Carbon Commentary » carbon capture

UK energy demand

Chris Goodall — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:48:58 +0000

Elizabeth Kolbert looked at the Swiss 2,000-Watt Society project in the New Yorker of 7 July. Her interviewees provided estimates of the energy use of the typical Swiss inhabitant. The figures added up to about 5,000 watts. To be clear, this means each person is responsible for about five kilowatts of continuous energy use. This includes home electricity and gas, personal transport, industry, and office. To keep us in the ease and comfort we have got used to we are consuming, directly and indirectly, enough energy to keep two electric kettles boiling continuously, or driving a fuel-efficient car four hours in every day.

This article looks at the composition of energy demand in the UK. The figures are then broken down by sector and by fuel. The numbers are used in the introduction to Ten Technologies to Save the Planet (Profile Books, November 2008), where I try to assess whether we are likely to be able to use technology to reduce fossil fuel demand substantially.

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Carbon capture at E.ON’s Kingsnorth coal plant

Chris Goodall — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:44:59 +0000

E.ON’s planned Kingsnorth supercritical coal plant

E.ON’s plan to install supercritical coal-burning technology on its Kingsnorth site in Kent was (unsurprisingly) supported by the planning authority. A more interesting question is why E.ON persisted with the application in the first place. Even carbon efficient power stations emit far more carbon than gas plants. A high price of carbon would make the Kingsnorth coal plant uneconomic. The answer to the question must be that E.ON is confident that supercritical coal plants can be economically retrofitted with carbon capture technology (CCS). So even if the carbon price increases dramatically, coal will still be competitive.

E.ON’s US operation is closely aligned with the co-operative FutureGen venture, which plans to build a coal gasification plant in the US within five years. This power station will then capture CO2 and store it in sandstone. FutureGen gasification carbon capture technology is ‘pre-combustion’, unlike the ‘post-combustion’ focus in Europe. US electric utilities are now assuming that coal plants without CCS will not be allowed. But in both the US and Europe there seems to be a prevailing assumption that a $30 per tonne CO2 price is sufficient to cover the cost of CCS technology, meaning coal will eventually be back in the power station mix.

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Biodiesel from algae

Chris Goodall — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:31:12 +0000

Shell announced an investment in a Hawaii-based plant to make biodiesel from algae. Algae are the most promising route to low-cost fossil fuel replacements. Yields per acre will eventually be a multiple of other sources of liquid fuels, such as maize, wheat and palm oil. The other key advantage of algae is that they can be used to sequester carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion.

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Gordon Brown’s first speech on climate change

Chris Goodall — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:18:02 +0000

The environmental community tends to think that Gordon Brown doesn’t understand the complexity and size of the climate challenge. His first speech on the subject gave more detail than expected and reassured some that the prime minister does recognise the severity of the challenge. He moved towards an 80% reduction in GHGs by 2050, but even under optimistic assumptions his plans will not result in emissions reductions on the scale required. All his proposals were pain-free. He does not yet believe that the electorate is ready to face the real challenges of emissions reduction.

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Biochar can sequester carbon cheaply

Chris Goodall — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:37:07 +0000

Organic matter, such as agricultural waste, heated in the absence of oxygen splits into two types of material: a charcoal (biochar), and hydrocarbon gases and liquids. When added to soils, the charcoal can provide a powerful fertiliser. The hydrocarbons can be burnt, either to generate electricity or to power an internal combustion engine.

Biochar is exciting growing attention around the world. Charcoal’s ability to improve soils can sometimes be spectacular. But more importantly from a climate change perspective, charcoal is almost pure carbon and is strangely stable in soils. It seems to persist for centuries. Charcoal can therefore offer substantial opportunities for long-term sequestration of carbon. The valuable fuels from the biogases and liquids are also carbon-neutral since they contain CO2 previously captured during photosynthesis. As a third major benefit, soils fertilised with charcoal seem to need less artificial fertiliser, thus saving fossil fuels. Fewer applications of fertiliser would reduce the level of emissions of nitrous oxide, a particularly dangerous greenhouse gas.

Biochar manufacture represents a way of productively storing large amounts of carbon. But the carbon in the charcoal could be burnt to generate electricity instead of being stored in soil. Current emissions trading schemes, such as the European ETS, do not allow sequestered carbon to be considered as equivalent to a reduction in greenhouse warming emissions. This is a mistake that will need to be rectified. It make more sense to use agricultural land to make biochar and biogases/bioliquids than to burn the biomass in power stations. Power stations burning wood benefit from buying fewer emissions certificates and from the renewable energy subsidy, but there is no comparable benefit from storing carbon in the soil. This is an anomaly that should be removed.

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