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Over the Top! Global CO2 hits 400ppm

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by John Brian Shannon

Following an upward trend that began with the Industrial Revolution, the parts per million (ppm) concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere has soared from an average of 278 ppm in 1760, to an average of 400ppm in 2013 — while the average global temperature has seen a corresponding temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius during that timeframe.

Prior to the year 1760, CO2 levels moved from 185ppm to 278ppm over a 3 million year timespan – while the average global temperature saw a corresponding temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius during that timeframe.

From studying air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists know that going back 800,000 years, the carbon dioxide level oscillated in a tight band, from about 180 parts per million in the depths of ice ages to about 280 during the warm periods between. The evidence shows that global temperatures and CO2 levels are tightly linked.

For the entire period of human civilization, roughly 8,000 years, the carbon dioxide level was relatively stable near that upper bound. But the burning of fossil fuels has caused a 41 percent increase in the heat-trapping gas since the Industrial Revolution, a mere geological instant, and scientists say the climate is beginning to react, though they expect far larger changes in the future. – Justin Gillis, New York Times, Environment reporter

Human activity (primarily burning of fossil fuels and large-scale livestock and agriculture production) has changed our planetary climate. Almost as much change has occurred over the past 253 years, as occurred over the previous 3 million years!

“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem.” — Pieter P. Tans, Program Monitoring Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

“It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were tolerable thresholds.” — Ralph Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego

Here is a nice infographic from Climate Central

(Climate Central)

Infographic courtesy of: Climate Central

Did I mention that sea levels were 20 metres higher (66 feet) than they are nowadays, due to the completely-melted icecaps?

As global warming accelerates, most of the world’s cities could be under water before the end of the century, as many of them are already at or near, sea level now.

Did I mention that the CO2 we are putting into the air will stay in the atmosphere for up to 100 years and it will continue to help increase the global temperature the entire time?

The CO2 that was put into the air in 1960, could still be around for up to another 47 years. Almost without exception, every new year we put more of it into the atmosphere than the year before.

Last year, 2012, we put 36 billion tons (36 Gigatons) of man-made CO2 into the atmosphere — and the Earth systems were only able to absorb half of that. This basic ratio has been occurring for many years now. In 2013, we will add more than 37 Gigatons of greenhouse gases to the air-mass that surrounds the Earth.

What is even worse, and is not being discussed in all of this, is that Oxygen, the one gas that is absolutely necessary for all animal life on the planet, is slowly being replaced by CO2. Oxygen is consumed when fossil fuels, or almost any fuel combusts (burns), and CO2 is what is left over after the Oxygen is consumed.

Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University and Professor Jon Harrison of the University of Arizona concur. Like most other scientists they accept that oxygen levels in the atmosphere in prehistoric times averaged around 30% to 35%, compared to only 21% today – and that the levels are even less in densely populated, polluted city centres and industrial complexes, perhaps only 15 % or lower. – Peter Tatchell, “The oxygen crisis” Could the decline of oxygen in the atmosphere undermine our health and threaten human survival?” The Guardian

In humans, failure of oxygen energy metabolism is the single most important risk factor for chronic diseases including cancer and death. ‘Oxygen deficiency’ is currently set at 19.5 percent in enclosed spaces for health and safety [6], below that, fainting and death may result. – Institute of Science in Society (ISIS)  Living with Oxygen (SiS 43)

Not only are CO2 levels rising dramatically and warming the planet — potentially flooding huge rural areas and cities before the end of the century, but Oxygen levels worldwide are falling.

Oxygen Depletion

Our civilization is at a critical juncture. 

Are we up to the task of making the right decisions, or will we take a pass — thereby forcing our grandchildren to wear oxygen masks every time they leave our airlocked houses to walk to their airlocked school, while we work in office buildings with airlocks and drive cars with oxygen bottles in the passenger compartment, to boost-up the breathable oxygen inside the car, so we don’t fall asleep from breathing higher levels of CO2 and lower levels of life-sustaining oxygen? This scenario is no longer science fiction, but an eventual reality if we don’t change course.

To our credit, we now realize that excessive atmospheric greenhouse gas levels equates to and is directly-linked to excessive consumption of oxygen caused by fossil fuel use and other combustible materials being burned, and we know that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for up to 100 years.

All of which means that much sooner than we may realize, some very serious choices must be made regarding our future fossil fuel burning and combustion-based civilization.

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Why are Environmentalists excited about the Natural Gas boom?

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fossil-fuel-emission-levels.gif

by John Brian Shannon

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which is the cleanest fossil fuel of all?

