There's no way countries that are growing their economies the most will agree to stringent caps on carbon dioxide emissions based on historical levels. This historical-cap framework rewards the countries that have shrinking populations and manufacturing. Instead Canada (as also noted in today's WSJ) and others are focusing on CO₂ intensity. E.g., how much CO₂ is produced per kwh of electricity generated or per barrel of oil pumped? These are measures that don't hurt production and labor mobility. Some say they don't have bite. But if a CO₂ reduction policy bites too much (pun intended)--especially in a way that caps economic growth--then the growing polluting countries will ignore it.

At the end of the day, unless the rate of CO2 emission is reduced greatly (ultimately, to about 10% of the current level, since ocean and terrestrial CO2 sinks will eventually be saturating) then it's mostly pointless. The fuels get burned anyway, the CO2 ends up in the air, and things have just been delayed a few years.

The approach of reducing the 'CO2 intensity' seems to be one of positioning the country to not be blamed for the effects, not positioned to prevent the effects. Actually, that's not a bad position for a country like Canada that might end up benefiting from warming (unless something really bad, like persistent polar stratospheroc clouds causing greatly enhanced ozone destruction, occurs).

Yeah, meanwhile some small island nations could be left underwater, but that's no interest to Canada. I mean, even they are not that Leftist, are they? They don't gain or lose anything from that, it doesn't matter.

They don't gain or lose anything from that, it doesn't matter.

The real political world sure is disturbing, isn't it?

At the end of the day, unless the rate of CO2 emission is reduced greatly (ultimately, to about 10% of the current level, since ocean and terrestrial CO2 sinks will eventually be saturating) then it's mostly pointless. The fuels get burned anyway, the CO2 ends up in the air, and things have just been delayed a few years.

Why can't carbon dioxide by sequestered out of the atmosphere into the kinds of formations we pumped oil and natural gas out of? And what are the effects? Heat radiation goes up as the fourth power of temperature so we won't have runaway green house.

Umm, Sam, if CO2's atmospheric concentration is less than one part per thousand, it actually takes some effort and energy to separate that from the atmosphere.

A much easier alternative would be to take it directly from coal fired power plants.

Or even easier and cost effective would be to shut down those coal plants alltogether (or the very first thing would be to *stop* building new ones) and reduce energy use (increase energy prices so saving measures become cost effective) and/or build other forms of power generation that produce less CO2.
The markets can decide how all that is done, if you just have a mechanism where CO2 emissions have a cost.

CO2 is much much less dense than coal or oil. You can't fit all that back underground. If carbon were like silicon, the oxide would be solid. And it'd be pretty useless for plants and probably life in general. But it ain't, it's a gas.

Of course, if you bound carbon with some hydrogen to make for example C8H10, octane, that would be easy to store.
Oh wait, a minor complication exists with that...

"Why can't carbon dioxide by sequestered out of the atmosphere into the kinds of formations we pumped oil and natural gas out of? And what are the effects?"

Actually, my agency just started issuing UIC permits for co2 injection to enhance natural gas recovery.

Carbon sequestration is a by-product.

In this instance, since it is incidental, it makes total economic sense.

Why can't carbon dioxide by sequestered out of the atmosphere into the kinds of formations we pumped oil and natural gas out of?

No reason it can't be, in principle. This would (in the argument I gave earlier) count as not emitting it, if done soon enough.

Or even easier and cost effective would be to shut down those coal plants alltogether

But if the coal is just used for something else, this solves nothing. It just changes where the carbon is released.

Factoid seen on a powerpoint slide: the coal owned by Peabody Energy, if converted to diesel fuel by the FT process, would produce fuel worth $3.6 trillion.

Paul,

Do you have a link to that powerpoint?

Yeah, that's what I meant. Even the "synfuel" production before any of it is burned, produces a lot of CO2.
AFAIK the US air force has already test flown a B-52 with such coal-based fuel.

