Statoil buries CO2 under the North Sea because it earns carbon credits from the Norwegian government.

Admittedly this is a simpler task than extracting CO2 from power station exhaust so as to bury it. However, the same principle should go for carbon capture from power stations: the fiscal structure should incentivise it to the extent that it reduces life cycle CO2 emissions.

I understand that the Conservative Party's approach to nuclear power can be described in that way: accord it a similar fiscal advantage over fossil fuel that renewables enjoy per unit of electricity sold, but demand that it takes care of its own costs.

This kind of position, although not good for headlines, doesn't need a full U-turn to get to and is harder for any interest group to object cogently to.

Excerpts of Fred Pearce's article from New Scientist, 27/3/08:

"A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called The Future of Coal, published last year, suggests that the first commercial CCS plants won't be on stream until 2030 at the earliest. Thomas Kuhn of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents most US power generators, half of whose fuel is coal, takes a similar line. In September, he told a House Select Committee that commercial deployment of CCS for emissions from large coal-burning power stations will require 25 years of R&D and cost about $20 billion... Shell, though enthusiastic about the technology, doesn't foresee CCS being in widespread use until 2050."

"total emissions of CO2 from human activity - about 24 billion tonnes per year. To cut that by just 4 per cent would require 1000 Sleipners."

"In December 2007, a US government and industry consortium called FutureGen had announced that Mattoon would be the site for a new power station that would test carbon capture technologies. The plan was to begin burying CO2 in rock beneath the power station by 2013. "Our strong coal tradition will be revitalised as we become the home of the cleanest fossil-fuel-fired power plant in the world," said Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Six weeks later, the project was scrapped, after the government baulked at its $1.3 billion share of the bill."

Because of inefficiencies of CCS, additional energy needed and the emissions still generated by extracting and transporting coal, "The most detailed published assessment, by Peter Viebahn of the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart, estimates that at best CCS will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations by little more than two-thirds. That compares with life-cycle emissions for most renewable energy technologies that are 1 to 4 per cent of those from burning coal."

The online article has a blog comment by Dr Steve Short arguing that algal sequestration of CO2 emissions is resilient against NOx and SOx and dust contamination, that "1 cubic metre of a (pumpable) slurry of 70% algal cells in water (produced for example by hydrocycloning) contains just as much carbon as 1 cubic metre of liquified CO2!" and that the slurry can be broken down further and is easier and safer to handle and bury, or it can be used for biofuel.

I think that although algal sequestration from existing coal-fired plants whether for biofuel or burial is better than doing nothing at all (assuming high per hectare yields and good return on capital costs, such as claimed for the Simgae system), there is a huge danger that it is seen as validating new coal-fired power stations (indeed improving their economics) long before the political urgency is so great as to bury a high-grade biofuel source, and then even if you did, what would the marginal life cycle emissions be per unit of electricity output?

Broadly, some have blanket opposition to CCS, but some believe retrofitting of existing plants is acceptable.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48225/story.htm

Environmentalists Divided About Burying CO2
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NORWAY: May 5, 2008

OSLO - Greenpeace and more than 100 other environmental groups denounced projects for burying industrial greenhouse gases on Monday, exposing splits in the green movement about whether such schemes can slow global warming.

Many governments and some environmental organisations such as the WWF want companies to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the exhausts of power plants and factories and then entomb them in porous rocks as one way to curb climate change.
But Greenpeace issued a 44-page report about the technology entitled "False Hope".

"Carbon capture and storage is a scam. It is the ultimate coal industry pipe dream," said Emily Rochon, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace International and author of the report.

Greenpeace and 112 green groups from 21 nations said governments should invest in wind, solar and other renewable energies rather than in capture technologies that would allow coal-fired power plants to stay in operation.

In a statement linked to the report, Greenpeace and allies including Friends of the Earth International said the "false promise" of carbon capture and storage (CCS) "risks locking the world into an energy future that fails to save the climate".

But some other environmental groups accept carbon capture as a way to slow rising temperatures and avert more powerful storms, heatwaves, droughts, disrupted monsoon rains and raised world ocean levels.

"Carbon capture and storage is not an ideal solution, but it buys us time," said Stephan Singer, head of the WWF's European Climate and Energy Programme in Brussels. "We believe it is part of the solution -- an emergency exit."

The UN Climate Panel has said CCS could be one of the main ways for slowing climate change by 2100 -- contributing a bigger share of greenhouse gas cuts than energy efficiency, a shift to renewable energy or a push for nuclear power.

CHINA COAL

Singer said China was opening one or two coal-fired power plants a week and, with a lifetime of 40 years, the world needed ways to retrofit plants to capture emissions rather than expect Beijing to close them down.

