Twenty years ago, on this day, June 25, 2003, the great and the good talk climate…
2003. Platts – US, EU, 12 countries agree to develop carbon capture technologies.[CSLF deal signed]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Bush administration had pulled out of Kyoto and had turned to technology in inverted commas as a way of pretending that it gave a s*** about emissions reductions. The Europeans as usual had to pretend that the Americans were not pretending and hope for the best.
What I think we can learn from this
These technology fantasies, these fantasies of techno salvation ISM are socially necessary under the current system and frankly under any imaginable system humankind can only be there a very little reality.
What happened next
the talk of imminent rollout of CCS has continued unabated ever since very few CCS plants have been built and the scale of the problem is beyond enormous you simply couldn’t build CCS that fast
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..
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Everyone, especially the Europeans, was running around talking about the wonders of CCS, we were in a hype cycle. And some of the people intimately involved, know the dangers. And what will happen if there is an over promising and under-delivering.
What I think we can learn from this
And so the more sane members of a community will try and tamp down exuberance and excessive expectations. And that’s what appears to be happening in this case.
What happened next
CCS got European Union support. But none of the projects got constructed. And here we are in 2023. And it’s still not clear that much CCS is going to happen – watch this space!
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.
Fifteen years ago, on this day, April 16, 2008, trades unions and greenies and companies tried to get CCS ‘moving.’
“In April 2008 the Australian Coal Association (ACA) proposed — in conjunction with WWF Australia, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Climate Institute in Australia — that the Rudd Labor government establish a National Carbon Capture and Storage Taskforce. The taskforce, they proposed, “would be charged with developing and implementing a nationally coordinated plan to oversee rapid demonstration and commercialisation of 10,000 GWh of carbon capture and storage (CCS) electricity per year by 2020.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
While trying to become Australian Prime Minister, the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd had used climate change as an issue with which to paint incumbent Prime Minister John Howard as an uncaring dinosaur. Rudd had also used “carbon capture and storage” as a way of calming the nerves of coalminers in vital states (Queensland and New South Wales). Now a coalition of pro-coal types and “greenies” were trying to get some money. And money they would get…
What I think we can learn from this
Wanna win elections? Make big promises. Whether they can be kept or not will depend…
Technological salvationism fantasies need institutional and organisational backing. Lots of it. Players know this, and get the taxpayer to fund it.
What happened next
Rudd threw 100 million Australian taxpayers’ dollars at the creation of a “Global Carbon Capture and Storage institute”.
Those projects all up and running by 2020, then twelve years in the future? Yeah, nah.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that coal was clearly going to continue to be burned. So how to do it cleaner? What are the options? Is sequestration in the deep oceans possible? Can you improve the gasification? There had also two years previously been a big event sponsored by the Australian Coal Association in Sydney.
What I think we can learn from this
They’ve been banging on about clean coal for donkey’s years.
Rearguard actions by dinosaur technologies can “work”
What happened next
Technologies were proposed. They were rapidly prototyped, the business models sorted, the regulatory issues sorted. The technologies then shared and everyone in the world started burning coal cleanly. And we all lived happily ever after. Except for the mining accidents, and the mercury, and all the rest of it…
And then I woke up…
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
Tilley, J. 1993. IEA carbon dioxide disposal symposium Oxford, United Kingdom 29th–31st March 1993 IEA Perspectives on global climate change issues. Energy Conversion and Management Volume 34, Issues 9–11, September–November 1993, Pages 711-718
Twenty years ago, on this day, February 19 2003, carbon capture and storage got another nudge forward, at least in terms of rhetoric…
19 to 21 Feb 2003 As discussed earlier, the 2002 Geneva meeting produced a plan for an exploratory workshop on the issue, which took place in November 2002 in Regina, Canada. The actual process of report preparation began after the formal decision to compile the report, made at the IPCC meeting in February 2003 in Paris.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
In the aftermath of the President George “The Supreme Court got me the gig” Bush having pulled the USA out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, attention turned to various techno-fixes, including Carbon Capture and Storage, which had been in the background/on the drawing board for a decade plus.
Longer term context – some had clearly been eyeing the deep oceans as places to dump waste, and this had gotten the ‘right’ scientists curious…
“Second, ocean mixing. Here too Revelle had a long-established curiosity, and here too nuclear energy pushed the topic forward. The wastes from nuclear reactors must be disposed of somewhere, and the ocean floor seemed a likely choice. In 1955 when Revelle spoke of studying ocean circulation he emphasized the need to bury the “unbelievable quantities of radioactive substances” expected to pour from civilian reactors…”
Weart 1997 342
What I think we can learn from this
Dreams of technological salvation are very popular, but always need someone to write them. And the money to pay those people to write those fantasies has to come from somewhere…
What happened next
The IPCC’s special report on CCS came out in early 2005, and was a very big deal – an example of the halo effect of the credibility of impact science being lent to production science. But the CCS plants have still not yet been built, and the ones that did were all about Enhanced Oil “Recovery”.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Twenty years ago, on this day, January 8, 2003, the US business press reports on what we now call “carbon capture and storage”
“A potential solution to global warming could lie two miles deep, both underground and in the ocean.”
Global warming has been linked to emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the by-product of burning fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal. So, some scientists are examining ways to curb the gaseous emissions: burying them underground or injecting them into the ocean.
