The fear of leakage strikes me as one of those “ghosts in the night”, a goblin that leads to yet more delay. Natural gas reservoirs have held methane at very high pressure for ~100 million years or more. Sealing technology for wells tapping and producing that natural gas is outstanding: the producers of the gas can’t afford to lose the methane. Why do we think that carbon dioxide in such a formation, stored as a gas, would behave differently than the natural gas? Ditto re CO2 disposal in saline aquifers.
I am occasionally disheartened by the number of what appears to me to be side issues that arise to complicate and delay progress in removing carbon. Peter Flynn Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D. Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Alberta peter.fl...@ualberta.ca cell: 928 451 4455 *From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto: geoengineering@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Greg Rau *Sent:* Monday, November 21, 2016 10:04 AM *To:* macma...@cds.caltech.edu; myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk; 'Stephen Salter' <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>; geoengineering@googlegroups.com; 'Oxford Martin Info' < i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk> *Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Just to "inject" a comment on this point: "Large-scale CO2 disposal (CDD), on the other hand, will necessarily take decades to ramp up, because it’ll take that long to establish leakage rates from geological reservoirs, monitor the impact on ocean biology or circulation if an ocean storage route is taken, reassure the public the CO2 isn’t going to leak out and poison them all in their beds, build the necessary plant etc." Unclear why CDD is the weak, risky link if we spontaneously convert excess CO2 to other stable, benign and potentially beneficial compounds such as biomass or (bi)carbonates. Leakage problem (and seismic events) solved (or greatly reduced) and the very expensive CO2 concentration step is completely avoided(?) Greg ------------------------------ *From:* Douglas MacMartin <macma...@cds.caltech.edu> *To:* myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk; 'Stephen Salter' <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>; geoengineering@googlegroups.com; 'Oxford Martin Info' < i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk> *Sent:* Monday, November 21, 2016 6:23 AM *Subject:* RE: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Hi Myles, Broadly agree that because of the scale issue, it necessarily takes longer to ramp up CDD. Just two comments: 1. I think that with some amount of money (probably a few billion) we could technically get some stratospheric aerosol injection in of order 3-5 years, but it would be pretty insane (or desperate) absent more research. I think that while there will always be things we don’t know, that there is still quite a bit we can learn from modeling and small scale experimentation/monitoring, so that if we eventually started a deployment we could do it more intelligently (e.g., what set of latitudes, altitudes to inject, what do we think will happen, better quantify uncertainties in key processes, measure them where possible,…). Ben, Phil, Jane & I recently tried to summarize what we don’t know: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000418/full. My guess is that a properly-funded strategic research program aimed at developing reasonable risk reduction would be at least 20 years, probably a fair bit longer than that, so if we want to know whether this is a viable option or not before we cross the 2C threshold, we need serious research starting now. And for marine cloud brightening the situation is worse insofar as we don’t understand really basic physics (like how well it works, where it works,…) So part of our difference in perspective is simply that the longer you stare at a problem the more you realize you don’t know. And just like CCS, any technology development program will take a long time. 2. In principle one could start SRM and ask for a lot of cooling right away, but that’s not likely to be a good idea unless one is desperate (e.g., trying to reverse a tipping point). Much more likely (to me) is to ramp it up gradually (e.g. hold temperatures constant at 2C or something like that if mitigation is heading for a 3C stabilization before long term CO2 removal). Reason for ramp up is (a) reduces risks associated with unknowns (i.e., if you get anything wrong, it will be at a lower amplitude where it has less impact) and (b) there are dynamic response issues associated with rapid changes in forcing. So it may well be that the time-scales for detection of side-effects are not short, and driven by one’s choices of how slowly to ramp up. doug *From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com [ mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Myles Allen *Sent:* Sunday, November 20, 2016 1:47 PM *To:* Douglas MacMartin <macma...