An AAAS policy alert reports that "Coal state Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Voinovich (R-OH) have introduced the Carbon Capture and Storage Deployment Act of 2010 (S. 3589), which would invest $20 billion over the next ten years to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The bill would support large-scale CCS pilot projects and establish a regulatory framework to monitor and govern long-term geological storage of carbon. The bill may be included in the Senate's climate and energy package."
Arizona gets a reported 36.4% of our electricity from burning coal (33.9% from natural gas, 23.6% from nuclear, and 5.8% from hydroelectric) as of last year [ref. America's Power] [right, coal-burning Navajo Generating Station near Page]
AZGS is participating in three projects to assess and characterize the potential for geologic sequestration of CO2 in Arizona.
I am a Ph.D. holding physicist studying renewable energy, and as such, am admittedly biased against clean coal. Not only have I never heard of a single good idea to sequester CO2, these being limited to liquefaction and pumping into the bottom of the ocean (bad idea - carbonic acid forms), to pumping into caverns and chambers, but I've also never heard an adequate description of the energy involved, the processes, the cost, etc... of capture and sequestration. People may argue that we need to invest in order to answer these questions, however the price tag is a ridiculous number, when compared to other energy research. Plus, I use science as a guiding principle and feel that not all ideas need to be tested, as we have theory to help figure out the good ideas from the bad on paper. Plus vetting a process on paper costs far less!
ReplyDeleteI am from Ohio and will write to Voinovich also.
Like the blog.
Well, the estimates out here are about 20 percent of the energy produced will be used for the process about a 20 percent increase in parasitic load on the plants production plus many other possibilities of process failures..hmm, go figure,
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