Day 2 CCS Conference

Every time someone sees I am with U Houston the Economides paper comes up. This claimed the entire CCS scientific community was full of crap about geologic storage capacity. Rebuttal from EU-Zero emissions platform says it is erroneous.

Heard on the floor:

It takes energy equivalent of 1/3 bbl of oil to produce 1 bbl of heavy oil from shale. Not much energy profit there.

A 500 MW power plant burns 200,000 kg of coal per hour (can anyone confirm this?)



Speaker notes:

1. James Markowsky (DOE Asst. Sec. Fossil Fuels)

Obama administration committed to CCS. Presidential CCS task force in place. Planning 10 large scale CCS in US by 2014.

2. Paal Frisvold (Bellona Foundation)

Fossil fuels --CCS--> renewables

CCS is the bridging technology.

www.bellona.org

3. Nick Otter (Global CCS Institute; Founded 2009)

Fossil fuels ---> renewables

No silver bullet, silver buckshot .... Every viable action will be needed

4. Brendan Beck (International Energy Agency)...Stand-in Speaker for Beck

Need 50% CO2 emissions reduction to top out at 450 ppm CO2 (by 2050) to limit temp increase to 2 deg C.  This will require ~3000 CCS projects worldwide.  Projects in UK = 4.  Now a dedicated CCS unit within IEA.

Q: how to handle intellectual property rights in CCS technology? Public funds to developed shared knowledge, thorny.

Q: Is climate change skepticism on the rise?  Climate change is CCS driver. At political level there is none.  At popular level, there is a vocal faction that jumps on every opportunity.

5.  John Quigly (PA Dept Conservation and Nat Resources)

PA climate is marching north, by 2050 PA climate will be like northern Alabama today. Climate change is key issue.

Central issue for onshore CCS in US is assembling the necessary pore space. One 500 MW coal power plant CCS will require about 100 sq.mi. of pore space. (In Canada, everything below 15 m is owned by the crown).

PA is considering a '3% requirement', where 3% of electricity in PA must come from CCS-enabled power plants.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/info/carbon/index.aspx

Q: Can pore space come from state and federal park system? Not in PA, and not likely overall. There has been some discussion about federalizing deep saline aquifers, but nothing definite.

6. Stu Dalton (Elec Powre Res Institute)

US 2005 CO2 emissions = 588 MtCO2/yr. Worldwide funding of CCS about $30B.

Natural gas CO2 emission about half that of coal, but after 2030 even natural gas without CCS will not be good enough.

CCS will happen when: cost of CCS < cost of not doing CCS

CO2 Chain...... Capture, Compression, Transport, and Storage

7. David Mohler (CEO Duke Energy)

Current mix is 75% coal, by 2030 it will be 30%.

China claims CO2 capture cost for coal power at $12/tonne (unverified, in response to question)