If you wanna avoid global warming (we are talking about the degree of avoidance here, not total avoidance), the most cost effective way is to leave the coal carbon to the ground.

It's much much stupider to first burn it and then try to gather it back from the atmosphere.

The underground capture is sorta in the middle.

1 ton of coal is mostly carbon in mass, has a volume of less than 1 cubic meter and will produce about 3 tons of CO2, which takes a volume of 1500 cubic meters. 7 MWh energy was produced, about 2 MWh perhaps electricity.
So a 200 MW coal plant uses 100 tons per hour, about a million tons per year and thus about 1.5 billion cubic meters, or 1.5 cubic kilometers of CO2.

I don't really think you can put that anywhere in a way that has big significance, but hey, prove me wrong.

Mikr: see this file (in pdf), page 7.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Even the "synfuel" production before any of it is burned, produces a lot of CO2.

AFAIK the US air force has already test flown a B-52 with such coal-based fuel.

CTL without sequestration produces about twice the CO2 emission as petroleum-derived diesel (or jet fuel). CTL with sequestration of the excess CO2 at the plant is roughly comparable to petroleum diesel.

CBTL (Coal + Biomass To Liquid), with half the carbon coming from co-gasified biomass, the other half from coal, is equivalent to petroleum diesel. Add sequestration, and CBTL is CO2 neutral (no net emissions). I understand this is the direction the military wants to go.

BTL (biomass to liquid, via FT) is carbon neutral, while BTL with sequestration of the CO2 side stream is CO2 negative. This technology offers the longer term opportunity to reverse the buildup of anthropogenic CO2, while still producing liquid fuels for transportation.

mz: the point on which you're going wrong in assessing the feasibility of underground CO2 sequestration is the implicit assumption that the CO2 has to go back into the same place the fossil fuels came from. In actuality, the CO2 can be injected elsewhere, for example into deep saline aquifers. The potential storage capacity of these aquifers is enormous.

Paul, I'd be happy to be shown wrong, I guess they will be dissolved in the water?
They can't be stored as gas at atmospheric pressures, that would require thousands of cubic kilometers.

Biofuels have their problems, many are very energy inefficient (some even negative) and also they eat away food production land. I don't know about the US but over here the oil usage is such that field biofuels and forestry products combined, even if all turned to fuel, would fall short. And this is one of the most sparsely populated countries of the world.

I just don't view it as smart to put the CO2 into atmosphere now, only for it to be removed later. It's like dispersing painfully gathered gold dust in the wind. A huge waste of effort that will be damned later.

I really would like to see those BTL With CO2 Sequestering numbers. How much farmland per year would be needed for how many barrels of oil equivalent. You need the fertilizers, the machines, the sequestering processes and equipment.

Paul, I'd be happy to be shown wrong, I guess they will be dissolved in the water?
They can't be stored as gas at atmospheric pressures, that would require thousands of cubic kilometers.

They'd be stored underground as compressed/supercritical gas. Some would dissolve and/or react with surround rocks, eventually.

Storing at atmospheric pressure would be very silly, so why are you harping on that?

I don't know much about the technology, that's why I'm asking, as you seem to know.

It's quite hard to find any info on the technicalities.

It seems it should stay below 300 K temperature and over about 70 bar pressure to keep supercritical, at a density comparable to water.
Also lower pressure will do if it's colder.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/Carbon_dioxide_density-pressure_phase_diagram.jpg

I don't know what temperature conditions exist in the oil and wells and other formations these are going to be pumped to.

If it stays that dense, then it's within the realm of plausible in that regard. Carbon density (per volume) is still below coal or oil because CO2 is over two thirds oxygen. But there is of course enough extra space where to put this.

We have huge peat deposits over here and it seems that if enough people don't care to limit CO2 emissions, we won't do that over here either. The peat then will be used for fuel and electricity production. It's very inefficient but who cares anyway.