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Science

Low Emission Electricity Plants 64

Posted by Hemos from the NIMBY dept.
BishopBerkeley writes "Nature is reporting (I have a univ. IP, so hopefully the link works for everyone) that plans are underway to build a power plant in Scotland that dramatically reduces carbon emission in fossil fuel burning power plants. The process will use steam to crack methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is then burned, and the carbon dioxide is pumped into deposits under the North Sea. If it works, will resistance to the Kyoto Treaty finally go away?"
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Low Emission Electricity Plants

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  • the carbon dioxide is pumped into deposits under the North Sea

    So they pump the CO2 into a hole in the ground instead of in the air to sidestep pollution laws. How does that really help overall? What happens to this gas long term?

    Whats the point of this devlopment apart from temporarily reducing air emmissions in the direct surrounding?
    • No, they pump it into the ocean where it dissolves. No gas, no greenhouse effect, no global warming.
      • From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

        Another proposed form of carbon sequestration in the ocean is direct injection. In this method, carbon dioxide is pumped directly into the water at depth, and expected to form "lakes" of liquid CO2 at the bottom. Experiments carried out in moderate to deep waters (350 - 3600 meters) indicate that the liquid CO2 reacts to form solid CO2 clathrate hydrates which gradually dissolve in the surrounding waters.

        Also:

        Phytoplankton in the oceans, like trees, use photosynthesis to extract carb

        • Although I'm certain some organisms would benefit from this CO_2, other sea life [royalsoc.ac.uk] will not. Think "carbonated beverages".
          • That article talks about surface waters:

            We do not directly address the issue of the release and storage of CO2 on the ocean floor and in the deep oceans as part of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) programme. ... This subject is part of a forthcoming special report on carbon capture and storage by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due in late 2005.

            Additionally, my point about 'fertilizer' is void, because CO2 is primarily consumed through photosyntheses in the surface waters. It

            • Fair enough, that article does talk about surface waters. However, adding C02 to water will result in carbonic acid. Of course, if the C02 is kept in the same resevoir where natural gas was found (as the article suggests) and doesn't escape, the point is moot.
            • A concept more people need to get is that of the "limiting nutrient". Deserts get enormous amounts of light, but plants can only grow so much given the lack of water; rainforest floors have plenty of water but lack light, and the vast areas of the oceans have plenty of light and water but are starved for nitrogen, phosphorus, iron and the like. Whatever runs out first is the limiting nutrient. (Carbon dioxide is not it.)

              Marine scientists have identified iron as one of the key limiting nutrients in the ocea

        • So it's like fertilizer for the seas.

          And CO2 in the air is like fertilizer for the skys?

      • Yes, it dissolves, but not indefinitely. There's already a large amount of carbon dioxide in the deep ocean waters; how far are we from saturation? Also, though the ocean vs. volcanic lake geometry is vastly different, how confident are we there won't be abrupt oceanic upwellings leading to massive carbon dioxide releases?
    • From the article, they pump the CO2 into a old oil-field, making it easier to pump out oil, and, as a bonus, burying the CO2. Quite a nifty trick, but does require a nearby underground oil-field to work. This also means that you're pumping the gas into a pretty well-sealed enviroment, so leakage is not much of a factor.
  • Well, you know: ocean, vapours rising...

  • Depositing CO2 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pegasus ( 13291 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @08:32AM (#12978814) Homepage
    There's a whole article in this month Scientific American on that topic. They examine three different methods of depositing CO2 from burning fossil fuels. I hope it will be online next month.
  • Other problems with Kyoto are governments mis-calculating their emissions and sending their countries into the red, with a devestating effect on their economies. Take for example New Zealand, whos govermnet originally predicted a $500 Million windfall from Kyoto due to reduced emissions, but last week the news broke that their calculations were wrong and instead their Kyoto bill wil come to $1 Billion [scoop.co.nz]. It is big news over in New Zealand, with the federal budget now in negative territory before it and the government are re-evaluating their Kyoto commitment. They are now looking at increasing corporate taxes to pay the Kyoto bill, leaving many unhappy. Many European nations are now in the same boat.

    Bigger news on this front would be the Nuclear Fusion reactor Being built in France [bloomberg.com], and China announcing the next day that they will also be building a Fusion reactor. Clean energy? Not for at least another decade..


    • Wasn't the whole point of the Kyoto protocol to pay large sums for pollution? Be it $500 million or 1 billion - that's just the short-term effect on economy, the idea is that by taxing polution NOW (and making reduced emission alternatives more attractive) we can alleviate some of the long-term effects (on economy).

