Forty years ago, on this day, December 1st, 1984, Carbon Capture and Storage got an early study,
Systems study for the removal, recovery and disposal of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel power plants in the US
Abstract
This report examines the feasibility of preventing man-made CO/sub 2/ from entering the atmosphere. Utilities produce about 30% of the emissions of CO/sub 2/, therefore, the system is first applied in this study to the power plant effluents. An absorption/stripping stack gas scrubbing and regeneration process was chosen for the present system study. An improved solvent process is used and the process is integrated with the power plant operations to improve the efficiency of the combined plant. Three methods of disposal are selected and appropriately applied, depending on geographical proximity to the source power plants. The US Department of Energy Federal Region Divisions for utility power plants was utilised to aggregate and design the disposal system. The energy requirement to drive the various parts of the system is estimated. This is a first order design and cost estimation system study, made primarily for the purpose of determining the order of magnitude feasibility and economic costs for the removal, recovery, and disposal of CO/sub 2/ from power plant stacks in the US. The base year chosen for the systems analysis was 1980 and all capacity and costs are indexed to that year.
Authors: Steinberg, M; Cheng, H C; Horn, F
Publication Date: 1984-12-01
Research Org.: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (USA)
OSTI Identifier: 6084354 published 2 years later as https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ep.670050409?saml_referrer
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 345ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that CCS had got its first serious push in 1977, with the publication of an article by Cesar Marchetti, an Italian physicist who had been asked to think about the issue by our good friends a the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis,t IIASA, never-knowingly out-technofixed. Albanese had done some work in the late 1970s, and this was a follow-up
What I think we can learn from this is that CCS has been talked about for almost 50 years. Still not delivering any detectable-compared-to-annual-emissions ‘savings’ (EOR doesn’t count, for obvious reasons).
What happened next. There was a spasm of interest in the late 1980s, but for real hype, you have to wait until the early 2000s.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Xxx
Also on this day:
December 1, 1976 – Met Office boss still saying carbon dioxide build-up a non-issue
December 1, 2005 – David Cameron says “low carbon living should not be a weird or worthy obligation”
December 1, 2008 – Climate Change Committee fanboys carbon capture