@cds.caltech.edu>; 'Stephen Salter' < s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>; geoengineering@googlegroups.com; Oxford Martin Info < i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk> *Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School I think we can agree on both being potentially needed to meet any reasonably ambitious temperature goal, precisely because both are also potentially unfeasible for either technical, economic or socio-political reasons. Hence my use of “may be our only option.” But there is a timescale mismatch. My understanding is that we could start SRM tomorrow if we had global acquiescence, that no amount of prior modelling will really prepare us or the public for the (real or imagined) side-effects, but also that these side-effects will emerge relatively rapidly after an SRM programme is initiated (because the time-scales involved are essentially atmospheric). Likewise, CO2 capture (from point sources or the air) can be developed as fast as resources allow: the CO2 is there in abundance, and you’ll know immediately if it has been successfully captured. Large-scale CO2 disposal (CDD), on the other hand, will necessarily take decades to ramp up, because it’ll take that long to establish leakage rates from geological reservoirs, monitor the impact on ocean biology or circulation if an ocean storage route is taken, reassure the public the CO2 isn’t going to leak out and poison them all in their beds, build the necessary plant etc. So even if there is an equal probability of deploying either SRM or CDD at some point this century (and I personally would give much higher odds to large-scale CDD being deployed than SRM, despite its higher cost, precisely because there is a route into it that is barely recognisable as geoengineering at all), the obvious priority to me right now remains CDD. Myles Myles R Allen FInstP | Professor of Geosystem Science | Environmental Change Institute School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics | University of Oxford Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk | +44 (0)1865 275895 (Direct) | +44 (0)1865 275216 (Anne Ryan, PA, anne.r...@ouce.ox.ac.uk) *From: *Douglas MacMartin <macma...@cds.caltech.edu> *Date: *Sunday, 20 November 2016 14:40 *To: *Myles Allen <myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk>, 'Stephen Salter' < s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>, "geoengineering@googlegroups.com" < geoengineering@googlegroups.com>, Oxford Martin Info < i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk> *Subject: *RE: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Or one might develop the governance regime rather than just saying that we don’t have governance today, therefore we can never ever consider SRM at any point in the future. Not obvious to me that developing governance takes more or less time than developing the knowledge base (especially when the minimal requirements of either are ill-defined since the counter-factual is unknown.) The future is hard to predict, so beyond the obvious that any form of SRM is out of the question today it seems to me to be pure speculation as to whether it is out of the question forever. We sitting here in 2016 don’t know the consequences of not using SRM, so saying that there will never be circumstances that justify its use seems rather premature. I would say that it is hard to argue with the statement that CO2 capture **may** be the only option. But it would be equally valid to say that SRM **may** be the only option. Might be, might not be. I hope that we’re not stuck with only one option. doug *From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com [ mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Myles Allen *Sent:* Sunday, November 20, 2016 9:14 AM *To:* Stephen Salter <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>; geoengineering@googlegroups.com; Oxford Martin Info <i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk> *Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Others much more expert in these matters than I have concluded that liability and governance issues mean that SRM is probably out of the question unless we have a very different global governance regime than the one we have now (and not necessarily in a good way). Which leaves CO2 disposal (initially from stationary sources, ultimately from free air capture) as potentially the only option. Myles Myles R Allen FInstP | Professor of Geosystem Science | Environmental Change Institute School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics | University of Oxford Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk | +44 (0)1865 275895 (Direct) | +44 (0)1865 275216 (Anne Ryan, PA, anne.r...@ouce.ox.ac.uk) *From: *Stephen Salter <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk> *Date: *Sunday, 20 November 2016 12:30 *To: *"geoengineering@googlegroups.com" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>, Oxford Martin Info <i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk>, Myles Allen < myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk> *Subject: *Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Hi All In the headline of http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/346 Myles Allen writes that 'CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures.' I believe that at least three things will be desperately needed. We have to reduce emissions by use of renewable sources, remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere and also directly reduce the levels of incoming solar energy especially in the Arctic. I am sad that my ignorance of chemistry and biology prevents me from contributing to CO2 removal and I am careful not criticise people who know much more than I do. I would be grateful to anyone who could stop me wasting time trying to solve insoluble problems and so I ask Myles Allen to explain why marine cloud brightening cannot contribute to stabilising temperatures. Stephen Salter Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk, Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704, Cell 07795 203 195, WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs <http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs>, YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 19/11/2016 14:49, Andrew Lockley wrote: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/346 CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast 15 Sep 2016 Professor Myles Allen, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Net Zero Carbon Initiative, gives his views on a new report on carbon capture and storage (CCS), and asks whether this technology could deliver “net zero CO2 fossil fuels”. The UK government has so many things to worry about right now that combatting climate change appears to have slipped a long way down the priority list. But ensuring that Big Business pays its way and doesn’t get away with dumping costs on long-suffering taxpayers and consumers is at the heart of Theresa May’s agenda. So the report of the Parliamentary Advisory Group on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), chaired by Lord Oxburgh, should be at the top of her in-tray this week. The report recognises that we need a completely new approach to CCS, because relying on subsidies and various forms of carbon pricing clearly isn’t working. Everyone agrees that we need to get net global emissions of carbon dioxide to zero to stabilise climate. There are only two ways to achieve this: a watertight global ban on the extraction and use of fossil fuels, or the deployment of technologies to ensure that, if CO2 is generated by the burning of fossil fuels, it is safely captured at source or re-captured from the atmosphere and disposed of out of harm’s way. A global ban on fossil fuels is neither affordable nor enforceable, so capture and disposal of CO2 is the only option. Assuming we don’t want to turn the world over to cultivating biofuels and resort to eating insects, then there will always be some uses of fossil fuels for which there is no effective non-fossil substitute, much as environmentalists hate to admit it. Right now, the only proven large-scale approach to CO2 disposal is geological CCS – the reinjection of CO2 into geological formations underground. There are other ideas out there, but since we have no clear idea what geological CCS will actually cost when it is deployed at scale, whether or not these are needed remains largely hypothetical. And as I have written previously, the IPCC's most ambitious climate change scenario for tackling climate change involves a substantial element of industrial-scale CO2 disposal. This is the core conclusion of the Oxburgh report: there is no time to lose to find out what CCS actually costs, and the only way we will find that out is by doing it at scale. Britain, with vast off-shore storage potential and a North Sea oil and gas industry literally begging for new opportunities, is uniquely placed to do this – and we have a chance to become world leaders in what will be one of the major growth industries of the 21st century. The report proposes the establishment of a state-owned CO2-disposal company, to avoid the massive cost escalations resulting from asking private investors to accept all the risks. Crucially, however, they also map out a path to allow the state to withdraw as soon as everything is up and running. This is the recommendation that should chime with the government’s stated agenda of making sure Big Business pays its way. Within a decade, the Oxburgh report recommends the introduction of a “CCS obligation system”, or more simply a “carbon take-back scheme”, under which companies supplying fossil fuels in the UK would be obliged to prove they have stored (or paid someone else to store) CO2 equivalent to a given percentage of the carbon content of the fuel they have supplied in any particular year. In principle, this works just like a packaging take-back scheme: we, the consumers, don’t actually want the CO2 emissions that come along with fossil-fuel-based products. One of the most efficient ways of dealing with them is, just like unwanted packaging, to require the companies that sell us those products to take these emissions back. One day, if we’re going to stabilise climate, they will have to take them all back: that is what net zero means. But for now, it is enough for them to take back a rising percentage so they can demonstrate their CO2 disposal capabilities and avoid any shocks (or “too big to fail” declarations) in the future. As the Oxburgh report emphasises, such a scheme would also be good for investors in the fossil fuel industry. It would provide them with the security that their money was placed in assets with a long-term future. The costs of CO2 disposal, just like packaging disposal, would eventually be borne by the consumers of fossil-fuel-based products: but provided the disposed fraction rises progressively, this cost would increase slowly and predictably over decades, allowing consumers and investors to plan and adjust. One of the puzzles in climate change politics is why the environmental movement is not crying out for a carbon take-back scheme. My personal suspicion is that they have a nagging fear that it might work. The fossil fuel industry has such a formidable track record at driving down the costs of massive engineering projects that they might turn out to be able to deliver “net zero CO2 fossil fuels” that would continue to play a major role in powering the world economy into the 22nd century. Then again, perhaps they won’t. Perhaps, when the costs of CO2 disposal are included, fossil fuels will remain competitive for only a tiny number of niche applications. There is only one way to find out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. 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