Preferred Carbon Capture Method is Uneconomic
By Paul Homewood
And another from Euan!
Sir, Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is viewed as an essential component of decarbonisation by many OECD governments and has been debated and considered in the UK for at least two decades. The technology exists to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) at power stations (gas or coal) or industrial works (e.g., oil refineries) using a range of technologies and to then pipe that CO2 to a geological location where it is pumped into porous formations in the deep sub-surface, where it is supposed to remain forever. In the UK, it is envisaged that the CO2 will be pumped into defunct oil or gas fields in the North Sea. Hence, instead of accumulating in the atmosphere, it is disposed of underground. The trouble with CCS is that it consumes a lot of resources, is therefore expensive (cost largely unknown) and provides no tangible benefit for those who have to pay for it, that is us.
CCS has a very wealthy cousin called CO2-EOR where EOR stands for enhanced oil recovery. All defunct oil fields still contain a lot of oil. This residual oil does not flow under its own steam and that is why it is left behind. Pumping CO2 into a defunct oil field does two things, it can dissolve some of the residual oil and mobilise it and it can expand the oil volume making it easier for the oil to flow. The oil can be pushed towards existing production wells and recovered. This effectively increases the oil recovery factor (a good thing in the world of economics) and extends the operational life of our oil fields (a good thing for the city of Aberdeen and the UK as a whole).
The trouble with CO2-EOR, from the simplified view of our politicians, is that it is CO2 neutral (ie. it does not increase or decrease CO2 emissions) although the level of neutrality varies from one field to the next. For our politicians, all obsessed with CO2 reduction targets, CO2 neutrality was not good enough. At least two opportunities to get CO2-EOR up and running in the UK have been squandered by successive governments that are obsessed with pure CCS that produces absolutely nothing of value and will be immensely costly to the public purse and to the population.
The government’s original plan was to support a single demonstration project to the tune of £1billion. This has now evolved to a plan to support many projects arranged into two clusters at a cost to the public purse of £20 billion over 20 years. The East Coast Cluster is based around Teeside and the Humber, and the Hynet cluster is based around NW England and N Wales. The Scottish based Acorn cluster, centred on Peterhead, is on track 2.
The thing I do not understand, is what are these companies going to sell and to whom? The government needs to provide cast iron assurances that beyond squandering £20billion of our hard-earned cash, that there will be no further costs to the public. Perhaps local MP Andrew Bowie can explain how this enterprise, that produces nothing of value, is going to be financed.
Pumping CO2 into mature oil fields and not producing the oil that will be mobilised is pure madness and irresponsible at a time when energy security is high on the national agenda. CCS with EOR has the promise to provide a vibrant self-funding industry. Why spend £20 billion on an aspiration that produces nothing when you can spend nothing and produce a lot more oil from the North Sea?
Dr Euan Mearns
Aberdeen
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Why are they even contemplating capturing CO2? Our atmosphere is in CO2 deficit at 418ppm – we need 800-1300ppm for optimal plant growth – our planet needs lots more CO2, quickly
This is an increasingly popular theme, <150ppm and all life on Earth comes to an end. Its normal in the Green world that reality is frequently the exact opposite of what is claimed.
In this brave new world crazy wasteful projects are always preferable to rational ones
[image: Carbon Capture.jpg]
Euan: Another excellent article – thank you.
With regard to EOR, it would be interesting to hear your views on claims for carbon-negative projects in the US, such as Denbury Oil’s so-called “Blue Oil”. They say that the amount of CO2 sequestered is greater than that emitted in producing, refining and combusting the oil.
If those claims are proven, it would create a massive win-win situation for the oil industry: carry on producing the fuels we need while “saving the planet” by reducing the CO2 inventory in overall terms.