      If the assumptions of the Kyoto protocol are correct (or at least model some of the environmental costs of our current economies) the mispredicted budgets should worry us about what's to come (l
      • Who said anything about pollution? We're talking about carbon dioxide here.

        • Sharp! (Score:1)

          by Tune ( 17738 )
          Touche.
          Some people say CO2 is pollution, some say it's not. Kyoto has been blamed for missing the point by focussing on CO2 (instead of ie. nitrogen-based emmisions and heavy metals).

          Most people, however, agree that CO2 is at least a side effect of fossil fuel overconsumption and is hence related pretty much directly to "economic groth" and thus pollution, given the way most energy is still being produced.

          But sure, even in the area of greenhouse gasses, cow farts are probably a worse threat than all the r
          • "Kyoto has been blamed for missing the point by focussing on CO2 (instead of ie. nitrogen-based emmisions and heavy metals)."

            Kyoto does not claim to tackle "pollution" in general, it's sole aim is to reduce the rate of growth in GHG emmisions (in particular CO2).

            "But sure, even in the area of greenhouse gasses, cow farts are probably a worse threat than all the rest combined"

            Sharp as a billiard ball I'd say. - some science for your edification. [realclimate.org]
      • Wasn't the whole point of the Kyoto protocol to pay large sums for pollution? Be it $500 million or 1 billion - that's just the short-term effect on economy, the idea is that by taxing polution NOW

        growth == greater consumption in future.
        enhanced efficiency == less consumption per capital
        enhanced efficiency ~ technological advancement
        growth costs entail:
        cost of status quo
        cost of adding new people and virtual people (such as businesses)
        cost of doing newer things (flying v.s. driving, disposing dipe

  • No (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @09:34AM (#12979090) Journal

    If it works, will resistance to the Kyoto Treaty finally go away?

    Unless this means Kyoto will no longer be a scheme to transfer wealth from the corporations of the most productive nations to the governments of least productive ones, I doubt it. A tax for not living in the stone ages sounds like a bad thing to a lot of people.

    • Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jlehtira ( 655619 )
      A tax for not living in the stone ages sounds like a bad thing to a lot of people.

      How terribly shortsighted of the lot. It is a tax for polluting our only, shared, planet. Throwing away things you don't need is a practice from stone age and it's getting increasingly dangerous now that we possess things that are far more poisonous than animal bones. Well, we can't really not throw away carbon dioxide now, but that's only because we're still living a stone age when it comes to recycling.

      You know, I think

      • Re:No (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 )

        It is a tax for polluting our only, shared, planet.

        No, it's a tax for emitting carbon dioxide. That's right, a tax on breathing!

        You know, I think it's sensible to make people pay for the damage they do to other people's property.

        Me too.

        I think the model of polluters-pay-non-polluters fulfills this moral principle in a sound way.

        The Kyoto Protocol exempts the second biggest producer of carbon dioxide from making any payments at all, so even if you equate carbon dioxide with pollution Kyoto does

        • The Kyoto Protocol exempts the second biggest producer of carbon dioxide from making any payments at all, so even if you equate carbon dioxide with pollution Kyoto does not accomplish that goal you suggest.

          Not per capita. Per capita, China is well down the list. And they are only exempt up to the point where their per capita emissions begin to become comparable to developed countries.

          • Why should per capita emissions matter? That certainly wasn't part of the stated goal. If my family has 5 people in it, should I be allowed to cause 5 times as much damage to my neighbors property?

            • Let me go back to what I said earlier. Nobody, or all of us, own this planet here. That said, it's logical to assume each person "owns" the same amount of it or has an equal right to natural resources.

              If you'd count emissions per nation people living in places like Monaco could spend all they want while people in China would be entitled to one cigarette a day max. Hardly fair. And everybody arrogant and selfish enough would start one-person states to sell emission rights and pollute all they want.

              • That said, it's logical to assume each person "owns" the same amount of it or has an equal right to natural resources.

                That's just not true, though. US citizens own roughly the same amount of natural resources as Chinese citizens, and there are far fewer of us.

                If you'd count emissions per nation people living in places like Monaco could spend all they want while people in China would be entitled to one cigarette a day max. Hardly fair. And everybody arrogant and selfish enough would start one-person st

                • "That's just not true, though. US citizens own roughly the same amount of natural resources as Chinese citizens, and there are far fewer of us."

                  And thus we come to two of the most basic problems found in any proposed universal GHG treaty, an over-populated China and a glutonous USA.

                  Repeat after me - "There is only one Earth, it's atmosphere and oceans do not recognise national borders, we are ALL in this together".