Greenpeace said carbon capture technology was largely unproven, could not be deployed on a large scale before 2030, was expensive and brought risks of leaks. It said it would mean electricity price hikes of between 21 and 91 percent.

But Oslo-based environmental group Bellona said 34 CCS projects were being planned in Europe alone. "If you exclude CCS in the battle against climate change, you don't take global warming seriously," said Bellona head Frederic Hauge.

Several national branches of Friends of the Earth did not sign up for the statement criticising CCS.

"We believe that CCS will be an important tool to reduce emissions from existing coal and gas-fired power plants," said Lars Haltbrekken, head of Friends of the Earth Norway. "We don't support new coal-fired power plants, even with CCS."

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Story by Alister Doyle

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

BP British Petroleum (Beyond Petroleum ? Be Prepared) has scrapped a Carbon Capture and Storage project in Australia.

Why ? The wrong geography :-

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2dfcb732-204c-11dd-80b4-000077b07658.html

BP axes plan for carbon capture plant
By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent

Published: May 12 2008 23:03 | Last updated: May 12 2008 23:03

BP has abandoned plans to build a pioneering plant to capture and store carbon dioxide in Australia, the second such project the company has axed.

The Australian plant was part of a joint venture with Rio Tinto, called Hydrogen Energy.

The companies wanted to build a coal-fired power plant and store the resulting carbon dioxide underground nearby, in a saline aquifer. But they said the geological formations were unsuitable to the long-term storage of the gas.

BP said: “We wanted to be absolutely certain we had the right geology before we went ahead, because this would be the first project and would be a proof of concept.”

The groups had spent tens of millions of dollars on the project, which had been in planning for several years.

BP pulled out of a similar project last year, at Peterhead in Scotland, in which it had invested $60m.

The company said the Peterhead plant was not viable without greater government subsidies.

BP said it was still committed to developing carbon capture and storage technology.

The company’s green commitments were thrown into doubt when Tony Hayward took over as chief executive from Lord Browne, who had made low-carbon energy a priority.

Mr Hayward said in February he wanted to find partners for, or sell a stake in, the group’s renewable energy portfolio, valued at $7bn (£3.57bn).

Hydrogen Energy has two remaining projects, one in California and the other in Abu Dhabi. In both cases, the carbon dioxide would be stored in old or depleted oil and gas fields.

BP has a separate joint venture, running since 2004, in Algeria with Statoil and Sonatrach, the Algerian energy company, whereby carbon dioxide is stripped from natural gas and pumped back underground.

Governments have been pinning their hopes on carbon capture and storage as a way of allowing companies to carry on burning fossil fuels while protecting the planet from climate change.

Most such projects are at an early stage, and the process is expensive.

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From http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/05/15/coal_marketing/index.html?s... - more hotlinks in original article, I have copied only the most relevant

Celebrate clean coal, come on!
The coal industry has turned up the heat on its ad campaign and apparently McCain, Clinton and Obama are buying.

By Diane Silver

May 15, 2008 | In one TV commercial, Kool and the Gang warble their celebration of good times because coal, yes, coal, makes the party possible in America. In another, white and black, young and old, male and female, and even someone in a doctor's green scrubs, stare into the camera and soulfully declare: "I believe" American know-how will make coal clean and stop it from contributing to climate change. Not sold? Maybe you missed the newspaper ads and billboards warning that turning away from coal could mean blackouts, unemployment and higher electric bills.

These messages and other variations on the coal-is-great theme are flooding the nation courtesy of the coal industry, coal-fueled utilities, railroads and related industries. The pro-coal marketing campaign -- known by its tag line "Clean Coal" -- has kicked into high gear as prospects for new plants have turned bleak. Wall Street is tightening financing, leading to what one analyst told the Christian Science Monitor is a "de facto moratorium on coal power." The expected election of a more environmentally friendly president may lead to the first federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Even red states like Kansas are now battling the construction of coal-fired plants. Last year, 59 new plants were either canceled or halted across the nation.

When it comes to the threat of global warming, "the coal industry are the last people to get it," says Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, a nonprofit, progressive think tank. "That's why they're fighting so hard. They're on a death spiral right now."

The coal industry's woes have risen as worries over climate change have increased. Today's coal-fired plants emit copious amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. One new plant planned for Iowa, for example, would dump 5.9 million tons of the stuff into the air in just one year. Two proposed Kansas plants would add 11 million tons annually.

Not surprisingly, none of these facts make it into the industry's marketing campaign. Two images you also will never see in a pro-coal commercial are pictures of coal plants or smokestacks. If imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, then the coal industry is positively in love with the environmental movement. Blue skies with fluffy white clouds and greenery abound in pro-coal commercials.