Mike, I happen to know Gareth Roberts who founded Denbury. He’s explained to me that the degree of carbon neutrality varies from one field to the next. Obviously, from economic perspective, max production for minimum CO2 injected is optimum. But if you are worried about the atmosphere then minimum amount of oil produced would be best. Operators could always re-inject some of the oil produced 😉
Whilst I’m a fan of EOR methods, one of the snags with CO2 injection is that dissolved in water it is highly corrosive on well completions. In a dry state no problem, but often in depleted fields water cut is high. So whilst injectors might survive producers may suffer and workover costs can eat into profits. I’m not saying it’s not feasible in some cases, but its application is not straight forward. I also suspect steel corrosion is a serious issue in wider CCS applications.
I am unable to comment on this. Sounds like it could be a problem. Perhaps new well completions made from high quality steel would be required.
Thanks for the article and your other contributions; some very thoughtful stuff. On the CO2 corrosion problem, I first came across it as a Schlumberger engineer logging wells with high H2S and CO2 concentrations. Both these gases would eat mild steel cables. We would switch to stainless steel, which is far more resistant. I learnt that it was also a problem for tubing and casing. Whilst we had a solution, stainless steel was never an option for completions, of course.
Overall though, in my view, your’re right that one of the major problems with CCS is that there is no tangible benefit, unlike conventional gas storage where the gas has real value. Anyway, thanks for being a sensible voice in the midst of all the pseudo-science and engineering.
All the best
John
Denbury was founded on the purchase of the Mississippi Dome natural CO2 field. This CO2 was pumped into defunct oil fields that were brought back to life. I never heard about corrosion problems. If you have H2S on the other hand, it will eat all of your wells and platform.
CCS Carbon Capture and Storage is a costly and energy wasteful way of throwing away inconsequential amounts if useful plant food
Hi Ed, how are you doing? If my next letter gets published I venture into the world of David MacKay.
Now Oxford are trying to pretend that Mackay is history.
This paper explores the time-bound nature of MacKay’s assumptions—and conclusions—and provides a revised foundation for discourse.
Click to access Could-Britains-energy-demand-be-met-entirely-by-wind-and-solar-SSEE-working-paper.pdf
When you dig into their paper you find it is actually poor quality and replete with unicorn assumptions. It doesn’t acknowledge the need for serious amounts of storage for example.
MavKay is exactly where we should all be looking. I think he is as near right as anyone has been.
MacKay was a lot more climate concerned than we are and was therefore in favour of CCS I think without fully understanding the costs involved. Apart from that he was strongly pro-nuclear and scoffed at wind and solar.
Ah, I assumed you meant Charles MacKay who wrote “Extra Ordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” which describes the lunacy of the greens in our time. In it says “…. man goes mad in herds but only recover their senses slowly and one at a time”.
Don’t we know that too well
I just love the bit where Euan asks that simple question that all capitalists should be able to answer – the lack of answer to which defines them as NOT capitalists: what can you sell as a result of all this investment? (something tangible, that is).
No matter which you cut this, it is us that has to foot an enormous bill for zero reward.
Spot on, Euan.
Got it in one. QED.
Why doesn’t some WOG ( Wise Old Guy ) tell us in modern woke speke just how many Football Pitches or swimming ponds can be filled by how many household equivalents of generation capacity! ( Y’now what I really mean – how many windmills does it take to power that process )
If they remove some CO2 plant food from the air the oceans which have 70 times as much CO2 as the air will simple replace it since the air and the ocean surfaces are at equilibrium.
The idea that we can capture carbon dioxide from flue gases economically can only described as pure fantasy. There are no large scale viable projects in existence. Technically it is possible but the energy consumed during recovery makes it very expensive. Then the carbon dioxide has to be transported to its final destination which could be 100’s of kms away. The few projects that are in play have all had issues. Much of the carbon dioxide in the US comes form ethanol units, which is a very different matter.
