CCS: Carbon capturing and storage - the ground realities do not look promising

[hemanthaa@mail.com + 64]

Our lofty ambition to achieve net zero by 2050 has already hit many roadblocks: we know that reciting the mantra, ‘no to fossil fuel’ without feasible alternatives will not take us to the promised land; the other issues resonate with the same gloom too.

Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS, for instance, is not a honeypot to attract investors; who wants to invest their money in something, the fate of which is to be buried underground with no real use afterwards whatsoever?

Apart from this aspect of basic economics, the cost is staggeringly high; the cost to producing 1 ton of carbon dioxide in Japan is over $100!

Our dream of coal-free world is equally unrealistic.

More on that, please read here:

[Eric Gagen + 713]

I have done a little bit of effort to research CCS technology, and I am not even sure if it's exothermic - i.e. it might take more energy to capture the carbon than burning the fuel produced in the first place.  It appears that the whole concept is a fools errand.  I wish that it weren't so,  because it would be 'easy' for me to continue using my existing skills and know how at oil and gas extraction to have a nice career, but it just doesn't look that way.  

[turbguy + 1,540]

4 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

I have done a little bit of effort to research CCS technology, and I am not even sure if it's exothermic - i.e. it might take more energy to capture the carbon than burning the fuel produced in the first place.  It appears that the whole concept is a fools errand.  I wish that it weren't so,  because it would be 'easy' for me to continue using my existing skills and know how at oil and gas extraction to have a nice career, but it just doesn't look that way.  

Capturing it from a flue gas stream certainly impacts the net electric plant heat rate, big time!

THEN you gotta find a way to transport it and find a place to put it.

[-trance + 114]

On 6/27/2021 at 12:47 PM, Eric Gagen said:

I have done a little bit of effort to research CCS technology, and I am not even sure if it's exothermic - i.e. it might take more energy to capture the carbon than burning the fuel produced in the first place.  It appears that the whole concept is a fools errand.  I wish that it weren't so,  because it would be 'easy' for me to continue using my existing skills and know how at oil and gas extraction to have a nice career, but it just doesn't look that way.  

 

One of my former directors did his phd (in economics) on the topic of putting CO2 back down well to enhance oil recovery and, in theory, sequester carbon.

Turns out that putting CO2 down well to enhance recovery leads to a net increase in total carbon outputs. It not only doesn't help the carbon budget, it hurts.

Edited June 29, 2021 by -trance

[Eric Gagen + 713]

3 hours ago, -trance said:

 

One of my former directors did his phd (in economics) on the topic of putting CO2 back down well to enhance oil recovery and, in theory, sequester carbon.

Turns out that putting CO2 down well to enhance recovery leads to a net increase in total carbon outputs. It not only doesn't help the carbon budget, it hurts.

That’s true but that’s different from carbon sequestration.  It’s well accepted that using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery is at best a temporary delay in carbon emissions.  Carbon sequestration is pumping CO2 into someplace where it won’t come back out ever. 

[Ecocharger + 1,459]

An unnecessary waste of human mind-power, the whole idea that CO2 is a waste is a nonsensical proposition. Without CO2 we would starve by the billions. Pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere would reduce agricultural productivity, which has allowed world population to swell to its current level.

I have never advocated shooting ourselves in the foot. Or cutting our nose off to spite our face.

The way to deal with a problem is to counteract it, if CO2 is deemed to be a problem, plant more trees to absorb more of it.

Or better still, do an acceptable study which actually shows that CO2 is somehow related to climate change. We have not seen one of those yet.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

Looking at buying pre IPO shares of NET Power, a company intent on using the Allam Cycle. I estimate that if they threw the CCS BS aside, these plants could reach 70% efficiency. 

Just think of all the energy they're spending trying to cool and compress that CO2, and yet they're still at 60% brayton efficiency. I'll restate, just imagine how much fuel they could save if they didn't throw in the clown act. 

I need to go and see if they make use of combined cycle characteristics. Been a while since I studied the Allam Cycle. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

My friend did some of the initial work on Project Tundra. This might become a model going forward. 

 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

40 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

My friend did some of the initial work on Project Tundra. This might become a model going forward. 