The technology, known as carbon sequestration, is used by energy firms as an oil-recovery tool.
But in recent years, the Department of Energy has broadened its research into sequestration as a way to reduce emissions. And the energy industry has taken early steps toward using sequestration to capture emissions from power plants.
Even some environmentalists support carbon sequestration, although they generally object to the ocean-storage method. Partly because of environmental concerns about the ocean, government researchers are leaning toward underground storage as a preferred procedure.
Loftus, P. 2003. Energy Firms Bury Carbon Emissions. Wall Street Journal, 8 January.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was that US President Bush, shortly after being awarded the Presidency by his dad’s mates on the Supreme Court, had reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions and then pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol process (not that the US had ever been likely to ratify!). Therefore he had need of technofixes so that people who wanted/needed to believe him but who also needed to pretend (including to themselves) that they cared about climate action, could sleep at night.
The whole CCS caravan was beginning to move – there had been a meeting in Regina, Canada in November 2002, and the IPCC was about to start ball rolling on its CCS special report.
What I think we can learn from this
Stories of techno-salvation are very very important. They will have a lot of friends, a lot of inertia. Turning those stories into reality, or exposing those stories is trickier, however.
What happened next
Dumping carbon dioxide in the deep oceans is now legally a no-no. London Protocol etc. Actual working CCS that doesn’t involve enhanced oil recovery? Still waiting…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
On this day, December 20, 2007, then-opposition leader David Cameron gave a speech about clean coal in Beijing
“developing green coal will be a priority for a Conservative Government: we will do what it takes to make Britain a world leader in this crucial field.”
The context was –
Globally, there was an upsurge in concern about climate change. It was apparent that coal usage in the majority world was expanding rapidly. Don’t worry, carbon capture and storage will save the day…
In the UK, David Cameron was continuing his efforts to “de-toxify” the Conservative Party brand, by making big empty eco-modernisation promises like this one, which was also an attempt to one-up the Labour government of the day – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/uk_politics/7153139.stm
Why this matters?
The promises, oh, they are so shiny, so seductive. You’d love to go to sleep to those dulcet tones, wouldn’t you?
What happened next?
Once in office, Cameron did none of this. Of course.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 384ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
On this day, December 5 in 2002 the Australian “Prime Ministers Science and Industry Council” released a report called “Beyond Kyoto- Innovation and Adaptation.”
This can be seen as the starting gun for Carbon Capture and Storage in Australia (it had already started moving in the UK).
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 373ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now, well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
John Howard had managed to get an absurdly sweet deal for Australia at the Kyoto conference in December 1997. Nonetheless, Australia had delayed ratifying, and on World Environment Day in June 2002 Howard finally did what people had long assumed – he copied George W. Bush in saying “nope.” That meant that he’d have to put forward some other”solutions” to a problem he did not believe (and still does not believe?) is a problem.
It didn’t hurt that the chair of the PMSEIC, his chief scientist, Robin Batterham, was only doing the job part-time, i.e. when he wasn’t working for … Rio Tinto.
Why this matters.
CCS for energy systems is absurd (CCS might have a role to play for industry, if the business models can be made to work).
What happened next?
A really good critique of the PMSEIC report was released shortly afterwards – see here.
Large sums of public money in Australia got wasted on CCS, with really nothing to show for it. But it’s too useful a rhetorical move to ever be finally killed off… And so here we are, twenty years later…
Carbon capture Government ministers have been giving speeches about the carbon capture competition for months. Mr Darling talked about it in the Pre-Budget Review. But Gordon Brown’s speech did not hesitate to bring it forward as a completely new idea. ‘I can announce today that we are launching a competition to build […] one of the […] first commercial CCS […] projects’.
He also mentioned the agreement between China and the UK to work together on Near Zero Emission Coal. He said it was the first of its kind. It was not. Australia and China signed a similar deal in September.
CCS had been swirling around for a few years by now. BP had wanted to get it going (with Enhanced Oil Recovery) at a site in Scotland, but Treasury wouldn’t give it the ROCs (renewable obligation certificates) to make the numbers add up….
Why this matters
If you know you’re history, you will know where you’re coming from…
What happened next
First CCS competition fizzles out in 2011. Second one, begun 2012, killed off abruptly in November 2015. Third time lucky?
On this day, October 6 in 2005, 17 years after the World Coal body said the greenhouse effect was greatly exaggerated, some people meet in Cambridge to discuss “carbon capture and storage”
This paper summarises the key points from a discussion meeting held at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, on Thursday 6 October 2005. The meeting was held in response to the UK Government Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry into carbon capture and storage.
“VIABILITY OF CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE (CCS) AS A CARBON ABATEMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE UK: FEASIBILITY AND COSTS”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 377.19ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this – the Department of Trade and Industry had just published its “Carbon Abatement Technologies Strategy,” and carbon capture and storage was in the mix… The recent G7 meeting had also hyped it. BP was saying it could do this on its Peterhead facility. It’s all gonna happen, right?
Why this matters.
Technologies go through a long ‘incubation’ period. Lots of workshops, seminars etc. By this time, CCS had already been talked about for a long time…
What happened next?
BP pulled out of the first CCS project in the UK in early 2007. In late 2007 the government announced a competition. That didn’t end well. They announced another. That ended very badly indeed. Third time lucky?