You guessed it! Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel – and by significant margins, as data from the Environmental Protection Agency illustrates in the chart below.

fossil-fuel-emission-levels

Natural gas, as the cleanest of the fossil fuels, can be used in many ways to help reduce the emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere. Burning natural gas in the place of other fossil fuels emits fewer harmful pollutants, and an increased reliance on natural gas can potentially reduce the emissions of many of the most harmful pollutants. — naturalgas.org

After investigating the externalities associated with conventional sources of energy and cognizant of their commitments towards clean air, many nations have begun to embrace natural gas as a stepping stone towards a cleaner energy future.

In the case of the U.S.A., as far back as 2003 when coal supplied more than 50% of America’s electrical power, coal-fired plants have been retired more quickly than new ones have come online. By 2012, coal supplied only 38% of U.S. electricity.

Nine gigawatts of U.S. coal-fired power generation was shut-down in 2012 alone, and replaced by an almost equal amount of natural gas power generation. Emission levels from those comparably-sized replacement natural gas power plants are less than half that of the now defunct coal-fired plants! Many more U.S. coal-fired power plants are scheduled for complete shutdown, or conversion to natural gas, over the next few years totalling 35 gigawatts (35,000 megawatts) according to experts.

Infographic courtesy of the U.S. Energy Information Administration — shows carbon emissions dropping as a result of switching from coal to natural gas,  2005-2012.

Critical NG Graph 2

‘”Carbon emissions of all end-use Sectors have decreased since 2005 in the United States. The largest reductions appear to be due to the Electric Power and Transportation sector’s emissions, followed by the Industrial, Residential and Commercial sectors.”

[Of all sectors] “the largest reduction to carbon emissions is due to coal-to-natural gas ‘fuels switching’ and construction of higher efficiency power plants.  Expansion of renewable power, overwhelmingly due to expanded wind power, has been the second largest factor to reduced Power Sector carbon emissions.” – theenergycollective.com

Infographic courtesy of peakoil.org.au — shows CO2 emissions dropping as a result of the combined effects of many countries switching from coal to natural gas and the switch to renewables, 1990-2100.

rutledge.fossil.emissions.1990-2100

The change-up to renewable energy will vary by country as OECD nations continue to take the lead in renewable energy between now and 2100. Even so, total worldwide emissions will drop dramatically and the switch from coal to natural gas is one big step towards a cleaner environment.

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Renewable Energy Hits the Roof

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by John Brian Shannon

Several major retailers with worldwide operations are busily installing solar panels on top of their ‘big-box’ retail stores and offices. Walmart, Walgreens, IKEA and others, are spending huge sums of money to cover their rooftop spaces with solar panels — and are installing wind turbines at, or near, their retail store locations.

Walmart is the world’s largest retailer and is fully committed to obtaining 100% of the energy it uses from renewable sources. As Walmart continues to add stores around the world and increase its car and truck fleets, it bases its calculations for CO2 emissions (from all sources) on the calculation of tonnes of CO2 used/emitted – per $1 million U.S. dollars of retail sales.

In 2005, Walmart operations emitted just over 60 tons of CO2 per $1 million (USD) it took in from retail sales. While adding more stores and adding capacity to existing stores, that ratio had decreased to just over 50 tons of CO2 per $1 million (USD) by 2009. This lowering of CO2 emissions occurred during a period of unprecedented growth for the chain, which means that Walmart got a lot more energy-efficient.

In addition to solar panels on its rooftops and wind turbines on its properties, Walmart is purchasing green energy from utility companies which operate solar and wind power plants, via power purchase agreements (PPA’s).

We are in the second year of a four-year agreement to purchase clean energy from a state-of-the-art Duke Energy wind farm in Notrees, Texas. The agreement supplies up to 15 percent of the energy needs in 350 of our Texas locations. It has reduced our carbon emissions by 139,000 metric tons per year, which is the equivalent of taking 25,000 cars off the road or eliminating the CO2 produced by 18,000 homes annually, raising environmental quality and quality of life in the communities we serve. — Walmart

And in Canada: The opening of the Balzac Fresh Food Distribution Centre on November 10, 2010, marked a major ­milestone. With hydrogen fuel cells used to power forklifts, as well as solar thermal and wind power, the 400,000-square-foot facility serves as a living lab for ­sustainability. It will boost energy efficiency by an estimated 60 percent over the company’s traditional refrigerated centres, while cutting costs by USD $4.83 million over the next five years. – Walmart

Walgreens, which owns and operates 8000 stores is building the first of many Net Zero Buildings – so designated for producing as much electricity as they use and often producing surplus electricity to sell to the local grid.