 

I like the model - it's the most efficient one which I know of,  but I'm still not certain that it can be made to work.  Some of the theoretical best estimates I have seen indicate that something on the order of 1/2 the power produced is used up sequestering the carbon.  In reality, the results are liable to be much worse.  

[0R0 + 6,251]

The solution is to let NG and LNG continue taking market share. Then let solar and wind + storage fill in where it is feasible. Then realize the fertilizer effect of CO2 that has increased green biomass planet wide by over 30%  and thus the rate of CO2 removal increased at the same proportion. There is no need to take out this vital plant nutrient with expensive unproductive processes. 

New technologies such as controlled fusion are actually being demonstrated. More is coming. 

I don't believe billionaires are in orbit for fun, I believe they are after something, likely He3 from the moon for balanced fusion with no particle radiation. 

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

4 hours ago, 0R0 said:

I don't believe billionaires are in orbit for fun, I believe they are after something, likely He3 from the moon for balanced fusion with no particle radiation.

At an estimated $3B/tonne  He3 is probably the only thing worth economically mining from the moon presently.

One hell of a mistake if it doesn't actually work as they envisage.

[Eric Gagen + 713]

7 hours ago, 0R0 said:

The solution is to let NG and LNG continue taking market share. Then let solar and wind + storage fill in where it is feasible. Then realize the fertilizer effect of CO2 that has increased green biomass planet wide by over 30%  and thus the rate of CO2 removal increased at the same proportion. There is no need to take out this vital plant nutrient with expensive unproductive processes. 

New technologies such as controlled fusion are actually being demonstrated. More is coming. 

I don't believe billionaires are in orbit for fun, I believe they are after something, likely He3 from the moon for balanced fusion with no particle radiation. 

Billionaires are getting into the lucrative, and previously poorly organized and exceedingly costly satellite launch business.  Not a single one of them has any actual plans to go anywhere but earth orbit, because that's where the money is at.  

Edited July 2, 2021 by Eric Gagen

[turbguy + 1,540]

13 hours ago, 0R0 said:

New technologies such as controlled fusion are actually being demonstrated. More is coming.

I'll keep my fingers crossed, as there are a lot of folks trying to acheive controlled fusion.

The next big hurdle (and it's a substantial one), is to get more usable work out of controlled fusion than the energy you must put into it.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

3 hours ago, turbguy said:

I'll keep my fingers crossed, as there are a lot of folks trying to acheive controlled fusion.

The next big hurdle (and it's a substantial one), is to get more usable work out of controlled fusion than the energy you must put into it.

I think that hurdle is overcome by a sustained reaction, which is the same problem they've been trying to solve for so long. If the reaction is sustained, it surpasses the initial energy input. After this step the problem becomes harvesting the heat. 

[turbguy + 1,540]

2 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

I think that hurdle is overcome by a sustained reaction, which is the same problem they've been trying to solve for so long. If the reaction is sustained, it surpasses the initial energy input. After this step the problem becomes harvesting the heat. 

Sustaining that reaction is gonna steal a whole lotta energy from the release.

That said, a SELF-sustained, controllable, fusion process would be a huge development!

Edited July 3, 2021 by turbguy

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, turbguy said:

Sustaining that reaction is gonna steal a whole lotta energy from the release.

That said, a SELF-sustained, controllable, fusion process would be a huge development!

Yes excuse me, I meant self sustained. To keep adding energy wouldn't get us anywhere. 

[nsdp + 449]

I go back to the 1980's when Amoco Production Co started the Bravo Dome project to use CO2 to replace water flood for secondary recovery.  That has had to be abandoned in about 1/2 of the formations because C02+H20 produces carbonic acid.  There are a ton of aquifers between the surface and basement rock. Sedimentary rocks like limestone and sandstone dissolve in acid.  Think of concrete being attacked by road salt   Pretty soon you start having catastrophic collapse(giant sink holes or craters) unless you are injecting into basement rock which is the  earths crust from 4 billion years ago.   You only find that in three places, the Canadian Shield around Hudsons Bay, Australia's western Deseret near Perth and the Karoo basin in South Africa.

People advocating carbon capture with injection in the earth's  are going to have to drill about 30 miles deep  and inject into the crust mantle boundary. There are projects doing it, they just haven't hit the critical threshold yet.  Or they think it will never happen to them.

