When the Boundary Dam coal plant in Saskatchewan opened the world’s first commercial-scale carbon capture and storage operation in 2014, it was supposed to save a million tonnes of carbon pollution each year.
Instead, seven years later, the $1.35-billion project the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding has captured just four million tonnes, according to an announcement last month by its operator, the provincial utility SaskPower.
SaskPower employees and others have shown in a research paper how the carbon-capture facility “experienced unforeseen operational challenges and design oversights,” which hurt its performance and reliability.
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DeSmog
Apr 27, 2019 @ 04:00
A new analysis by Clean Technica found that global investment in carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) adds up to roughly $7.5 billion total. It also examined how much, for that investment, CCS has reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels compared to an equivalent investment in renewable power generation.
The analysis calculated that “wind and solar are displacing roughly 35 times as much CO2 every year as the complete global history of CCS.” Clean Technica’s Mike Barnard concluded, “CCS is a rounding error in global warming mitigation.”
Carbon capture, which includes a range of nascent technologies to remove CO2 directly from the air, is a favorite climate change mitigation strategy of the fossil fuel industry. Theoretically, CCS would allow power plants and vehicles to continue burning fossil fuels while reducing the resulting carbon emissions from that combustion. This is the concept behind the failed idea of so-
“‘Blue’ fossil-based hydrogen is not zero emissions and risks a lock-in of high carbon infrastructure and jobs,” says the study, adding that continued reliance on fossil gas could cause the UK to exceed its carbon budget.
“Hydrogen derived from fossil fuels is not zero emissions, due to methane leakages along the value chain,” it says. “The International Energy Association (IEA) estimates that the oil and gas sector emitted around 70 million tonnes of methane in 2020 – over 5% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.
“Methane is over 80 times more powerful, though shorter-lived greenhouse gas than CO2. Leakages are historically underestimated and underreported, with satellite technologies and site studies regularly revealing large, previously undetected plumes. The full costs of eliminating methane leakages is unknown, and the IEA estimates that even if all options were to be deployed across value chains, 25% of total oil and gas methane emissions would
Australia s miners urge Europe to define nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture as sustainable msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
An invisible, odorless gas is pitting Texas against the Biden administration
Deep in the heart of Texas, above an oil patch about the size of Kansas, a little team in a small plane is trying to reveal a big problem.
They are methane hunters. With an infrared camera and a Picarro Cavity Ring-Down Laser Spectroscope, they fly spirals over pumps and compressor stations that stretch to both horizons. With each tight corkscrew, the little airplane sniffs out and measures planet-cooking, climate-changing pollution as the region below braces for an energy revolution amid a cold civil war.
The Picarro spectrometer is so sensitive, it caught the number of carbon dioxide molecules in my breath as we walked around the hangar. In the sky, it counts the density of carbon dioxide molecules on their way to heating up the sea, land and sky for the next 300 to 1,000 years.