The first such store will be located at Evanston, Illinois, and according to Energy Manager Today, the store will include:

  • more than 800 roof-top solar panels,
  • two wind turbines,
  • geothermal energy obtained by drilling 550-feet into the ground below the store, where temperatures are more constant and can be tapped to heat or cool the store in winter and summer,
  • LED lighting and daylight harvesting,
  • carbon dioxide refrigerant for heating, cooling and refrigeration equipment,
  • and energy efficient building materials.

Engineering estimates, which can vary due to factors such as weather, store operations and systems performance, indicate the store will use 200,000 kWh per year while generating 256,000 kWh per year.

Walgreens will attempt to have the store achieve LEED Platinum status from the US Green Building Council, and plans to enter the store into the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge. The store will be Walgreens second showcase project in the Department of Energy Better Buildings Challenge. Through the Better Buildings Challenge, Walgreens has committed to a chain-wide 20 percent energy reduction by 2020.

The Better Buildings Challenge is gaining momentum. Recently, Sprint became the first telecommunications company to join the program. And more than 100 companies have joined the DOE’s Better Plants program. – Energy Manager Today

IKEA has a robust renewable energy program dedicated to 100% energy self-sufficiency by 2020 with plans to spend 1.5 billion euros by 2015 towards that goal.

IKEA Group’s chief sustainability officer, Steve Howard said “within three years, IKEA will receive 70% of its electricity from renewable energy [which] we own and operate” adding, “We’ll expand that from 2015 – 2020 to 100 per cent”.

In reference to utility-supplied electricity rate spikes anticipated by IKEA, Howard said, “We know we’re going to be using energy in 20 years’ time. If we can own our own renewable energy plants, it gives us complete price certainty.”

It appears that major users of electricity such as ‘big box’ stores and other large commercial spaces are predicting higher prices for utility-supplied electricity — and rather than pay those higher rates, are opting for their own solar and wind power plants. As polysilicon solar panel prices have fallen in price almost every month since September 2010 and continue to fall in price (bottoming-out in June or July of 2013) you may see solar panel installations appearing on large buildings featuring (largely empty) rooftop spaces such as the rooftop of your favourite retail store.

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Royal Dutch Shell Drops Two ‘Bombs’ in One Week

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Peter Endig/dpa via AP Images

by John Brian Shannon

First came the announcement this week by Shell senior executives that oil extraction in the Arctic would be postponed for the second year in a row, and second is yesterday’s announcement foreshadowing the company’s plan for the future, Shell Sees Solar As The Biggest Energy Source After Exiting It in 2009.

The New Lens Scenarios Europe Shell report depicts two different energy policy scenarios, predicts that “photovoltaic panels will be the main power source by 2060 or 2070”  (depending on which scenario) and “lower costs and state support will boost solar to about 600 gigawatts in 2035” – worldwide totals.

What might lie ahead 50 years from now… or even in 2100? We consider two possible scenarios of the future, taking a number of pressing global trends and issues and using them as “lenses” through which to view the world.

The scenarios provide a detailed analysis of current trends and their likely trajectory into the future. They dive into the implications for the pace of global economic development, the types of energy we use to power our lives and the growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

The scenarios also highlight areas of public policy likely to have the greatest influence on the development of cleaner fuels, improvements in energy efficiency and on moderating greenhouse gas emissions.

Mountains

The first scenario, labelled “mountains”, sees a strong role for government and the introduction of firm and far-reaching policy measures. These help to develop more compact cities and transform the global transport network. New policies unlock plentiful natural gas resources – making it the largest global energy source by the 2030s – and accelerate carbon capture and storage technology, supporting a cleaner energy system.

Oceans

The second scenario, which we call “oceans”, describes a more prosperous and volatile world. Energy demand surges, due to strong economic growth. Power is more widely distributed and governments take longer to agree major decisions. Market forces rather than policies shape the energy system: oil and coal remain part of the energy mix but renewable energy also grows. By the 2060s solar becomes the world’s largest energy source. – Shell

According to information compiled from Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the International Energy Agency, solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity has grown to about 102 gigawatts worldwide in 2012 – which is up from 1 gigawatt globally in 2000.

Since year 2000, an average of 10 gigawatts of PV solar, per year, has been very unevenly added to the world’s electrical grids, but if PV solar installations were to grow at the same rate as the 2000-2012 timeframe, just 450 gigawatts of PV solar would be installed by 2035 — not the 600 gigawatts predicted by the report. The growth rate for PV solar has been astonishing for a new kind of energy for utility companies — and additionally so, considering it is battling with the big boys of the energy world, oil & gas, coal and nuclear. Regardless of past challenges, strong growth in PV solar is forecast until 2100.

