Category: Carbon Capture and Storage

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Australia Carbon Capture and Storage

February 21, 2004 – “Turning coal clean and green.” Sure. Any day now.

Twenty one years ago, on this day, February 22nd, 2004, we were promised clean coal…

JUDGING by the heavy hitters attending a conference on the Gold Coast this week, geosequestration is about to get a substantial workover in Australia in the next few years.

Geosequestration is the capture of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and placing them underground. To some environmentalists the concept is about as popular as toxic waste.

For Australia’s biggest export industry, coal, geosequestration may be the difference between death and survival.

Wilson, N. 2004 Turning coal clean and green. The Australian, February 21.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that interest in technological solutions to climate change –  solutions is doing a lot of work in that sentence –  were being promulgated especially by the Australians and Americans because they had not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The Australian coal industry was going along with the fantasy of “clean coal” – , at least rhetorically, but not putting any of their own money where their mouths were. They have the skills to deal with digging stuff up, solids and moving it from place to place. CCS is all about pipes and valves and so forth. I mean that you can overstate this. The coal industry does have some experience with these sorts of things, but not enough. 

Also, the sums of money involved in making CCS “work” are staggering.

What I think we can learn from this is that people have been wittering about CCS loudly in public for a very long time. And we don’t have any CCS worthy of the name. 

What happened next

The CCS bubble in Australia burst in 2010. Chevron did its ridiculous Gorgon plant, (signed off by one P. Garrett, then Federal Environment Minister) which has never met its promises. However, CCS is now currently having another “moment.” 

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

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

January 26, 1972 – “Enhance Oil Recovery” with carbon dioxide kicks off.

Fifty three years ago, on this day, January 26th, 1972, a new technology came along.

CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been carried out in the United States and Canada since the 1960s. The world’s first large-scale CO2-EOR project, Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operating Committee (SACROC), has been implemented by Chevron in the oilfield in Scurry County, Texas since January 26, 1972 [13]. The CO2 for this project comes from the natural CO2 fields in Colorado and is pipelined to the oilfield for flooding. More than 175 million tonnes of natural CO2 in total were injected in the SACROC project during 1972–2009 [14].  

Ma et al  – 2022. Carbon Capture and Storage: History and the Road Ahead. Engineering Volume 14, July 2022, Pages 33-43

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that economies were still growing at a rate that we would now consider either astonishing or Chinese. Energy companies were looking to extract more oil and gas, of course, and to do it as cheaply as possible. In retrospect, we can now see this is the formal beginning of enhanced oil recovery. But at the time, I guess it was just one more experiment (EOR had already been piloted on a much smaller scale). 

What I think we can learn from this is that EOR, which is still the raison d’etre behind CCS, or the only way that it will make money, has a long history, longer than 1972. 

What happened next

Well, CCS had a long, slow development process. There were studies in the late 70s through the 80s. There was momentary interest in it in 1989 and then the people who would have done it realized how much it would cost and how they could get more bang for their buck elsewhere. And CCS finally took off in the 2000s because the Kyoto Protocol looked like it might come into force, and rich nations needed something with which to pretend to be taking action.

Somebody should write a book. Oh, wait.

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.

Also on this day: 

January 26, 1970 – British PM offers US a “new special relationship” on pollution. (Conservative then tries to outflank him.)

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

December 7, 2011 – a CCS network is launched

Thirteen years ago, on this day, December 7th, 2011, one of those technology advocacy network coalitions got going….

Environmental Organizations Announce CCS Network: Groups Support Carbon Capture and Sequestration as a Critical Climate Change Technology

(USA) December 7, 2011 – Today nine of the world’s leading environmental advocacy organizations launch the ENGO Network on CCS (Environmental NGO Network on Carbon Capture and Sequestration), formed to jointly pursue domestic and international policies and regulations enabling CCS to deliver on its emissions reduction potential safely and effectively. http://www.precaution.org/lib/catf_press_release_engo_ccs_network.111207.pdf [DEAD LINK]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that CCS was in trouble – FutureGen was not working, the Australian efforts were coming to naught, the UK first competition was flailing, the European Union stuff not going well. What to do? Click your heels more vigorously and double-down on your public protestations of faith…

What I think we can learn from this: To really understand why stuff gets launched, you have to know what was happening at the time.

What happened next. People are still proclaiming their faith in CCS.

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.

Also on this day: 

December 7, 1928 – Noam Chomsky born

December 7, 1967 – Swedish “Monitor” program talks environmental crisis

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

December 1, 1984 – they’re talking about CCS already…

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

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage

November 26, 1979 – CCS first glimmerings, by Albanese and Steinberg

Forty five years ago, on this day, November 26th, 1979, a paper was submitted to the academic journal Energy….

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Cesare Marchetti had proposed carbon capture and storage in 1975 – his article had been published in 1977. And here were some Americans at the Department of Energy talking about what that would entail.

What we learn is that CCS has a very long history, longer than its proponents might want you to believe.