Some are promoting carbon dioxide recycling to produce synthetic fuels. Reducing carbon dioxide (c.f photosynthesis) requires a huge amount of energy; more than was gained by combustion. Where is all that energy supposed to come from – wind, pv, fossil fuel combustion with carbon recycling. All we new for this to work is the find a way around the second law of thermodynamics. Then we can have free energy- Whoopee.
Some real intelligent people are even talking of direct air capture to capture 400 ppm of carbon dioxide form the air.The mind boggles.
I think pre-combustion applications are more likely.
https://www.energy.gov/fecm/pre-combustion-carbon-capture-research
Euan,
I nearly referred to pre combustion removal but this is technology still in its early stages of development. The quoted numbers are in my opinion highly unlikely. This is essentially hydrogen production by steam reforming, which itself is and endothermic reaction, so ever more energy is used in the pre-combustion step. As ever time will tell whether or not it will be a commerical technology. Somehow I doubt it, and it will be niche application possibly for hydrogenation reactions in the petchem industry.
The company 2CO secured €180 million from EU to progress plans for CCS with EOR centred on the Humber.
https://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/don_valley.html
The UK government failed to provide a CfD and the project foundered. A senior economist in the UK government once told me that they were committed to CCS without EOR which is of course economic suicide.
Given that the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric is no more than four per cent at best and that Henry’s law suggests that any CO2 sequestrated will be rapidly replaced from the massive CO2 sink in the oceans, it is an utter waste of time and effort.
Yes
Cat: as mentioned many times the problem is not with the S in CCS (storage) but with the C (capture). All flue gas streams have 80% nitrogen which makes amine scrubbing expensive an d inefficient. But here is my thought. Government is committing £billions to hydrogen. We all know that a national hydrogen grid is fantasy but let’s just suppose that there could be a few limited grids serving high users. The hydrogen has to be greeen (electrolysis) and the co-produced oxygen could be used to oxy-combust difficult materials – I’m thinking especially waste plastics – and generate electricity. No problem with CCS – there is no nitrogen diluting the flue gas. QED
1 ppm carbon dioxide in the atmosphere weighs about 700,000,000,000 tons. Direct air capture? Good luck with that.
I take your word for it. That’s a big number.
Using 5.137 x 10^18 kg as the mass of the atmosphere (Trenberth, 1981 JGR 86:5238-46),
1 ppmv of CO2 = 2.13 Gt of carbon.
2.13 Gt of carbon is contained in 2.13 x 44/12 Gt of CO2,
i.e. 7.81 Gt of CO2
When J Hunt slipped the £20bn for Carbon Capture into his last budget, the MSM went overboard and spent days discussing the £4bn he chucked at child care. Nobody discussed the £20bn. Too complicated or else on the golden path to Nut Zero? I despair.
PS Excellent article, Dr Euan.
Thanks. I just can’t get over the cognitive dissonance and sheer madness of the politicians. The worrying thing is that all major parties singing from the same hymn sheet. I suspect some deep rooted corruption somewhere.
Or is it, as we have seen from the so-called Covid Enquiry, the impossiblilty of admitting they were wrong, no matter how devastating the consequences to the country?
Euan, It is not just policiticians. Most are utterly usless but they are “advised ” by underwhelming clowns called SPADS and academics most of whom have never done a proper days work. Then there are blogs promoting climate change run by people with no ability to really understand the necessity of carbon dioxide. Desmog, Carbon Bief, Carbon Commentary are just some of the blogs that offer so called solutions with the most ludicrous optimism that you could imagine. One of the old TOD leading lights runs a blog that is full of cognitive bias and groupthink.
Unless CCS is powered entirely by renewable energy, the alleged cure adds to the supposed disease.
I would like to see wind turbines manufactured from only wind power, including all mining and mineral refining, transportation, manufacture, installation and maintenance. Nuclear, unfortunately would suffer a similar fate. But most nuclear advocates (like me) do not at the same time advocate phasing out FF.
Two words sum that up.
WISHFUL THINKING
Not a snowball’s chance in hell. I am with you on nuclear, especially modular.