Climate Change coal-plant-in-czech

Published on February 21st, 2009 | by Timothy B. Hurst

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Canadian Enviro Minister: Carbon Capture ‘Feasible Presently’

Did Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice speak too presumptively on Friday when he said the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide is already proven and being applied on a commercial basis?

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Speaking in the context of the recently agreed upon U.S.-Canada dialogue on clean energy and the upcoming Copenhagen round of climate talks, The Canadian Press reports that Environment Minister JIm Prentice said that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a critical component of the energy equation that is currently being applied commercially “in enhanced oil recovery kinds of operations” and will be in the future.

Prentice was referring to the Weyburn oilfied project owned and operated by EnCana which receives CO2 transported via pipeline from a lignite-fired coal-to-liquid fuel plant in North Dakota and injects it into underground reservoirs, thereby making the oil fields “more productive.”

Let me make what I think are two important points: First, Mr. Prentice’s Pollyanish prediction about the present-day viability of the capture of CO2—despite estimates that it will not be commercially viable until 2020 at the earliest and 2030 to 2050 at the latest—was not exactly ‘telling it like it is.’

The reality is that the long-term efficacy of the underground reservoirs at Wayburn and elsewhere are not known. In the scientifically complex issue of CCS enough misinformation is being bandied about clean coal by the coal industry that the Minister of the Environment should have the wherewithal to not mislead on such an important issue. The problem is that Mr. Prentice did not sufficiently distinguish between what he hopes will happen and what is happening currently.

Second, if we are going to allow carbon sequestration to be defined as a process of using gas that is produced as a byproduct of manufacturing dirty burning synfuels to squeeze out even more fossil fuels from the ground, releasing even more carbon into the atmosphere, it seems that some more thorough accounting procedures of the net “benefits” need to be put into place.



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About the Author

is the founder of ecopolitology and the executive editor at LiveOAK Media, a media network about the politics of energy and the environment, green business, cleantech, and green living. When not reading, writing, thinking or talking about environmental politics with anyone who will listen, Tim spends his time skiing in Colorado's high country, hiking with his dog, and getting dirty in his vegetable garden.


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  • http://Wedonthave Profr. Arsenio Leon

    He descubierto la manera de poner la "polucion en bolsitas" para desecharse a la basura. Seria posible el apoyo de alguien para su industrializacion?( I have discovery the way to put the pollution in bags to dispose in the garbage; Would be possible somebody help me to indutrialization and market?Thanks in advance.

    Professor Arsenio Leon Cota.

  • http://www.nuclearhydrocarbons.com Jim Baird

    “Sequestration is a waste of time, crazy and dangerous” James Lovelock.

    In the early 1970s the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced that a salt mine, at Lyons, Kansas, would be developed as a high-level radioactive waste repository, only to reverse its decision after Kansas State geologists discovered the site was riddled with abandoned oil and gas exploration boreholes.

    If riddled hydrocarbon formations cannot hold nuclear waste they most certainly cannot hold pressurized Carbon Dioxide.

    The consequence of a sudden release of CO2 was demonstrated in 1986 at Lake Nyos,

    Alberta’s bitumen is already marginal without adding the cost of sequestration.

    Spent nuclear fuel produces enough free, carbon-free energy to produce 6 billion barrels of bitumen annually. Its use would make the oil sands viable even at current oil prices.

    A recently published study by Australian, French, Canadian and U.S. scientists notes the unprecedented capacity of bitumen to sequester radioactive materials and much of Canada’s oil sands are found beneath a capping shale formation that would further preclude either hydrocarbons or radionuclides from migrating to the surface. Such a use is technically indistinguishable from geothermal energy, which is widely acknowledged to be an environmentally sound approach to generating energy.

    The solution of the waste problem unleashes the potential for nuclear power to supplant coal in the production of electricity. This waste can then be recycled a second time, in a hundred years, when the heat producing and most radioactive fission products have be decayed. Reactors like Canada’s CANDU can burn most of this fuel as is without further reprocessing.

  • http://www.nrdc.org Liz Barratt-Brown

    President Omaba took his clean energy message to Canada last week:

    http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/oba…

    There was significant confusion as noted above about carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)technology for the tar sands. The President never in fact endorsed this as a strategy for the tar sands but Environment Minister Prentice and Alberta Premier jumped on this as a way forward for expansion of the tar sands and that is alarming. CCS in the tar sands poses additional challenges, as described by NRDC's expert in CCS here:

    http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/gperidas/boreal…

    That’s not to say that technology cannot reduce the carbon emissions from the tar sands, but it will be harder, more expensive and as such will likely take longer. And do we really have faith that Canadian governments and regulators will impose those standards? Their track record to date is far from encouraging. Passing the batton to them while we bless tar sands development dressed in a technological fix cloak would be a huge mistake.

    Perhaps more importantly, carbon capture and sequestration cannot absolve the tar sands’ countless other environmental and social sins. Unless industry and government prove that they can effectively deal with those too (almost an impossible test if one looks at the damage to Canada's Boreal forest), tar sands oil should not be given a place in a 21st century energy system. Other sustainable and responsible options for fueling our transportation abound and merit more attention for investment than a questionable technological fix.

  • http://reversezone.blogdns.com/ Martin Laplante

    It would be interesting to have a full accounting of the CO2 emissions for the Weyburn pilot. Lignite is converted to liquid fuel. The CO2 emissions from that fuel are relased into the air. The separation and compression of the CO2 emitted by the process takes energy. That energy comes from sources whose emissions are not captured. The CO2 is then pumped underground for enhanced oil recovery. The EOR process brings a lot of that CO2 back up to the surface as a solvent. I'm not sure how much of it is released into the air at that point. Let's not even talk about the energy required to build all these pipelines and equipment.

    What Prentice actually said is “Carbon capture is feasible presently. Carbon capture is employed in the Weyburn project which again is a Canada-U.S. project.” But later, he says

    “Its commercial application to coalburning thermal electricity plants and also facilities such as oilsands facilities still requires work and that is why the prime minister and the president announced they would be collaborating on this.”

    Hmmm, it's proven but its application requires work. The fact is it's never been used in thermal plants or for bitumen upgrading and for a simple reason: thermodynamics and economics make it virtually impossible. That HAS been proven. In most cases it would require so much additional energy that it would be cheaper to put up wind turbines.

    The solution is simple. Tax carbon emissions to give CCS a fair chance of competing in the marketplace. Don't subsidize the oil companies. If CCS loses out to renewables or conservation, that's capitalism.

  • Pingback: Canadian Environment Minister Jumps Gun on Readiness of Carbon Capture | ecopolitology()

  • http://www.nomoazrereporyts.com.au Jaye Sydnes

    Hey, I just forwarded this to some friends, loving it!

    Thanks

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