The industry's campaign gained visibility this year by piggybacking on the presidential race. First up was a CNN ad buy where the industry co-sponsored four presidential debates. As early as the Iowa caucuses, Clean Coal staffers were driving their blue-sky-bedecked vans from rally to rally, shadowing the candidates. Billboards and ads tailored to each area have appeared in almost every state during each primary and caucus campaign.

As the primary and caucus season has dragged on, it's been hard to avoid the Clean Coal message. If you've watched a Sunday morning political talk show, you've seen a Clean Coal commercial. If you've attended a candidate rally and someone gave you a free Clean Coal T-shirt or ball cap, or shoved a Clean Coal brochure into your hand, you, too, have been touched by the coal industry. (Currently Clean Coal staff are in Kentucky in conjunction with Tuesday's primary.) Even Santa Claus got into the act in December. The industry sent 30 Santas to Capitol Hill to put a pro-coal twist on the old idea that only the naughty get a lump of something black in their Christmas stockings. The Santas delivered stockings filled with coal-shaped chocolate.

Coal's message has been carried by an ever-morphing conglomeration of nonprofit organizations that all work out of the same Alexandria, Va., office and use the same staff. The Center for Energy and Economic Development (working "on behalf of coal's interests") begot Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (promoting coal, but also "proponents of wind, solar and nuclear," its senior communications director reported). The two merged on April 17 to become the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, or "ACE," as its leaders like to call it.

All three groups have been funded by the biggest names in coal and related industries. In its existence as ACE, the organization is supported by 40 corporations. Each incarnation has received funding from Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company. Gregory H. Boyce, chairman and CEO of Peabody, sits on ACE's board.

Whatever face the industry has put on its campaign, though, coal and its allies are pouring millions into the effort. The budget of ACE's predecessor, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, leaped from $8 million in 2006 to $15 million in 2007 to $35 million in 2008. This month ACE announced that its budget this year will be $45 million.

At the heart of the Clean Coal campaign are two ideas: 1) We can't stop using coal because it is abundant and cheap, and non-polluting sources like wind and solar power can't meet our needs; 2) technology will fix everything. Environmentalists assume that once a permit has been granted for a new plant, that plant will immediately start emitting carbon dioxide, explains Joe Lucas, vice president for communications for ACE. "In reality, it is between eight and 12 years before a plant goes into operation," Lucas says. "What has been missed is that during that period new technologies are going to start to come online."

The savior of the Earth will be a collection of technologies that will enable plants to capture the carbon they currently send into the air. The carbon would then be stored underground. "There has never been a technological challenge facing the coal-based sector where technology hasn't solved the problem," Lucas says.

The problem with the "trust us, we'll fix this" approach is that carbon capture and storage isn't close to being technically perfected or to becoming economically feasible. "When they say 'clean coal,' the first question that comes to mind is have they invented a new product that actually solves global warming, because right now that doesn't exist," says Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign. "It is a figment of their imagination." The Clean Coal campaign, he says, "is the latest example of trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge."

Achieving workable carbon capture and storage may be even more difficult than first thought. The New York Times recently reported that many energy experts have likened it to putting a man on the moon. Among the many problems is the fact that this moon shot has to be replicated at coal plants throughout the world. Many of those plants are in economically and technologically poor countries. The task is so expensive that the federal government's only major project designed to demonstrate the technology, a full-scale plant called FutureGen, is in danger of going under. The Department of Energy is attempting to revamp the project, while the latest word from Congress is that it might be put on hold until a new president takes over.

Even the most enthusiastic coal boosters admit that widespread use of carbon capture and storage technology is at least a decade away. Other estimates place that date at 20 years, says Patrick Hogan, a solutions fellow at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Lucas' time frame is even a bit off for individual plants. The planned Kansas facilities would only take about five years to go online, not the eight to 12 years Lucas cited. Scientists warn that any delay will be disastrous. The problem is that greenhouse gases remain in the air. "Every day we delay, we're pumping stuff out there, and it's building up and making the problem worse and worse," Hogan says. "Even if we all stopped emitting tomorrow -- shut off all cars, and all power plants reached zero emissions -- you'd still see the effects of that buildup, probably over the next few decades."

Climatologist James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has proposed a moratorium on building new coal- fired plants without carbon capture and storage. Existing plants would be phased out over the next 20 years. Last March, former Vice President Al Gore testified before Congress for the same kind of moratorium.

As the coal debate continues, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced April 23 that global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 19 billion tons in the last year. The worldwide concentration is now 385 parts per million. The level that is expected to tip the world into disaster is 450 parts per million.

