Greg and list (and acknowledge several other commentators)
Thanks. Few inserts below. For others - the term AWL is Accelerated
Weathering of Limestone.
Three general questions only comments added to the original three:
a. At this site:
http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira_research/Rau_Knauss.html
You show increasing acidification, but much slower than the standard approach.
Now, at the $30 price, we can really move towards alkalinity?
b. Why only sea water and coastal areas? This restriction is not seen in
the balancing equations given by Ken and yourself.
c. At the site http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM30u95uC0c, given by you
today, there is the added production of H2 and a cost over $100/tonne CO2. Is
this approach not as favored as the one below?
On Dec 13, 2013, at 9:39 PM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> In response to numbered topics:
> 1) We think that a significant # of coast power plant CO2 could be mitigated
> for <$30/tonne CO2. Why hasn't this been pursued? - ask DOE who have declined
> every proposal we've offered.
RWL: Bummer. Maybe this dialog will open the topic again. I also think
biochar can beat the same $30 price (using any accounting period greater than a
year or two), because of important additional out-year advantages, and the
chance to produce, not consume, energy.
>
> 2) Actually it could be used for CDR: biomass + O2 + heat --> energy + CO2
> ---> CO2 + seawater + limestone ---> ocean alkalinity. I'm a little leery
> about doing analogous AWL downstream from pyrolysis given all of the nasty
> volatiles generated that would wind up in the ocean. For similar reasons
> NG-fired would be preferred over coal-fired power plants for AWL.
[RWL: I want to replace your combustion equation:
biomass + O2 + heat --> energy + CO2 ---> CO2 + seawater + limestone --->
ocean alkalinity.
with one for pyrolysis (plus use of the pyrolysis gases)
biomass + heat --> energy + char + CO2 ---> char + CO2 + seawater +
limestone ---> char + ocean alkalinity.
Getting rid of a larger proportion of CO2 would be a major plus - and
apparently at not much greater cost. I am not claiming that combined biochar +
AWL comes with no additional costs, but the per tonne cost may not change much.
My reading says that pyrolysis can provides fewer volatiles than combustion
(if the pyrolysis gases are being used productively - as for electrical
production). One friend (Alex English) has reported on a retrofit pyrolysis
system for heating (plus char) that was cleaner than the replaced NG.
>
> 3) Adding alkalinity to the the ocean could to wonders for offseting the
> effects of ocean acidification. So biomass ---> biochar/land fertility, or
> biomass ---> ocean alkalinity/OA mitigation? Why not both, AWL can handle
> coastal biomass energy, biochar can handle inland biomass energy: trillions
> of dollars in benefits for both camps. Deal? I'll have my people to draw up
> the paperwork and we'll contact our friends at the WTO ;-)
[RWL: Deal. I’ll start contacting a few of my billionaire friends - as
soon as you give the go-ahead.
>
> Greg
>
> From: Ronal W. Larson <rongretlar...@comcast.net>
> To: Ken Caldeira <kcalde...@gmail.com>; Greg Rau <r...@llnl.gov>
> Cc: Keith Henson <hkeithhen...@gmail.com>; Elton Sherwin
> <esher...@carbonzeroinstitute.org>; "tim.kru...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk"
> <tim.kru...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk>; Geoengineering
> <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>; Andrew Lockley <andrew.lock...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 2:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [geo] McDermott White Paper (2002) on accelerated carbonate
> weathering as a CCS approach
>
> Ken, list etal (adding Greg Rau, who probably is closest to this)
>
> 1. The price per ton CO2 given at the bottom of Table 3 in the McDermott
> paper given by Ken a few days ago came to $20.70/ton CO2. Converting to 2013
> $ (about 30% more over the 2001 $ used), metric units and carbon (rather
> than CO2, using the ratio 44/12) gives about $100/Tonne C today. This is, I
> believe, quite attractive compared to other numbers being floated around for
> CCS.