All of this means that PV solar is set to grow dramatically between now and 2035, let alone by 2070.

The report has PV solar power moving to number one position to provide at least 38% of worldwide energy supply (well up from today’s ranking of 13th place) to become the predominant kind of energy by 2100.

By 2100, energy from oil will account for only 10% of worldwide energy use and natural gas will account for just 7.5% of the worldwide total, Shell said.

Due to enhanced Carbon Capture and Storage, clean combustion technology and the use of CO2 gas for industrial processes by 2100, Shell sees “global emissions of carbon dioxide dropping to near zero by 2100”.

As all of the above plays out, natural gas demand is expected to surpass the historic demands seen for any other kind of fuel and the quote from the report’s main authour Jeremy Bentham, speaks volumes about the anticipated level of demand for the gas.“The underlying pent-up demand for gas is very strong…we see it being sucked up, every molecule.”

The overall demand for energy will double in the next 50 years due to population growth and increases in living standards, and natural gas will eventually enjoy the highest level of fuel demand in history. But by 2100, the world will mainly run on PV solar, while other kinds of energy will contribute small percentages to the overall global energy mix.

It now appears that Shell would rather ‘switch than fight’ the move to PV solar. It is likely to be the first of many such switches in the global energy industry.

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Peter Endig/dpa via AP Images

Shell Solar GmbH 2004 | World’s then-largest solar power plant in Espenhain, Germany | Peter Endig/dpa via AP Images

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Energy & Climate: The regulatory climate is changing too!

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fossil-fuel-subsidies.jpg

Article by John Brian Shannon

Images by Cleantechnica

For several decades, U.S. environmental regulators have been the tall, silent type.

These highly-educated people worked for the government, but alongside industry, to craft energy regulations reflecting the ecological notions of their particular era. For most of the 20th century politicians favoured regulations which worked to promote the rapid growth of the economy and to advance the use of energy – particularly fossil-fuel energy.

But now, a new generation of regulators are actively contributing to the debate and they are doing so in significant ways. So much has changed and with little media coverage considering the scope of the changes which are now becoming apparent.

Such are the recent regulatory changes in the U.S.A. that people are now openly wondering if another coal-fired powerplant will ever be built in the United States! Coal, which produced a majority of America’s electrical energy in 1997,  has since dropped to 36% of total electrical energy production.

The average share of electricity generated from coal in the US has dropped from 52.8% in 1997 to 45.0% in 2009.[1] In the first quarter of 2012, the use of coal for electricity generation has declined substantially more, declining 21% from 2011 levels. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 27 gigawatts of capacity from coal-fired generators [are] to be retired from 175 coal-fired power plants between 2012 and 2016.[8] Coal’s share of electricity generation dropped to just over 36%. – Wikipedia

The explanation for this sea-change is both simple and complicated. EPA regulators attempted to enforce the new for 2011 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule regulations (read other important CSAPR information here) due to go into effect on 7/7/11, but that act was struck down in appeals court on 21/8/12 for contravening another set of regulations called The Clean Air Act. Happily, another act (but with lower standards) called the Clean Air Interstate Rule automatically resumed as the prevailing regulatory framework until the CSAPR could be re-written so as not to contravene The Clean Air Act.

In the meantime, EPA bureaucrats set to work on changing the regulations for natural gas extraction, including fracking, which helped to make electricity produced by natural gas much cheaper than electricity produced by coal — and as a result, coal-fired plants are closing down far faster than if the CSAPR had been enacted and not struck down. (Moral: Never argue with the bureaucrats).

Yet more changes lay ahead due to upcoming proposed regulatory changes. A good example of this is Tina Casey’s post “Texas Wind Power Up, Nukes Down” which describes how the nuclear powerplant operator Exelon is shifting away from nuclear to wind energy.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune last week, the CEO of energy giant Exelon, Christopher Crane predicted that the influx of low cost wind power would lead the company to start shuttering its nuclear plants.

Though wind and other renewables only account for about three percent of the company’s capacity now, that could change pretty fast.

Exelon’s first commercial wind farm only started operating in January 2012, and the company already has 44 wind projects operating in 10 different states. Tina Casey (Cleantechnica.com)

Coal is now being undercut by lower priced natural gas-fired electricity — and nuclear power is being undercut by lower priced wind-powered electricity, causing a historic shift in America’s energy makeup. We are just at the beginning of that road.

What happens if regulators decide to drop the huge subsidies the government pays to both the coal industry and the nuclear industry?

