Carbon Capture: Are They Hiding Something?

[Delaney]

I came across a video several years ago that explained how carbon capture, is a really good way to extract shale gas.
This naturally set eyebrows to ‘raised’.

Does this new found passion for ‘carbon capture’, have more to it than meets the eye?

“how dare you”



https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2949908924001134

 

[paulrbarnard]

The carbon?

 

[Delaney]

The carbon?

Intentions

 

[Sideways]

Respondants :
If this goes political or conspiracy theorist, it goes straight into OT2.

 

[Jacob]

Carbon capture is technically possible but only on a very small scale compared to the size of the climate change issue.
<deleted - I said leave the politics out of this. Sideways.>
Re-foresting and other plant based ways make much more sense. It's probably going to happen that way naturally but we won't be getting the benefit - it's too late for us.
https://ieefa.org/resources/carbon-capture-remains-risky-investment-achieving-decarbonisation

 

[Delaney]

Carbon capture is technically possible but only on a very small scale compared to the size of the climate change issue.

Re-foresting and other plant based ways make much more sense.

Jacob we might agree 🎉

 

[Spectric]

Now we are told that using incinerators to burn our waste to avoid landfill is just as bad as burning coal, surprise, surprise as at least coal did not contain all the plastics that when burnt produce all sorts of byproducts. As for carbon capture is that just half the story, once captured you need to securely contain it in the cavities where oil and gas once was and so being a gas it might just seep through faults in the rocks.

 

[Sideways]

I'll just add for those that don't bother to watch it that the video in the first post is all about putting CO2 into the American shale fields after they take out the methane.
It didn't seem to be trying to justify taking out the gas, that wasn't debated at all, it was more about the economics of trying to use the space left behind for CO2 sequestration. The verdict was that the whole idea is less attractive than it first appears because wells "fill up" quite quickly and you'd continually have to move on to filling new ones. Also, the biggest sources of pollution in that part of the world - the power stations - are a long way from the shale field with the biggest storage capacity making logistics difficult.

My take is that someone did some research, found that the whole idea is a lot less attractive than people hoped and shared their results without much spin.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There is an energy penalty in carbon capture systems - estimates seem to range between 10% and 35% - probably depends on the method used and the way it is stored.

It increases the cost of usable energy by adding a significant inefficiency to energy production. It seems likely that it can only be fitted to a limited number of carbon fuel uses - mainly fossil fuelled power stations. Planes, cars, ships, etc are a more difficult moving target.

Rather than spending money retrofitting existing power station which will likely be decommissioned over the next 20-30 years, it would make far more sense to accelerate their replacement with greener technologies - solar, wind, nuclear.

As a proposition carbon capture is flawed - an expensive partial short term fix. There are fundamentally better ways to reduce emissions through accelerating non-polluting generation and reducing consumption through investment in efficiencies and reduced consumption.

Without wishing to politicise the issue, I note Labour plans to spend £22bn over the next 25 years on carbon capture. IMHO daft!

 

[TRITON]

Alternatively ...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Half an hour, but scary.

 

[BC'er]

Out in these parts it was long ago discovered by a retired teacher doing some quiet research of her own that most of the so-called environmental groups obstructing the construction of a pipeline to the West Coast were funded by American billionaires and various US-based "funds". It turned out to be all about preventing Canada from exporting oil to the Pacific Rim which the men from Uncle would profit from if it was kept for their exclusive use.

Of course being a simpleton, or at least pretending to be, does save one a good deal of mental effort and discomfiture.