[HN Gopher] DoE Spent $1.1B to Build Just 3 Carbon Capture Demos
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DoE Spent $1.1B to Build Just 3 Carbon Capture Demos
Author : algo_trader
Score : 26 points
Date : 2021-12-28 21:19 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.enr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.enr.com)
| jcpham2 wrote:
| I used to work at one of these as it was being thought up - boots
| on the ground so to speak, straight out high school. Both my
| father and grandfather were union pipefitters, welders.
|
| They mixed the coal with asphalt in a big ole mixer. Bulldozers
| push coal into a hopper, conveyors take the coal up a few stories
| and it falls down a Shute and gets mixed with asphalt prior to
| being burned in the coal fired steam plant. We had four large
| towers of asphalt holding tanks, they had to be climbed regularly
| to check to make sure we didn't overflow them while pumping off
| tankers.
|
| I don't know how this is supposed to reduce CO2 emissions or how
| to capture it on the back end, but that's the beginning stage of
| making coal more environmentally friendly.
|
| You mix the coal with something else and have to create an
| entirely new mountain pile of mixed coal and you burn that. The
| logistics of mixing coal with asphalt - not so easy.
|
| I read the GAO 33 page report to make sure my local power company
| is listed, yep. Southern Company shut down the operation. They've
| had DOE signs at the entrance for 20 years at least.
| thghtihadanacct wrote:
| Cant say we didnt try to make coal clean. Turns out its more
| expensive than its worth and commercial operations dont see any
| benefit. Time for Manchin and his constituents to read the
| writing on the wall and get over coal.
| dnautics wrote:
| The thing is "clean coal" is not _totally_ crazy, there 's no
| scientific reason you couldn't separate hydrocarbons from coal
| and create a fuel that emits only CO2 -- it's just as an
| engineering, technical and economic task it turns out it really
| doesn't make sense, for the particular coal deposits that exist
| on the earth and/ot are economical to mine.
|
| At some level you could argue it wasn't unreasonable to give it
| 'the old college try'.
| pas wrote:
| So burning coal and then pumping back everything into the
| ground that would come out of the smokestacks is not possible
| or it's just not economical?
| titzer wrote:
| Just to be clear (because I didn't realize this until earlier
| this year), but Carbon Capture generally refers to capturing CO2
| emissions at the source, like coal-fired power plants. It does
| _not_ generally refer to extracting CO2 from air at large. As
| such, they are, in all reality, a bullshit boondoggle invented by
| the fossil fuel industry as a bandaid for business as usual.
|
| I am not surprised that this $1.1B basically bought nothing. It's
| just more Pollyanna BS that keeps the current freight train
| barreling along at full speed.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Specific to this situation you may be right, but generically
| the idea of making coal-fired power plants emit less CO2 is
| _not_ a bad idea, mostly because there 's not a feasible way to
| turn off all such power plants tomorrow, so _given_ that they
| need to continue to operate for some time, _therefore_ it is
| helpful to figure out how to minimize their negative impact.
| onphonenow wrote:
| Supposedly carbon emissions is a top issue.
|
| One issue with carbon capture in the wild is that carbon is
| actually a not a major portion of the atmosphere (ie, think
| 0.0004)
|
| So doing capture near CO2 sources makes some sense.
|
| Secondarily, the private market is throwing money at this as
| well, current costs per ton captured are on the range of
| $1,000! That is mind boggling pricy, we don't know if these
| demos were this bad - they might even have been better.
|
| So, if you have a potential society ending issue, spending $1B
| to try out some things might not be terrible.
|
| That said, if you look at things like SLS, you can understand
| how these things are prone to being total boondoggles as well.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| My favorite fossil fuel shenanigan is convincing folks who
| purport to care about climate that the solution to climate
| change isn't reforming corporate pollution policies (e.g.,
| taxing polluters), but convincing Americans to change their
| lifestyles--if we can just convince Americans to go vegan and
| trade in their SUV for a Prius then the world wouldn't be in a
| climate catastrophe.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| I find it kind of funny that people are quick to hate on
| technologies that could enable reduced emissions while
| continuing to burn fossil fuels. It's as if the goal all along
| wasn't to actually reduce emissions, but to destroy Oil and
| Gas. Reactions similar to yours abound, and they are
| antithetical towards the goal of solving climate change.
|
| Of course, not saying that this technology in particular can
| achieve net zero emissions by any means, but if it could in a
| more cost effective manner, it would be more societally
| beneficial than the alternative of overhauling the entire
| energy production infrastructure.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yes, destroying oil and gas is a good idea for several
| reasons.
|
| 1) these capture demos usually don't capture ALL the CO2
| emitted.
|
| 2) gas still has leaks and oil still has spills
|
| 3) there's potentially a finite amount of easy to access
| carbon capture storage repositories. Using it for more fossil
| fuel burning is maybe a bad idea.