Even if regulators decided to bring subsidy levels for sustainable energy up to the same levels that coal and nuclear now enjoy – the changes we have seen thus far will seem microscopic.

fossil-fuel-subsidies

In the U.S.A., Oil and Gas receives 13 times more in historical subsidies than clean energy.

Over the first 15 years of these energy sources’ subsidies, oil and gas got 5 times what renewables got (in 2010 dollars) and nuclear energy got 10 times as much.

“Nuclear spent an average of about $3.3 billion a year, oil and gas about $1.8 billion, and renewable energy just under half a billion,” DBL Investors Managing Partner Nancy Pfund and Ben Healey recently wrote in “What would Jefferson do?” – Cleantechnica

energy-subsidies-percentages

The energy regulatory climate is changing in the U.S.A., and we have only seen the beginning of these changes. By 2020, America’s energy regulations will have changed significantly to reflect what a large percentage of voters want. Clean energy, delivered on a (subsidy) level playing field.

us_fuel_subsidies

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CO2 or Methane: Who do you Love?

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by John Brian Shannon

Greenhouse gas is a catch-all term used to describe a class of gases — either naturally-occurring or man-made (anthropogenic) which have a detrimental effect on the Earth’s atmosphere. It is no longer in academic dispute that any upset to the natural atmospheric equilibrium can wreak havoc on the climate of the entire planet.

As more of these gases are added to the planet’s atmosphere they allow more of the Sun’s rays to penetrate into the air mass which surrounds our planet, instead of bouncing harmlessly back into space. Scientists refer to this process as ‘solar forcing’ whereby more heat is added to the Earth each year than can be removed by natural systems. When more heat is allowed in, more of the polar ice caps melt each summer. It’s a simple equation.

It is likely that later this century there will be no northern ice cap. The other ice cap covers the continent Antarctica which is nearly the size of the United States, and is permanently covered in ice. The ice cap in Antarctica is dissipating at an increasing rate and that is no longer in academic dispute either. Both effectively function as the air-conditioning system for planet Earth and trillions of dollars are at stake for the world farming community.

Heat and drought are the deadly enemies of food crops and both excessive heat and drought are on the increase as more solar forcing is added to Earth’s climate equation. Scientists say that in the best-case scenario — with modern technology and farming practices, that up to a 2 degree worldwide average temperature increase can be accommodated with the only disruptions being in the number of food-producer bankruptcies and higher food costs for consumers. According to scientists, it is beyond our present-day ability to compensate for any worldwide temperature increase of more than 2 degrees.

Here is a staggering number to keep in mind, it costs farmers, ag corporations, consumers and governments one-trillion-dollars per year, for each one degree of worldwide temperature increase – costs which are already starting to be passed on to consumers and taxpayers.

So, who do you love: CO2 or methane? There is no doubt all greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, but some are worse than others — which is why a significant and growing movement is afoot these days to enhance and enlarge the Montreal Protocol an international agreement which limits ozone-depleting gases — to include selected greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

Which makes some amount of sense, as methane causes 72 times more global warming per tonne than CO2. Nitrous oxide causes 289 times more global warming per tonne than CO2. Others are exponentially worse, such as sulfur hexafluoride which contributes 16,300 times it’s weight to our atmospheric problems. Get used to hearing the term CO2-equivalent we will be hearing a lot about that in the coming months.

The worldwide tonnage of these pollutants are much lower than the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere each year, but at those ratios even a few million tons can do a lot of lasting damage. Also, some of these emissions can stay in the atmosphere for up to 50,000 years eating ozone the entire time.

Atmospheric lifetime and GWP relative to CO2 at different time horizon for various greenhouse gases.
Gas name

Chemical
formula

  Lifetime
(years)

Global warming potential (GWP) for given time horizon

20-yr

100-yr

500-yr
Carbon dioxide

CO2

See above

1

1

1
Methane

CH4

12

72

25

7.6
Nitrous oxide

N2O

114

289

298

153
CFC-12

CCl2F2

100

11,000

10,900

5,200
HCFC-22

CHClF2

12

5,160

1,810

549
Tetrafluoromethane

CF4

50,000

5,210

7,390

11,200
Hexafluoroethane

C2F6

10,000

8,630

12,200

18,200
Sulfur hexafluoride

SF6

3,200

16,300

22,800

32,600
Nitrogen trifluoride

NF3

740

12,300

17,200

20,700

This chart is courtesy of Wikipedia, to view it full size, click here.

