sheer folly…”

"Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, involves siphoning off, then pumping underground, carbon dioxide from emissions coal-fired power plants and oil refineries. It has become a key element of Canada – and the world's— strategy to beat emissions…The United Nations believes 55 per cent of emission reductions can come from CCS. U.S.President Barack Obama [says it is] an area where Canada and the U.S. can collaborate. Ottawa has put up to $140-million into funding eight projects. And the Alberta government…[has $2-billion]…committed to building three CCS pilot plants."

click to enlarge

"The problem, Mr. Thomson finds, is that Canada has yet to draft the regulations, create the oversight regimes or lay the proper scientific groundwork to launch a project that could see vast quantities of carbon dioxide buried kilometres beneath the earth in saltwater aquifers…[but his] findings rankled some…who argued that it is unfair to point to flaws in a system that has yet to be developed…But even the sheer scale… is worrisome, Mr. Thomson writes…[S]equestering just 25 per cent of global carbon emissions [could] mean erecting an infrastructure twice the size of what today's entire oil and gas industry has built in the past century…

"…Pumping compressed carbon dioxide into an earth pin-pricked with holes is inherently risky…[Alberta’s 400,000 wells] present a potential carbon escape route. Huge volumes of carbon dioxide pumped into saline aquifers could displace some of that briny water into drinking supplies – exactly what happened with underground wastewater injections in Florida…Badly designed projects may cause arsenic and lead to leach into drinking water. And massive injections of high-pressure gas into the ground can create micro-earthquakes, fracturing rock and leading to even more possible leakage points…The costs, too, could rise, as they have with technology like nuclear power… [though] others say industrial experience in capturing sulphur emissions has shown that costs can fall dramatically with time. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that leakage risks are minor, especially from aquifers thousands of metres below groundwater supplies…"