                  • Repeat after me - "There is only one Earth, it's atmosphere and oceans do not recognise national borders, we are ALL in this together".

                    I agree we're all in this together, but that doesn't mean I advocate international communism. As I said in another post, the output of CO2 in China and the United States would be roughly equal ''even in the absense of mankind''. Whether you're "damaging the Earth" through overpopulation or through innovation and productivity shouldn't matter.

                    • You're basically telling the Chinese that each person in USA is worth ten times what a Chinaman is. I thought thinking in terms of landmass was the thing of colonial era. Then again, USA might still be living the colonial era for what I know. Anyhow, such better-than-you thinking will hopefully result in the chinese moving en masse to USA, to even up the number of persons per land area.

                      I think USA and its people would really benefit from two experiences nearly all other countries have had to face. Invasi

                    • You're basically telling the Chinese that each person in USA is worth ten times what a Chinaman is.

                      I don't see how it's like that at all.

                    • I'll have to apologise some of my last post that wasn't really thought out very well. I was so completely dumbfound by the idea that people owning more land should be entitled to more pollution. That sounds like a clumsy justification for an advantageous situation. I suppose, thinking it out, that it's a logical extension of strong feeling of property and capitalist liberalism that roam so strongly in USA.

                      Now, if I really understood what you said, USA and China should be entitled to equal pollution becau

                    • Now, if I really understood what you said, USA and China should be entitled to equal pollution because they have equal area.

                      I think that's more fair than counting population and then going with a per capita figure. Especially since all but the most lunatic of alleged affects of global warming are based on property. If the earth heats up and the sealevel rises, most of my home state of Florida is going to be under water. I seriously doubt that large a proportion of China is going to be gone, and certai

            • How else do you suggest emission quotas be assigned?

        • The Kyoto Protocol exempts the second biggest producer of carbon dioxide from making any payments at all, so even if you equate carbon dioxide with pollution Kyoto does not accomplish that goal you suggest.

          True, the Kyoto protocol has its problems. It would need to be global to work well. It isn't (USA and others to blame). Also, it has a division between developed and undeveloped countries which I think serves a purpose in making it global but that may lessen its ability to drop pollution levels.

          The

          • True, the Kyoto protocol has its problems.

            And once those problems are solved, then you'll see resistance to the treaty go away.

            The "second biggest procucer", China, has its per capita carbon emissions at one tenth of that of USA and one of the lowest in the world, which really, well, destroys your point.

            I don't see the sense in that. You say "I think it's sensible to make people pay for the damage they do to other people's property." Why should it matter what the per capita damage rate is? If 10 p

      • Ahh, yes... Taking the money from the people that need it in order to reduce their emissions (R&D, building more efficient equipment, etc) and giving it to those that are already below their threshold... This, fellow slashdotters, is sound reasoning...
        • What most people don't know is that the original author of the Kyoto Protocol was a well-known individual by the name of Robin Hood.

          The rich didn't much like him then and they don't much like him now.

  • Unfortunately... wrong solution, too late (Score:3, Informative)

    by Engineer-Poet ( 795260 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @11:22AM (#12979695) Homepage Journal
    The reaction of methane and steam to form hydrogen and CO2 is energetically downhill. In practice, this means that the efficiency of the conversion of fuel to energy goes down.

    If there was natural gas to spare, this wouldn't matter so much. Unfortunately, North American gas production has already peaked [aol.com]; I'm sure Britain's situation is no better. We cannot afford to sacrifice efficiency to sequester CO2.

    What we could use is technologies which allow CO2 to be captured and simultaneously boost efficiency. Solid-oxide fuel cells and molten-carbonate fuel cells, which can operate at substantial pressure, are good candidates for these. SOFC's in particular look good to me; their charge carriers are oxygen ions (O--) so the mixture on the fuel side of the cell shifts from fuel to CO2 and H2O. This means you don't have to exhaust CO2 along with the air feed, and it's easier to capture.

    High-efficiency combined-cycle gas turbines can convert natural gas to electricity with an efficiency on the order of 60%, but they require large, central installations. SOFC's could conceivably be made in home-sized units without losing efficiency, and the waste heat from the process could be used for space heat and hot water. Heating with them would result in a substantial excess of electricity over local needs, which could be diverted to heat pumps to reduce the overall fuel required. (If you can get 60% out of the fuel cell and 3.3:1 out of the heat pump, the total CoP of the system can go as high as 2.4.) Run CO2 exhaust lines in parallel with the natural-gas supply lines, and you've really got something.