|
| 4) there are still geopolitical problems associated with oil
| and gas
|
| 5) there is still a FINITE AMOUNT of oil and gas.
|
| 6) If we keep oil and gas infrastructure in place, what's to
| stop a Trumpian populist in the future from just stopping the
| carbon capture program to save money and reduce costs? Then
| we'd be back to square one. This has happened in the past
| when the Bush admin suspended environmental rules because of
| "oil shortage." But if we get rid of oil and gas
| infrastructure, that'll basically be impossible except with
| massive reinvestment.
|
| 7) There's reason to believe these programs are just
| headfakes by oil and gas, cover to keep emitting as much as
| possible while alsways promising to start carbon capture
| "next year" or whatever.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Thank you for validating the theory that many appear to
| have lost the plot and are primarily motivated by
| destroying oil and gas rather than solving climate change.
|
| I don't think it's an intentional conclusion many reach,
| just that they've subconsciously mixed up the purpose of
| what they're advocating to solve.
|
| Also does anybody responding understand what a hypothetical
| proposition is? Why are you all responding about the
| technical merits of carbon capture, which has nothing to do
| with my comment.
| titzer wrote:
| > it would be significantly more cost effective (thus
| societally beneficial) than to overhaul the entire energy
| production infrastructure.
|
| Citation needed on that cost effectiveness estimate, but
| regardless, all infrastructure is incrementally rebuilt and
| replaced over the years. So instead of eventually building
| _replacement_ coal [1] plants with fancy (and leaky) CC, we
| could as well build different plants that don 't emit any
| CO2.
|
| [1] or natural gas, which is what's been happening over the
| past 10-15 years in the US, primarily because natural gas
| became cheaper. Those natural gas plants produced less CO2
| than coal, which has primarily driven any reduction in the
| US's CO2 output. But natural gas still produces huge amounts
| of CO2 and will never be carbon neutral.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| "Citation" of a hypothetical? Doesn't make any sense.
|
| Thought the spirit of my comment was pretty clear, but the
| point was that if technology could enable continued use of
| fossil fuels in a net zero manner, and in a more cost
| efficient way than replacing energy infrastructure, that it
| should be welcomed.
|
| But instead you get a lot of commenters hating on the idea
| because it would allow fossil fuels to live on, even if
| consumption of those was net zero. Which implies they don't
| care about solving climate change, but care specifically
| about destroying the fossil fuel industry.
|
| Yes things get replaced over time and the replacement
| technology will end up being whatever's most economical (in
| a free market) or whatever's most economical given legal
| constraints (in a controlled market).
|
| There's no inherent virtue of generating power from solar
| versus coal if you could do both in a net zero manner.
| Though of course, fossil fuels are limited in supply.
|
| Getting net zero or renewables to be more cost effective
| than fossil fuels is the fastest way to solve the problem.
| That transition would happen naturally over time as fossil
| fuels became more scarce, thus more expensive.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Consumption of fossil fuels is unsustainable even if it
| could be consumed as a net zero emitter. Because once
| used it cannot be reused.
|
| Feels a bit like treating a symptom instead of the root
| cause.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Yes, and cost of fossil fuels would rise with scarcity
| leading a free market to slowly transition to renewables
| as fossil fuels became more scarce/expensive.
|
| In the assumption that we could achieve net zero in a
| cost effective way with fossil fuels, this would be the
| most natural transition
| wgjordan wrote:
| Shifting goalposts here:
|
| At first, you said that if any CC could achieve net-zero
| emissions, then it would be significantly more cost-
| effective than rebuilding infrastructure. Baseless
| assertion without any specific numbers to cite.
|
| Now, you're saying that if any CC could be net-zero _and_
| more cost-effective, then it should be welcomed. Well,
| yes, obviously.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by shifting goal posts.
|
| I posed an entirely hypothetical proposition that, if
| this technology could achieve net zero emissions in a
| more efficient manner (obviously implied), that there
| would still be many people who hate on it because it
| would enable fossil fuels to live on, despite the fact
| that, in that scenario, we would have solved climate
| change and allows fossil fuels to continue to prosper.
|
| The fact that the technology would be more cost effective
| was obviously implied. Is it logical that I would imply
| that a less cost effective technology would be cheaper?
| No, so why interpret it that way? Does the syntax of what
| somebody writes always 100% accurately convey their
| thoughts? No, but its pretty easy for humans to interpret
| the meaning.
|
| Anyway, I edited the comment for clarity. All the replies
| debating carbon capture technology have pretty obviously
| nothing to do with my original comment, and I question
| how somebody could interpret it in that way. The entire
| preposition and thrust of the comment was about the
| hypothetical, nothing to do with specific merits of a
| technology (very clearly, and obviously)
| titzer wrote:
| I'll just point you to this [1], which describes the
| situation better than I can. In short, no, capture
| capture is not going to be net zero, and even if it were,
| it doesn't actually reduce air pollution.
|
| [1] https://news.stanford.edu/2019/10/25/study-casts-
| doubt-carbo...