More CO2 is produced by our civilization than any other gas and it is prudent to limit CO2 emissions wherever possible — and to use carbon capture and storage to mitigate anthropogenic CO2 production. But it is beginning to look like all of the other greenhouse gases are the real story — and the ones most easily reduced.

At one-trillion-dollars per one-degree-of-global-warming, it is already costing consumers and taxpayers a huge amount of money. If our civilization spent just ten percent of that mitigating all of the other greenhouse gases besides CO2, we might be starting to show our planet and each other some respect.

And then, we would then know the answer to the question; Who do you Love?

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The Next Trillion-dollar Business

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by John Brian Shannon

High energy costs to pump crude oil from the bottom two-thirds of an oil reservoir is one of two main reasons that some of the largest oil wells have been capped and abandoned. Therefore, until recently much of the global proven reserves have lain dormant in so-called ‘ageing’ or ‘spent’ oilfields.

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) can allow oil companies to resume extraction of crude oil at previously abandoned facilities.

This kind of CCS is a fine way to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions by storing the CO2 deep underground forever — and helping to help bring crude oil to the surface.

http://www.ico2n.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ICO2N-Enhanced-Oil-Recovery-Carbon-Capture-and-Storage.jpg

ICO2N Enhanced Oil Recovery – Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage

Recently, and where vast quantities of CO2 are available locally from industry, millions of tons of CO2 gas have already been pumped deep into the underground crude, increasing the volume and raising the overall pressure of the oil reservoir, thereby ‘forcing’ more crude oil to the surface. This is starting to become a common practice in Canada, the U.S.A., and in Saudi Arabia.

More often than not, this process has made economic sense based on it’s own economic merit, but government subsidies have also been employed on and off over the years — on an experimental and case-by-case basis.

So, why isn’t this being done everywhere if it is such a great idea? It turns out that much of the industry-produced CO2 that is available for CCS use is already being used for that purpose. But two factors have (so far) limited more CCS injection for oilfield rejuvenation:

  1. The remote locations of some oilfields can limit the use of industrial CO2 emissions for use, as pipelines to deliver the gasses to capped wells are expensive.
  2. The high energy costs of pumping supercritical (liquified) greenhouse gasses deep underground at high pressure — and pumping the crude oil up the pipe and out through the wellhead

_

And… Voila! Just like that, high energy costs are no longer a factor in that equation — thanks to the dramatic fall in solar panel prices over the past 26 months! What?

It’s true! Up ‘till now, the high cost of all kinds of energy have prevented many CCS projects from going forward, as Carbon Capture and Storage requires huge amounts of energy. But solar costs have now dropped so dramatically that free energy from the Sun is being harnessed to inject liquified CO2 deep underground to rejuvenate massive oilfields — while at the same time, sequestering millions of tons of harmful greenhouse gasses.

Semprius Inc. 33.9% efficiency solar panel arrays mounted on Solar Tracker

It’s a win-win for the environment. Some might argue that point. But each year, our civilization is consuming more crude oil producing billions more tons of greenhouse gasses.

“The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes (21.3 gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, but it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year…” — Wikipedia Fossil Fuel

We can continue to allow those gasses to escape unimpeded into the atmosphere, further warming the planet — or we can inject billions of tons of these gasses underground where they will stay for millennia.

The millions of tons of CO2 per year already being injected underground (now) and billions of tons of CO2 per year (in the near future) can only be seen as positive. If only all of the industry-produced CO2 could be so treated! Suddenly, that noble goal seems a lot closer to becoming a reality.

Who could have predicted that the oil industry and the solar industry would become such strong and complementary partners in this great and lofty enterprise?

Highly Recommended CCS articles:

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Clean Energy: How To Get There From Here!

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by John Brian Shannon

Everyone knows more electricity is needed in developed nations and electrical needs in developing nations are skyrocketing. No problem there — everyone deserves to live a good lifestyle and enjoy our modern technology to the fullest.

The problem occurs in the means used to generate that electricity. Some kinds of electrical power generation cause huge billowing clouds of pollution 24-hours per day, every day of the year.

All of this adds up to astronomically high costs for electrical power producers and users, which can be measured in several different ways.

For instance, new conventional nuclear  power plants can cost up to $20 billion dollars each. Added to that cost, is the cost incurred to store thousands of tons of (so-called) spent nuclear fuel. Some spent fuels must be stored in air-conditioned bunkers for up to 20,000 years, with never more than 36 hours of A/C interruption. The costs of that are so high, they can’t even be calculated.

