I'm as dubious about CCS as anyone, but I figure enhanced oil recovery is probably feasible at some scale - but not enough to capture all our coal emissions.
People who have some imagination try and do something useful with the carbon, like these guys, which I'm more inclined to encourage :
About the only time CCS will be more economic than clean energy sources is when it is combined with enhanced oil recovery, which partially defeats the purpose.
The clever Norwegians found a way to make Carbon Capture and Sequestration and Enhanced Oil Recovery a win/win/win. The Government reduced the tax rate on the additional oil production that was achieved through EOR as long as the CO2 was sequestered. So the oil companies had a monetary incentive to capture and inject CO2, and in turn they made a (smaller) profit producing oil which would not otherwise have been produced. The Government wins because they get oil tax revenue they would not otherwise have got, and the environment won as well (assuming more CO2 was sequestered than the amount generated with the burning of the extra oil, which I believe is the case?).
So the oil companies clamour for Government support for CCS, but any reasonably economic analysis suggests that it would only be applied in conjunction with EOR. So the oil companies see a future where they can earn income disposing of somebody else's CO2 and producing extra oil which they can sell. That's why oil companies are prominently talking up the potential of CCS, when they otherwise don't give a rats about the fortunes of coal companies.
Of course, the number of locations where CCS and EOR can work happily together is pretty limited when we're looking at the global CO2 scale, so we're back to choosing clean energy sources in almost all cases..
I'm as dubious about CCS as anyone, but I figure enhanced oil recovery is probably feasible at some scale - but not enough to capture all our coal emissions.
People who have some imagination try and do something useful with the carbon, like these guys, which I'm more inclined to encourage :
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1586/81/
But on the whole we're better off biting the bullet and shifting to clean energy sources - we'll have to do it one day, so why not now ?
Yes.
About the only time CCS will be more economic than clean energy sources is when it is combined with enhanced oil recovery, which partially defeats the purpose.
The clever Norwegians found a way to make Carbon Capture and Sequestration and Enhanced Oil Recovery a win/win/win. The Government reduced the tax rate on the additional oil production that was achieved through EOR as long as the CO2 was sequestered. So the oil companies had a monetary incentive to capture and inject CO2, and in turn they made a (smaller) profit producing oil which would not otherwise have been produced. The Government wins because they get oil tax revenue they would not otherwise have got, and the environment won as well (assuming more CO2 was sequestered than the amount generated with the burning of the extra oil, which I believe is the case?).
So the oil companies clamour for Government support for CCS, but any reasonably economic analysis suggests that it would only be applied in conjunction with EOR. So the oil companies see a future where they can earn income disposing of somebody else's CO2 and producing extra oil which they can sell. That's why oil companies are prominently talking up the potential of CCS, when they otherwise don't give a rats about the fortunes of coal companies.
Of course, the number of locations where CCS and EOR can work happily together is pretty limited when we're looking at the global CO2 scale, so we're back to choosing clean energy sources in almost all cases..