What happened next Albanese kept studying it, studying what other people did. CCS really sort of became something that people were vaguely interested in, in about 1988/89 After the explosion of the greenhouse issue. And then CCS lived in the undergrowth, for about 10 years. And then really sort of 2002/3 is the pivot where it starts to get more attention. Still hasn’t been any meaningful amount of CO2 taken out of circulation, especially if you discount the fact that a lot of what has been captured was for enhanced oil recovery. 

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.

Also on this day: 

November 26, 1996 – Australian climate modelling is ridiculed

November 26, 1998 – “National Greenhouse Strategy” (re)-launched

November 26, 2008 – pre-CPRS meeting (yawn)

November 26, 2008 – Climate Change Act becomes law

Categories
Australia Carbon Capture and Storage

November 9, 2009 – Senior Liberal says CCS won’t work

Fifteen years ago, on this day, November 9th, 2009,

The Federal Government has defended carbon capture and storage technology as a viable option for Australia to cut its emissions.

The Opposition’s emissions trading spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, says clean coal technology has passed Australia by and will probably never work.

Kirk, A. 2009. Clean coal unviable, says Macfarlane. ABC, 9 November.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-11-10/clean-coal-unviable-says-macfarlane/1136082

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there was about to be a vote on Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. And alongside that, there was also peak hype for Carbon Capture and Storage, which was being attacked by clued-up elements of the environment movement as an expensive distraction and boondoggle that wasn’t going to fix climate change. It was being attacked by the denialists as an expensive boondoggle that was not going to fix a non-existent problem. What’s a little bit interesting here is that a relatively senior Liberal, was willing to come out and say the same. Perhaps dog whistling to the denialists perhaps simply because it was the truth, that CCS is a pipe dream.

What we learn is that there’s lots of people criticising CCS, and CCS’s answer would have been to deliver the goods. But the technology is incredibly expensive. There’s not really a market for it. And it hasn’t worked. 

What happened next? Well, the CPRS fell over and then so did CCS. The Liberals got back into power in 2013 and abolished the carbon price. And the rest is history…

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.

Also on this day: 

November 9, 1988 – Tolba gives “Warming Warning” speech at first IPCC meeting

November 9, 1991 – Australian TV station SBS shows demented ‘”Greenhouse Conspiracy” ‘documentary’

November 9, 2000 – Tyndall Centre launched

Categories
Academia Carbon Capture and Storage

Free seminar on “CCS Battles past present and near future” – Tues Nov 5th at 1pm GMT

Hello everyone. I am doing another seminar in the Sussex Energy Group’s Energy & Climate series.

On Tuesday 5th November from 1300hrs to 1400. It is free to attend, you just have to register.

It is based on work I’ve been doing since my book (did I mention I have a book out?) and tries to gaze into the crystal ball to see what might be coming… Keen to hear people’s comments, questions, thoughts, critiques..

.

The blurb for the seminar is here

Carbon Capture and Storage has been proposed and nearly with us for two decades. The rationale has shifted from saving the coal industry to industrial purposes and now the production of ‘blue hydrogen’ and even greenhouse gas removals. It is currently in the midst of one of its periodic hype cycles.

The UK has had a series of proposed pilot projects, crashed competitions and a recently repeated promise of $22bn in funding for construction of CCS infrastructure. This has raised the political temperature, and the fragile consensus in favour of it may not survive. How much can the last 20 years tell us about the next 5? Drawing on his recent book and developments since it was written, Marc Hudson will offer:

  1. some metaphors for thinking about CCS (Schrodinger’s Cat and the T-1000 Terminator)
  2. a very brief overview of the history to date and present status – both globally and in the UK
  3. some possible scenarios around the politics, economics and physics for the UK in the coming 5 years
  4. a set of important tasks for “non-captured” intellectuals and academics in the coming months and years.

I will talk for no more than 30 minutes, meaning that there’s at least 25 minutes for question and answer

You can see my previous two SEG seminars, from 2022.

March 8 2002: – Industrial Decarbonisation: where does it come from, where might it go?

https://sussex.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=a5f79422-ed15-4d08-8c3b-ae5200f9915e

September 27 2022: Dead and Buried: How Carbon Capture and Storage was brought back to life (again) – 

https://sussex.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=419d2d87-f39e-417d-8cb2-af25009f28c9

You can see the other stuff I have written about CCS here.

You can see the spreadsheet of recent articles (mostly but not entirely about the UK) and CCS here.

Categories
Canada Carbon Capture and Storage United Kingdom United States of America

October 27, 2002 – International CCS study tour begins

Twenty two years ago, on this day, October 27th, 2002, some people fly off to the US and Canada.

Report of DTI International Technology Service Mission to the USA and Canada from 27th October to 7th November 2002

Carbon dioxide capture and storage : report of DTI International technology Service Mission to the USA and Canada from 27th October to 7th November 2002 / Advanced Power Generation Technology Forum ; Mission leader Nick Otter.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 373ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that CCS had been climbing the agenda for a few years, especially since it looked like the political negotiations around the Kyoto process were going nowhere. So you know, maybe throw your eggs in the technology basket and there were always these opportunities for nice conferences and PowerPoint slides and fun dinners and schmoozing. So it goes.