    • Well you're right and not about the energetic downhill. Wrong about this: Theoretically, if you start with methane, and you end up with CO2 + H2O, it doesn't matter what catalysts you use in between, your net energy in the end should be the same (without considering efficiency losses.) However, the more steps you go through, the more losses in efficiency you can expect, so you're right on that part. But something for something, everything has some kind of cost.

      I don't understand, why they don't just burn

      • In theory there's no difference... in practice, there is.

        Theoretically, if you start with methane, and you end up with CO2 + H2O, it doesn't matter what catalysts you use in between, your net energy in the end should be the same (without considering efficiency losses.)

        Tell me, why wouldn't you consider efficiency losses? <verybigevilgrin>

        The problem with steam reformation of methane to hydrogen is that it must be done at a relatively low temperature to proceed to completion, and you have to supp

        • You are right. When dealing with low steam cracking temperatures, and Carnot engines thermal efficiencies are 1-T1/T2, so even though you do get the energy, it's not in a useful form, it's not something that sounds very tasty. Clearly the best route is to forget steam cracking, and just use CH4+O2 directly, whether via fuel cell or via combustion, then condense the water out, and deal with your CO2. And yes, whatever CO2 you have in your carbonated water soda, that's not too much, and can be gassed out at h

  • CO2 in the ocean makes the oceans acidic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bloosqr ( 33593 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @11:25AM (#12979724) Homepage
    Is pumping CO2 into the ocean really such a good idea? I There was a recent report [bbc.co.uk] that the oceans were becoming more acidic. Primarily due to the uptake of CO2 into the ocean. I would imagine pumping large amounts of CO2 on purpose over and above the natural uptake into the ocean would make this even worse. i.e. H2O + CO2 makes H2CO3 ala high school chemistry. H2CO3 is carbonic acid.


    -bloo

    • They would not be pumping the CO2 into the ocean. They would be pumping it underneath the seafloor from which they are currently extracting petroleum. The article and summary even state that it is going under the seafloor, not into the ocean.
  • Of course this is the solution. Because longterm storage of radioactive waste has made nuclear power so cost-effective and environmentally friendly. In the future, they'll be grateful to us for creating all that handy CO2, even when it leaks unexpectedly.
    • Better that the radioactive waste from nuclear power be stored than simply dumped into the atmosphere, the way coal plants do. Fission reactors COULD simply vaporize their waste, and they'd still be producing fewer radioactive emissions than coal plants (not to mention all the other emissions that they wouldn't be producing). God, talk about bitching about nothing. Finding someplace to put nuclear waste really isn't the huge problem alarmists make it out to be -- people just want to be sure that it's don
      • Tell the people around Hanford how small a problem is the disposal of nuclear waste. Or Nevada, America's "not my backyard". This stuff is a terrible albatross around our necks. As is the CO2 emissions from coal plants, including their nuclear waste. Which is why we need a better solution than just continuing our reckless production of pollution, better than sweeping it under the carpet.
        • But's that exactly what we're talking about here -- better solutions. A fission reactor is better than a conventional coal reactor, as is this new variation on fossil fuel reactors (at least from the sounds of it). No one is suggesting that they're the supreme solutions, after which no more research into clean power generation need be done. Far from it. But they're better than what preceded them.

          I honestly can't tell what you seem to think. Should we just stick with burning coal and wood the old-fash

          • Well, if you're going to demand "utopian perfection", you'll have to ask someone else. Just don't tell them about your power preferences, which are hardly "utopian perfection".

            I will point out that the Sun is the source of all the power we consume, except nuclear. Instead of this giant project to sweep CO2 under the rug, I prefer a giant project to collect power in solar satellites, lasered to the Earth's surface for collection. Or maybe solar collection on the Moon, perhaps even powering a fusion plant on
          • "Every dollar invested in electric efficiency displaces between five and seven times as much carbon dioxide as each dollar invested in nuclear power, even assuming the significant advances in nuclear power technology," says Kyle Datta [usatoday.com], managing director of research at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

            And increased electric efficiency also pays off in increased capacity the power grid to support more people. And spins off benefits in mobility, for longer power cycles from the same batteries. These are the rewar
        • I'm not trying to troll here... but where do the French keep all their spent nuclear fuel??

          It's an honest question. From what I remeber reading, they rely on nuclear power for a significant portion of their electricity. I, personally, believe tht nuclear power is a superior alternative to coal & oil and I wonder why the US hasn't pursued it like the French have.
  • For instance, you get co2 credit for planting new forests while chopping down old growth. Problem is that planting new forests releases TONS of CO2 that the trees planted will take hundreds of years to process. Couple that with the massive economic (1 Trillion or more) cost that could be spent on something like bringing potable water to everybody on earth, and it sounds like a losing deal.

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