New coal plants cost about $250 million dollars/per hundred megawatts. A hundred megawatts isn’t much, by the way – enough to power 16,000 power-hungry A/C homes in the U.S. or about 29,000 homes in China. Some coal-fired power plants cost upwards of $1 billion dollars. The cost of the coal must be added to the equation from day one – the price of which rises and falls typically between $80.00 and $160.00 per ton, plus the significant transportation costs. It may interest you to know that China burned 3 billion tons of coal last year, emitting 7.2 billion tons of CO2 and other toxic gasses. Approximately 410,000 Chinese people die every year as a result of pollution-related deaths.

Natural gas power plants are clean, they cost a little more than comparable coal plants and the only real drawback is they emit huge volumes of CO2. Unlike coal, they emit little in the way of other toxic gasses or soot. Again, a costly and continuous and supply of natural gas must be available every day of the year.

No matter which choice is made, the construction of electrical generation power plants incurs high costs to nations — and the cheapest options come with the highest fuel and health-care costs.

In the United States, nuclear power receives significant subsidies on the order of $3.50 billion per year on average and oil and gas receive $4.86 billion subsidy dollars per year on average.

fossil-fuel-subsidies-490x407

We can see from the chart above that in the United States most forms of electrical power generation are heavily subsidized. Who could afford electricity otherwise?

If solar, wind and geothermal energy were subsidized at the same per kilowatt rate as Oil & Gas, Coal, or Nuclear — total U.S. emission levels would drop dramatically and Americans would be breathing much cleaner air.

National health-care costs would drop, acid rain damage would decrease to near zero, crop damage from power plants would become a thing of the past and meeting international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol would become boringly simple.

To have the enjoyment of breathing clean air and the other benefits listed above, all governments should calculate the highest subsidy they pay per kilowatt hour and then begin paying ALL electricity providers that same per kilowatt hour subsidy.

Solar power, wind power and geothermal would then become ultra-competitive with coal, N-power and Oil & Gas. Every large rooftop area, such as big box retail outlets like IKEA stores for one good example, could assist national power production and air-quality goals by lowering demand on the grid and potentially adding power to it, while helping to enhance the health of citizens.

One nation has already begun such a program and is right on schedule. Denmark has decided that all energy, including transportation energy(!) will come from renewable sources by 2050 and they have made substantial progress in only a few short years.

Even with the patchwork and grossly unlevel subsidy regimes in place in the United States, this transition is already occurring. Organizations from the U.S. Navy, to IKEA and WalMart, some cities and towns, the Big Three auto manufacturers and many more businesses and organizations, are converting their unused rooftop spaces and vacant land into clean power stations — thereby tapering the need for behemoth, pollution-spewing power plants.

If governments standardized the subsidies they already pay for Oil & Gas, Coal and Nuclear power (instead of paying billions of dollars to some power providers — whilst paying pennies to others) we would all breathe a lot easier.

We need oil & gas, coal, natural gas and conventional nuclear power to feed our grids, what I’m  advocating for is directly comparable subsidies for all electricity providers, including green energy — and there are no real reasons why such subsidy levelization couldn’t soon happen in every country.

ABOUT JOHN BRIAN SHANNON

I write about green energy, sustainable development and economics. My blogs appear in the Arabian Gazette, EcoPoint, EnergyBoom, Huffington Post, United Nations Development Programme, WACSI — and other quality publications.

“It is important to assist all levels of government and the business community to find sustainable ways forward for industry and consumers.”

Green Energy blog: http://johnbrianshannon.com
Economics blog: http://jbsnews.wordpress.com
Twitter: @JBSCanada

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The Economics of Green Energy

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by John Brian Shannon

Back in the old days of sustainable energy, circa 2000, the cost of switching to solar or wind was so expensive that only the well-intentioned considered it — and only the wealthy could afford it.

How times have changed!

Nowadays, utility-scale solar power and wind power are cost-competitive with utility-scale coal-fired and nuclear electrical power generation.

And obviously, solar and wind are much better for the environment.

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That’s not to knock coal, which has provided reliable power for decades and still has a great future in Coal to Liquid fuels — that is, coal processed into extremely pure transportation fuels. Gasoline for your car, diesel for cars, trucks and ships and jet fuel are all created from coal using CTL technology.

South Africa’s SASOL have been using CTL technology successfully since 1955 and 30% of all the transportation fuels in that country are made from domestically-sourced coal. No alterations to vehicle engines or aircraft turbine engines are required to use fuels which are made from coal — as the CTL technology produces almost laboratory-quality fuels when using the Fisher-Tropsch catalytic process.

However, electrical power generation which burns raw coal releases billions of tons of CO2 and carbon monoxide, along with huge amounts of hydrogen sulfide, arsenic, lead, cyanide, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide and other toxins into the atmosphere every year — all of which easily cross state lines, national boundaries and even the oceans before settling in both populated areas and farmland.