But climate change isn't raining on the coal industry's campaign. In April, Barack Obama acknowledged a voter sporting one of the industry's hats at a campaign stop in Dunmore, Penn., and then used the industry's own terminology to talk about his support for investing in carbon storage research. In an appearance in Charleston, W.Va., Hillary Clinton also used the industry's own words to pledge her support for doing the same.

Obama, Clinton and John McCain all favor legislation to fight climate change. The nearly identical programs proposed by the two Democrats are more far-reaching than that put forth by McCain. However, none of them support a moratorium on building new coal-fired plants.

Meanwhile, the Clean Coal marketing machine keeps rolling. As one commercial declares, coal powers "our way of life." On the soundtrack, Kool and the Gang sing, "Celebrate good times, come on!"

[Ends]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/18/carbonemissions.energy

Plans for new coal plants under fire
Campaigners seek guarantees of safeguards to prevent the escape of carbon gases
Juliette Jowit and Tim Webb The Observer, Sunday May 18 2008

[photo] Drax power station. Photograph: Press Association

Protesters are to launch one of the hardest-hitting environmental campaigns for more than a decade over plans to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the UK.

Senior scientists, City investors, international leaders and MPs from all parties have joined environmental groups in condemning plans to approve coal plants before there are guarantees that they will be fitted with equipment to stop the release of harmful greenhouse gases.

Supporters of new coal power say Britain desperately needs to fill a looming energy gap and improve security of power supply. But objectors claim it is impossible to build coal stations - the most polluting of all power plants - and still cut pollution.

Without a new technology to control carbon emissions, known as 'carbon capture and storage', the eight plants being planned would account for the entire carbon target that the UK has set itself for the middle of this century, say campaigners. As a result, opposition to construction of new plants has hardened recently with new names joining the growing coalition of opposition every week. Activists' plans are aimed at the government and at Eon, the German-owned company proposing to build the first of the new plants at Kingsnorth in Kent, said Matt Phillips of the European Climate Foundation.

Eon has already been targeted with protests at its offices and outside the headquarters of the Football Association (the company sponsors the FA Cup). The Climate Camp, which last year organised a high-profile sit-in at Heathrow airport, has said that its 2008 camp will probably be at Kingsnorth. Events targeting other coal plant sites in Essex, Northumberland and Fife are expected.

Eon has proposed building two new coal-fired generators next to its current plant at Kingsnorth. The old plant is to be closed because it will fail tough new EU pollution limits that come into force in 2015. The two new 800-megawatt generators would provide the same electricity as the current plant, about enough to supply one and a half million homes.

Eon estimates that the new plants, for which it is awaiting government approval, will each generate greenhouse gases equivalent to eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year at full capacity. That compares with 10 million tonnes for the existing plant. Approval for the project, which could cost £1.7bn, would be expected to bring forward applications from other utilities. Campaigners claim there are plans for at least seven new plants - at sites including Tilbury in Essex, Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire and Blyth in Northumberland - generating 10-12 gigawatts of energy, which would pump the equivalent of 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

To help to head off mounting public anger, Eon has entered Kingsnorth for the government-sponsored competition to stage the first commercial trials of carbon capture and storage at the site. Such schemes involve removing carbon dioxide as it is produced by burning coal and then pumping it into spaces under the ground, where it can be stored for thousands of years. Britain is considered to be well suited to such technology, with its many depleted North Sea oil and gas fields.

However, when asked when carbon capture could be taken beyond the pilot project stage, Eon's clean coal business development manager, Andy Read, admitted: 'It's a bit of a guessing game ... It depends on government support.' He also admitted that there is no guarantee that carbon capture, even if it is proved to work, would be fitted to Kingsnorth without the necessary subsidies.

The British government has also come under fire. In the last few months opponents of its promotion of coal power have ranged from the Royal Society, the world's most prestigious scientific organisation, to the powerful Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, whose members include BNP Paribas, HSBC and the pension funds of the BBC and the Environment Agency.

The UK is looking isolated internationally. Denmark and New Zealand have moratoriums on new coal-fired power stations, Canada has a deadline for new coal generators to have carbon capture fitted by 2018 and California has imposed the same deadline by 2020. US protests have led to 59 of the 151 new coal plants announced last year being dropped and 48 contested in court.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

Buried, but not dead

From Gerry Harant, Blackburn, Victoria Australia

The notion of capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground should not be equated with the provision of energy from alternative [renewable/sustainable] sources.

The [CCS] process itself would consume large amounts of energy, leading to an increase in the production of greenhouse gases.

As long as all these pollutants were stored safely underground it could serve as a temporary, partial solution to global warming - but it could be a short-lived one.

Should economic conditions worsen, carbon sequestration could be halted to allow the considerable quantities of energy that it consumes to be made available for sale.

You don't need to be a complete cynic to believe that in our volatile political climate this is precisely what would happen.