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Do you understand what a hypothetical is?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > "Citation" of a hypothetical
|
| Yes, the claim that one hypothetical option would be more
| efficient than another demands support, in the form of
| evidence, or reasoning from supported theory.
|
| Typical citing the support and stating any necessary
| connecting reasoning to reach the conclusion from it is
| the way to provide that.
|
| Just because you are comparing hypotheticals doesn't free
| the conclusion you claim from that comparison from the
| need for justification.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Do you understand what a hypothetical is?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Do you understand what a hypothetical is?
|
| Yes, do you understand that making predictive conclusions
| about hypothetical alternatives is itself a claim that
| such conclusions can be justified (which is true, that's
| pretty much the whole point of science) and invites a
| call for the justification of the particular predictive
| conclusion you have offered?
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Clearly you don't.
|
| The merits of carbon capture technology, obviously (very
| much so) have nothing to do with my comment
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| There are far more problems with fossil fuel than just
| destabilising the climate.
|
| It also acidifies the oceans, it kills by air poisoning and
| just is generally bad and also nonrenewable.
|
| We do need a paradigm shift in the way we utilise the earth's
| resources.
|
| That is why CCS gets a bad rap, it's like the alcoholic
| parent saying they can continue drinking because there's this
| new hangover drug and also a great skin remedy for your
| bruises.
|
| I actually really support all the climate mitigation
| strategies and CCS is definitely an important one, but
| together with a strict ban on new coal and oil projects.
| Natural gas seems an OK tradeoff for now if each new plant is
| tied directly to the shuttering of a coal or oil one.
| [deleted]
| rob_c wrote:
| So instead of investing in this technology where it could make
| the most difference we're going to throw everything out for
| mountains of broken solar cells, dead and dying battery fires
| and strip mining in the far east?
|
| Carbon capture has real potential, but has as long as coal or
| gas is used for baseline we should probably look into using
| that there into it's understood if we can push these
| technologies further or use the CO2 in some productive way imo
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, that's like 3-400M a demonstration. It's not like other
| energy demonstration projects are historically a lot cheaper.
| TerraPower and X-Scale are getting $3.2B for two nuclear
| demonstrations. https://www.heraldnet.com/business/terrapower-
| plans-to-build...
|
| ---
|
| To be quite clear, I think carbon capture is a scam. That being
| said, talking about energy investment demonstration projects,
| this doesn't seem totally out of whack for what projects
| generally cost; we should attack projects based on the merits,
| but the particular thing in the headline is not actually crazy.
| The point of demonstrations is to figure out if things _work_ ,
| and so they should be expected to have failures; what would be
| stupid is if we kept going.
| vidarh wrote:
| It's not even that. It was 1.1bn for _11 projects_ of which
| only 3 were continued until completion. The rest being shut
| down because earlier parts of the projects showed there was
| little chance of success.
|
| The headline is wildly misleading.
| mmaurizi wrote:
| There are some industrial processes that emit carbon, for which
| we don't have good alternatives (e.g. making cement, refining
| certain chemicals).
|
| Being able to capture their CO2 output will likely be
| necessary, even in the presence of a 100% renewable electric
| grid - which makes this a technology worth pursuing.
| [deleted]
| morninglight wrote:
| It would be interesting to know exactly where the funding went.
|
| Who were the prime contractors and their sub-contractors?
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Claw it back and refund the taxpayers. Bipolar red and blue
| government wastes everyone's time and money with policy
| oscillation. Instead of pulling the cart back and forth let's
| find a peaceful, democratic legal separation of the ideological
| incompatible.
| shantanubala wrote:
| I feel like I'm reading the same article, but drawing very
| different conclusions from other commenters. I might be missing
| something - of eleven projects, three were reasonably successful
| implementations of an improvement to existing infrastructure that
| can slow climate change. Not terrible for new technology.
|
| Although there is likely a better allocation of $1.1B in
| isolation, that is not the world in which this investment was
| made - $1.1B amounts to <5% of the annual DOE budget. It also
| does not include comparisons to other investments e.g. over $1B
| goes towards electric vehicle tax rebates every year [1]. Build
| Back Better proposed $555B of federal spending for renewable
| energy.
|
| Are we going to discuss budgets in absolute dollar amounts, or
| discuss them as portfolios?
|
| I will simultaneously applaud efforts to develop electric
| vehicles while applauding efforts to increase the MPG rating of
| an ICE vehicle. The same way, I'll applaud any serious effort to
| reduce our emissions at coal power plants that do indeed help
| load balance our somewhat fragile power grid - a fragility we
| need to address while also ensuring our existing infrastructure
| serves us well.
|
| [1] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11017.pdf
| hsavit1 wrote:
| Please watch this video from Juice media on how carbon capture
| technologies are a complete sham
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8&ab_channel=theju...
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