[nsdp + 449]

On 7/2/2021 at 7:43 PM, turbguy said:

Sustaining that reaction is gonna steal a whole lotta energy from the release.

That said, a SELF-sustained, controllable, fusion process would be a huge development!

The bigger accomplishment will be converting the light energy to electricity..   You will need to be about 30 million miles away from the source to not melt your solar array.

[turbguy + 1,540]

In tokamacs, i believe they expect to use the neutron flux to deliver excess energy.  They will need something like a liquid lithium blanket to do that, while protecting the PFS (plasma facing surface) from metallurgical degradation.  Good for heat transfer, though!

My largest concern with a tokamac is the superconducting magnets.  If any fault occurs in the winding(s), all the energy stored in that field as it collapses, destroys that winding, and more than likely, the adjacent windings, in a cascading, explosive failure. 

The plasma is supposed to stay "inside".  If one winding faults, it will appear "outside".  And it ain't gonna be good...

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by turbguy

[Eric Gagen + 713]

14 hours ago, nsdp said:

I go back to the 1980's when Amoco Production Co started the Bravo Dome project to use CO2 to replace water flood for secondary recovery.  That has had to be abandoned in about 1/2 of the formations because C02+H20 produces carbonic acid.  There are a ton of aquifers between the surface and basement rock. Sedimentary rocks like limestone and sandstone dissolve in acid.  Think of concrete being attacked by road salt   Pretty soon you start having catastrophic collapse(giant sink holes or craters) unless you are injecting into basement rock which is the  earths crust from 4 billion years ago.   You only find that in three places, the Canadian Shield around Hudsons Bay, Australia's western Deseret near Perth and the Karoo basin in South Africa.

People advocating carbon capture with injection in the earth's  are going to have to drill about 30 miles deep  and inject into the crust mantle boundary. There are projects doing it, they just haven't hit the critical threshold yet.  Or they think it will never happen to them.

Or sandstone which is SiO2 quartz and is one of the most common and easily found types of rock formations on earth.  You can find it everywhere and the real challenge is ensuring that it doesn’t leak to surface or to drinkable ground water.  Millions of tons of CO2 are used on a regular basis in sandstones for enhanced oil recovery every year, usually at depths of 3,000 - 8,000’ deep.  The CO2 forms carbonic acid anyway (since it’s in contact with water) but stays in solution  due to its low concentration compared to the mass of water and rock in the region.  
 

Limestones and Dolomites are OK.  Bravo Dome was abandoned because they hadn’t properly prepared and understood the consequences of the carbonic acid and other acid types that they generated and because the project didn’t generate enough income to be able to fix the consequences.  Plenty of later CO2 injection projects in carbonates have been done - Kinder Morgan has made a fortune injecting CO2 in reef and carbonate formations of the Permian Basin.  They set up to deal with the carbonic acid and that was the end of that.  
 

Additionally dissolving some of the carbonate rock by generating carbonic acid is actually one of the desired methods of sequestering CO2 - not a failure of some sort. Provided the site is selected properly the amount of carbonic acid generated compared to the amount of rock dissolved is so small that it isn’t appreciably weakened.  
 

the one area where CO2 definitely cannot be injected and stored safely is in granitic shields.  They lack the porosity and permeability to trap the CO2 in solution (like sandstones) or the ability to react the CO2 away like carbonates.  The only other thing that can happen is that eventually the CO2 will return to surface.

IF you could get to 30 miles deep it would work, but mot the way you think.  30 miles deep the rock is so hot it’s not solid any longer - depending on the location it’s either undifferentiated plastic mass or liquid magma.   In either case it will readily react with anything it comes in contact with.  The deepest hole in the world is ~ 6 miles and the metal parts used to drill it were already starting to melt in spite of the best cooling that could be provided for the project.  

[Boat + 1,323]

On 7/2/2021 at 12:45 AM, 0R0 said:

The solution is to let NG and LNG continue taking market share. Then let solar and wind + storage fill in where it is feasible. Then realize the fertilizer effect of CO2 that has increased green biomass planet wide by over 30%  and thus the rate of CO2 removal increased at the same proportion. There is no need to take out this vital plant nutrient with expensive unproductive processes. 

