Burying coal pollution a waste of time and money

 

From Environment Victoria

1. IT CAN’T DELIVER IN TIME OR AT SCALE

Capturing, transporting and burying millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from coal power stations is impractical and expensive. So much so that even this coal baron admits that CCS ‘does not work’ and ‘is just cover for the politicians.’

Whether or not CCS ever becomes a viable technology, the United Nations Development program has said it “will arrive on the battlefield far too late to help the world avoid dangerous climate change”.

Of course coal lobbyists are always pointing to the future, saying that CCS is just on the horizon. The problem is they’ve literally been saying that for decades. For example, in this 2009 Lateline report a coal industry executive says that commercial CCS plants would be up and running in Australia by 2015. Well, we’re still waiting …

2. IT WASTES WATER AND ENERGY

Because of the energy it takes to capture, compress and transport greenhouse pollution, CCS uses a huge chunk of the energy the power station produces in the first place. (They also use a third more water than conventional coal-fired power stations).

3. IT CREATES A LONG-TERM, POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS LIABILITY

If CCS is going to work it needs to ensure that greenhouse pollution stays underground forever. Can the coal industry really guarantee that this will happen? And who will accept liability for fixing the problem if/when something occurs?

4. IT’S EXPENSIVE AND UNDERMINES FUNDING FOR SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS

Despite Australian governments pouring $1.3 billion into CCS research since 2007, there are still zero large scale operational projects to show for it. And this report by CO2CRC found retrofitting a hypothetical 2100-megawatt brown coal-fired power station in Victoria would “conservatively” cost an incredible $2.45 billion per boiler.

The numbers involved are staggering, and every cent spent on CCS is a cent not going to proven clean technologies.

5. TRIAL PROJECTS HAVE OVER-PROMISED AND UNDER-DELIVERED

In 2007, eleven CCS projects were scrapped globally. More recently a flagship carbon capture experiment in the US was abandoned after 11 years and $7.5 billion (US) wasted.

6. IT’S COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY

Detailed analysis shows that Australia, one of the sunniest and windiest countries on earth, can be powered by 100% clean energy — no CCS required.

 CCS will be necessary to suck CO2 out of the air in the 2050s and after, but only after we have stopped adding it to the air before that.  Cement production will be difficult to de-carbonise because emitting CO2 is part of the process whereby limestone is converted to cement.  But as for using CCS to "offset" coal emissions, it makes no sense at all.