What we learn is that there’s always a new technology that’s going to save us. And that those technologies need “selling.”

What happened next, CCS started climbing in the popularity stakes. The Americans were throwing money at it with FutureGen. And then, years later, the Europeans and the Brits said that they were going to throw money at it. And here we are 23 years later. And how much C02 was actually being saved? Or stored? 

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.

Also on this day: 

October 27, 1967 – “the Swedish environmental turn” picks up speed

October 27, 1990 – The Economist admits nobody is gonna seriously cut C02 emissions

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage

CCS in the UK, on the 13th anniversary of first policy failure…

You may have read a bit about Carbon Capture and Storage recently.  CCS is (still) being used as a way to avoid asking really hard questions about our future as a species (that is not hyperbole). A thread.

1/13

200 yrs ago, in 1824, a French scientist, Fourier, proved that SOMETHING in the atmosphere was trapping some heat from the Sun. If not, the planet would be much much colder. 30 yrs later Eunice Foote and John Tyndall showed carbon dioxide (C02) was a ‘greenhouse gas’.

2/13

March 21, 1768 – Joseph Fourier born

The basic problem is when humans burn oil, coal and gas (“fossil fuels”) for energy, heat, making stuff, carbon dioxide is released as a by-product. Levels of C02 in the atmosphere have gone from 280ppm 200 yrs ago to 422 today. And climbing. Heat is trapped.

3/13

The Keeling Curve

CCS is supposed to stop some of the C02 getting into the atmosphere.  But even if (and it is a HUGE IF) it worked perfectly, at scale, it would be merely slowing down the increase of C02 in the atmosphere. Again, C02 traps heat. Too much heat is Really Bad.

4/13

CCS as a set of technologies is simultaneously old and new (as I call it here – Schrodinger’s Cat of a technology.

In the UK, there was brief interest in CCS in the late 1980s, but it really only kicked up in early 2000s.

A Schrodinger’s cat climate technology promised £22bn of UK taxpayer funding.

5/13

Oh, who am I? I’m the guy who “wrote the book” about the “CCS in the UK: History, politics and policies”.

Anyhoo. BP tried to get taxpayer support for a pilot project (DF1) in 2005-7. Treasury said nope.

6/13

Then there was a competition (b/c they always provide efficient winners, oh yes).  It ran from 2007 and fizzled out on this day in 2011.

(This was the era of the battle over “capture-ready” coal plants. Another thread…)

7/13

October 19, 2011 – First UK CCS competition fizzles out

More funding and another competition followed. In November 2015 George Osborne, then Treasurer, dismissively kneecapped it. Industry was furious.  No, FUCKING FURIOUS. It looked like CCS might be dead.  Then came the Kipling Manoeuvre….

8/13

From 2018 to now, there has been rhetorical support for CCS. And endless consultations and dribs and drabs of (big) money.  But the future is not clear.

9/13

My guesstimate fwiw is 

a) some projects will be begun

b) there will be fierce opposition from some locals and NGOs

c) There will be very entrenched positions

d) The winner will be …  ???

10/13

This matters because we have

a) Limited money

b) Policy bandwidth and

c) Even less time (actually, net zero time)

To sort all this out.

11/13

I will be trying to point out the gaps and silences in the positions of pro and anti-CCS types.

(My position – defo a case for industrial ccS, but oil & gas sector will use that as figleaf).

My writing on CCS is here.

12/13

My CCS writing

Meanwhile, emissions climb, concentrations climb, temperatures cli… rocket. And the consequences move from the innocent to the culpable.

Only you buying my book can prevent catastrophe.

13/13

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage Scotland United Kingdom

October 19, 2011 – First UK CCS competition fizzles out

Thirteen years ago, on this day, October 19th, 2011,

On 19th October, 2011, the Government terminated negotiations with the ScottishPower consortium as the Government considered it could not agree a deal that would represent value for money (NAO, 2012). The first CCS competition ended without any winner.

(Ko, 2018: 66)

Longannet scheme (Scotland, SSE) collapses – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/19/david-cameron-longannet-carbon-capture

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that BP had been interested in using CCS on one of its projects in 2005. proposed it. They pulled the plug in 2007, because Treasury wouldn’t comply. Then a CCS competition had been established in November 2007, Gordon Brown launched it at a WWF event. And the idea was it would be up and running within a couple of years. Ha ha. The competition dragged on and dragged on and dragged on, eventually whittled down to only one interested company. And they’d only been doing it because they were going to be given loads of money to keep the stranded assets afloat. And even then, that didn’t come off. But a second competition was already waiting in the wings.

What we learn is that CCS has a long, long history of failure in the UK, of broken promises of delayed and then ended schemes. Hopefully by now I can point to my book?

What happened next was that a second competition was set up as was the UKCCS Research Centre, some money for workshops and networking and so forth. And then the competition came undone in November 2015… And then, well, you should buy my book!!

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.

Also on this day: 

October 19, 2002 – Doctors for the Environment Australia, becomes a thing.

October 19, 2010 – Greenpeace trolls ANZ Bank