New technologies such as controlled fusion are actually being demonstrated. More is coming. 

I don't believe billionaires are in orbit for fun, I believe they are after something, likely He3 from the moon for balanced fusion with no particle radiation. 

I don’t disagree with ng and lng being an important resource. And I agree renewables should fill in where it makes sense. Renewable penetration rely on geography and tech to take market share. I don’t even like incentives for cars, turbines and panels for example. I do think there is a major role for government staying ahead of infrastructure like transmission lines and advancing tech through science. Where renewables make financial sense they will be fine on their own. FF has so many problems it’s just a matter of time but you obviously shouldn’t use them where the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

[Eric Gagen + 713]

15 hours ago, nsdp said:

The bigger accomplishment will be converting the light energy to electricity..   You will need to be about 30 million miles away from the source to not melt your solar array.

The objective is to convert the heat of the fusion reactions to electricity by way of conventional steam boilers.  Any emissions in the form of light will be wasted. 

Edited July 4, 2021 by Eric Gagen

[-trance + 114]

16 hours ago, nsdp said:

The bigger accomplishment will be converting the light energy to electricity..   You will need to be about 30 million miles away from the source to not melt your solar array.

We have a perfectly fine fusion plant 152,000,000 Km away.

[-trance + 114]

1 hour ago, Eric Gagen said:

Or sandstone which is SiO2 quartz and is one of the most common and easily found types of rock formations on earth.  You can find it everywhere and the real challenge is ensuring that it doesn’t leak to surface or to drinkable ground water.  Millions of tons of CO2 are used on a regular basis in sandstones for enhanced oil recovery every year, usually at depths of 3,000 - 8,000’ deep.  The CO2 forms carbonic acid anyway (since it’s in contact with water) but stays in solution  due to its low concentration compared to the mass of water and rock in the region.  
 

Limestones and Dolomites are OK.  Bravo Dome was abandoned because they hadn’t properly prepared and understood the consequences of the carbonic acid and other acid types that they generated and because the project didn’t generate enough income to be able to fix the consequences.  Plenty of later CO2 injection projects in carbonates have been done - Kinder Morgan has made a fortune injecting CO2 in reef and carbonate formations of the Permian Basin.  They set up to deal with the carbonic acid and that was the end of that.  
 

Additionally dissolving some of the carbonate rock by generating carbonic acid is actually one of the desired methods of sequestering CO2 - not a failure of some sort. Provided the site is selected properly the amount of carbonic acid generated compared to the amount of rock dissolved is so small that it isn’t appreciably weakened.  
 

the one area where CO2 definitely cannot be injected and stored safely is in granitic shields.  They lack the porosity and permeability to trap the CO2 in solution (like sandstones) or the ability to react the CO2 away like carbonates.  The only other thing that can happen is that eventually the CO2 will return to surface.

IF you could get to 30 miles deep it would work, but mot the way you think.  30 miles deep the rock is so hot it’s not solid any longer - depending on the location it’s either undifferentiated plastic mass or liquid magma.   In either case it will readily react with anything it comes in contact with.  The deepest hole in the world is ~ 6 miles and the metal parts used to drill it were already starting to melt in spite of the best cooling that could be provided for the project.  

You want "self-healing" rock formations.

Halite (salt) and clay layers reseal quickly after a disturbance. I'm not sure about others.

[nsdp + 449]

7 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

The objective is to convert the heat of the fusion reactions to electricity by way of conventional steam boilers.  Any emissions in the form of light will be wasted. 

Light is radiation which generates your heat in a fusion reaction. At least that was what the Army Ordinance Depot taught us back in the day we still did underground tests. That is why fusion weapons dig a crater in the ground when they explode and then the surface collapses .  Those were little bitty ones like a W-33 artillery shell.  That would melt  steel at 500 meters.  Might should study the collateral damage from the Baker Test at Bikini Atoll.

"The Navy had failed to account for the role the water molecules would play in this new type of trial. The bubble of hot gas created by the explosion sent two ll of water."million tons of water, in a half-mile–wide column, more than 5,000 feet in the air. Radioactive mist rained down across the area’s lagoon, while ship hulls a mile away were drenched with a foamy water." https://www.insidehook.com/article/history/unknown-story-first-american-underwater-nuclear-test