> I have been asked by a friend whether there has been any
> commercialization attempt at this since 2002 - and if not why not?
> This is the only question; the next two items are just comments -
> translating this over to the world of biochar.
>
> 2. This doesn’t yet fall into the category of CDR, but could with biomass
> replacing coal (then probably should not be called BECCS or BECS, since the
> term CCS seems best reserved for underground CO2 storage.). Needing smaller
> plants to keep biomass transport cost down, that results in lower efficiency,
> has anybody estimated a CDR costing? Maybe $125-$150/tonne C? (Asking for
> a scaling factor when plant size falls by a factor of 10) Note this could
> be the back end as well of some biomass electrical generating systems where
> pyrolysis rather than combustion is employed; then about half the C in the
> input biomass would be released as CO2.
>
> 3. Because charcoal is not 100% carbon, one would have to pay less than
> about $125 /tonne of char to receive a break-even sequestration credit of
> $100/tonne C. (Or stated conversely, if you paid $100/tonne char, the
> sequestration value should not be more than $80/tonne C (in a societal sense,
> the farmer/forester, will of course try to minimize the cost of the char
> The point of these quick computations is to say that there would be lots
> of farmers and foresters willing to put char in the ground if the going rate
> for sequestration were roughly $100/tonne C (or $27/tonne CO2 or $80/tonne
> char). That is - I am claiming the long term value to the farmer/forester
> and society would exceed these “$100” numbers.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Dec 13, 2013, at 12:06 PM, Ken Caldeira <kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> The basic idea is:
>>
>> CO2 (gas) + CaCO3 (solid) + H2O (liquid) --> Ca2+ + 2 HCO3- (dissolved in
>> the ocean)
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________
>> Ken Caldeira
>>
>> Carnegie Institution for Science
>> Dept of Global Ecology
>> 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
>> +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu
>> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab
>> https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Elton, could you real quickly go through the chemistry involved?
>>
>> I miss seeing how CaCO3 absorbs more CO2, but my chemistry is rusty by
>> many decades.
>>
>> Keith
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Elton Sherwin
>> <esher...@carbonzeroinstitute.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > I am very interested in using limestone to sequester CO2 in power plants.
>> > This approach--and related limestone based approaches--seem to have
>> > promise.
>> > And as Ken says they look more affordable than competing technologies.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Not sure how our little underfund institute can help, but let me know if I
>> > can.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Elton Sherwin
>> >
>> > Executive Director, Carbon Zero Institute
>> >
>> > Cell: 650.823.9221
>> >
>> > www.CarbonZeroInstitute.org
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
>> > [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira
>> > Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2013 8:30 AM
>> > To: tim.kru...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk
>> > Cc: geoengineering; Andrew Lockley
>> >
>> >
>> > Subject: [geo] McDermott White Paper (2002) on accelerated carbonate
>> > weathering as a CCS approach
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Tim,
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > As per your request to Andrew, attached is an analysis of using accelerated
>> > limestone weathering to sequester CO2 from power plant flue gases and
>> > dispose of it in the ocean, with the carbon acidity neutralized by the
>> > alkalinity provided by the calcium in the calcium carbonate.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > They concluded that this approach was both economically viable and had much
>> > lower energy overheads than did "conventional" CCS with amine scrubbers and
>> > suchlike.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > This is an area in which Greg Rau has done a lot of work, and in which I
>> > have done some work: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Greg_Rau/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Best,
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Ken
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > PS. McDermott Technologies, Inc, used to own Babcock and Wilcox, the
>> > nuclear engineering company, but spun this off in 2010:
>> > http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-McDermott_to_spin_off_BandW-0707104.html
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________
>> > Ken Caldeira
>> >
>> > Carnegie Institution for Science
>> >
>> > Dept of Global Ecology
>> >
>> > 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
>> >
>> > +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu
>> >
>> > http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab
>> >
>> > https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira
>> >
>> >
>> >
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