One brand new coal-fired plant per week is completed and goes into service in China these days and this has been the case since late 2008.

In 2010 for example, China operated 620 coal-fired power plants which burned over 3 billion tons of coal per year. Just the CO2 emissions alone from coal-fired electrical generation in China surpassed 7.2 billion tons in 2010.

Which leads to higher health care costs in both the developing world and the developed world. According to CLPmag.org -

“China faces a number of serious environmental issues caused by overpopulation and rapid industrial growth. Water pollution and a resulting shortage of drinking water is one such issue, as is air pollution caused by an over-reliance on coal as fuel. It has been estimated that 410,000 Chinese die as a result of pollution each year.”

In addition to being cost-competitive with coal, solar and wind are also cost-competitive with nuclear. In the case of solar and wind power there is no need for very costly nuclear spent-fuel storage — as some types of nuclear fuel rods must be stored in terrorist-proof bunkers and be constantly-cooled 24 hours per day/365 days per year for up to 20,000 years — without any interruption lasting longer than 36 hours. The cost of just one failure here would be catastrophic.

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Nuclear power has been statistically safe – with only one serious incident about every ten years on average. However, we have seen deaths caused by exposure to radioactive emissions from nuclear power plant accidents and indirect adverse health effects on population centres near nuclear disaster sites. Some particles remain radioactive at toxic levels for many decades.

Which leads to higher health care costs in many nations as the wind can carry radioactive particulate thousands of miles — just as it can carry toxic gasses and soot from coal-fired power generation for thousands of miles.

For the most recent example of the cost to clean up nuclear accidents, the Fukushima disaster had been estimated at between $15 – 45 billion dollars, but more recently a $50 – 100 billion dollar price-tag has appeared and full decommissioning may take until 2030 to complete. The Japanese government is covering all the costs of decommissioning the Fukushima nuclear site — which means Japanese citizens will end up paying the full cost through taxation.

From the perspective of taxpayers everywhere who bear the brunt of health care costs and disaster mitigation, the full cost of a given kind of fuel must include the costs of all adverse health effects, deaths, damages and lost productivity caused by each kind of fuel.

Which is why solar, wind and biomass are still the better deal by far – even at the same per-gigawatt price.

John Brian Shannon writes about green energy, sustainable development and economics from British Columbia, Canada. His articles appear in the Arabian Gazette, EcoPoint Asia, EnergyBoom, the Huffington Post, the United Nations Development Programme – and other quality publications.

John believes it is important to assist all levels of government and the business community to find sustainable ways forward for industry and consumers.

Check out his green energy blog at: http://johnbrianshannon.com

Check out his economics blog at: http://jbsnews.wordpress.com

Follow John on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/#!/JBSCanada

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Biofuel a Win-Win: Green and Cost-Effective – response to comment against my Huff Post blog

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My article appeared in The Huffington Post Canada Feb 2/12

A comment appeared detracting from my points, this is my response to that commentator.

———————————————————————–

I did address both your concerns right in my article.

1) It is important to grow biofuel crops in NON-food growing areas.

Fortunatel­y, the biofuel crops I mentioned grow in areas with poor soil, blistering heat and require very minimal pesticide use – the exact opposite of food crops!

Desolate “junk land” where food crops could NOT be grown anyway, is often considered desirable land to grow Jatropha biofuel, for example.

Therefore, growing the right biofuel crops won’t displace food crop land – notice that was item #1 in my blog.

2) Your second point is completely off.

Rainforest land HAS been demolished to grow sugarcane for both biofuel & food use in Brazil. Sugar cane is NOT the best biofuel, nor are Brazil’s environmen­tal practices.

Just because Brazil isn’t a good example, is that reason enough to write off an entire industry? Just because the Taliban uses guns improperly­, is that a good enough reason to write off the whole gun industry? No guns for our police, our army, etc…?

Separate from Brazil: If 1000 hectares of “junk land” is cleared of its vegetation (if any) and Jatropha is planted there instead, it is still 1000 hectares of green plants which capture and use CO2 from the air!

Far from carbon negative, Jatropha plantation­s take bare, or sparsely vegetated land and turn it into a forest!

Please visit these links:
http://www­.biofuelin­vestments.­net/jatrop­ha.php
http://www­.biofuelin­vestments.­net/millet­tia.php

The only way to overcome the flood of misinforma­tion surroundin­g the entire biofuels debate is to become fully informed by employing research.

johnbrianshannon@gmail.com

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