EngPhy160, April 20 2006

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Eng/Phy160, April 20 2006

• Slight rearrangement wrt syllabus
• Engineering our way out of warming?carbon
  dioxide sequestration
• Hope Montreal Protocol, Kyoto Accord

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First law of Economics
TANSTAAFL
There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
The equivalent for economists of the Second Law
of thermodynamicsalways a cost no matter what.
We will examine the costs and not present green
technologies as panaceas, but as subjects to
study and consider for implementation.
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Carbon Dioxide Sequestration

• Capture the CO2 from production
• Do one of the following
• Bury it in the ground
• Bury it in the deep ocean
• Induce increased uptake by biological sources
• Induce increased uptake through catalyzing
  mineralization processes

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Generic cost estimates common to all
sequestration (based upon S. Holloway, Annu. Rev.
Energy Environ. 2001, vol. 26, pp. 145-166)

• Pretty hopeless to capture except at stationary
  sources (What are those?)

• Have to capture carbon dioxide before it hits the
  flue
• cost is 18-72/tonne CO2-for a 500MW plant
  producing
• 4.3 x 106 tonnes that gives added cost of 2-8
  cents/kW-hr
• Will lose efficiency to do work needed for
  capture around
• 15 or so, about 1 cent/kW-hr
• Have to pipeline the CO2 at about 8/tonne, or
  another
• 1 cent/kW-hr
• Right off the bat, independent of sequestration
  method
• 4-10 cents/kW-hr

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Geological storage

• Where can you put this stuff underground?

• Caverns or mines
• Not leakproof, not enough volume.

Cave source www.cs.ualberta.ca/mkan/Photography
/ Mine source www.mexicohorse.com/Lluvia_de_oro.
htm
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Pore spaces

• Inject into porous rock at high pressure
• Gas will rise to permeability cap
• Some will dissolve into water (carbonic acid)
• Sources Elephant Rock-
• http//www.kgs.ku.edu/Extension/highplains/highpla
  ins.html
• Sleipner sequestration drawing
• www.geotimes.org/mar03/feature_demonstrating.html
  

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Concerns with porous rock storage

• How much volume is available?
• Global 300-10000 Gtonnes (Annual emissions
  rise 8
• Gtonnes/yr from power plants- can store
  equivalent of between
• 40-1500 yrs of CO2 from power plants )

• Rise in reservoir pressure (earthquakes?)
• Conflicts with mineral/oil/gas extraction
• Pollution of potable water
• Escape of CO2 gradual (Mammoth Lakes) or
  catastrophic (Lake Nyos, Cameroon 1986
  1700-1800 killed)
• (Sources Lake Nyos-http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I
  mageLake_nyos.jpg Mammoth Lakes
  http//virtualguidebooks.com/SouthCalif/EastOfTheS
  ierra/MammothLakes/MammothLakes_FSTOC.html)

Mammoth Lakes Area (Gradual leak)
Lake Nyos, roiled after Limnic Eruption
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Depleted Oil/Gas Fields

• Volume available 120 Gtonnes CO2 (about 60
  years of power plant emissions)
• Can enhance recovery of oil/gas from existing
  wells
• Principal safety issue leakage

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Coal Beds

• Adsorb onto nanometer scale fractures in the
  coal. High affinity, and displaces potentially
  recoverable methane.

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Reason for hope story of the ozone problem
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Why in the polar regions, especially the
antarctic?

• Polar vortex makings of a big reaction chamber!
  Strong in winter.
• Antarctic vortex is stronger less landmass in
  southern hemisphere and far fewer mountains.
• Need for sunlight (UV) increases in spring.
• Catalysis on ice crystals ubiquitous in winter,
  more intense over dense antarctic ice pack than
  arctic ice pack.

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Kyoto Accord (see Wikipedia for next few slides)

• The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United
  Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• Kyoto ProtocolOpened for signatureDecember 11,
  1997 at Kyoto, Japan
• Entered into forceFebruary 16, 2005.
• Conditions for entry into force 55 parties and at
  least 55 CO2 1990 emissions by UNFCCC Annex I
  parties.
• Parties156 countries (as of Sep, 2005)

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Kyoto Accord Continued

• According to a press release from the United
  Nations Environment Programme
• "The Kyoto Protocol is a legal agreement under
  which industrialized countries will reduce their
  collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2
  compared to the year 1990 (but note that,
  compared to the emissions levels that would be
  expected by 2010 without the Protocol, this
  target represents a 29 cut). The goal is to
  lower overall emissions from six greenhouse gases
  - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur
  hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs - calculated as an
  average over the five-year period of 2008-12.
  National targets range from 8 reductions for the
  European Union and some others to 7 for the US,
  6 for Japan, 0 for Russia, and permitted
  increases of 8 for Australia and 10 for
  Iceland."

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Support for Kyoto

• Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol claim that
  reducing these emissions is crucially important
  carbon dioxide, they believe, is causing the
  earth's atmosphere to heat up (see global
  warming). This is supported by attribution
  analysis.
• The governments of all of the countries whose
  parliaments have ratified the Protocol are
  supporting it. Most prominent among advocates of
  Kyoto have been the European Union and many
  environmentalist organizations. The United
  Nations and some individual nations' scientific
  advisory bodies (including the G8 national
  science academies) have also issued reports
  favoring the Kyoto Protocol.
• An international day of action is planned for 3
  December 2005, to coincide with the Meeting of
  the Parties in Montreal. The planned
  demonstrations are endorsed by the Assembly of
  Movements of the World Social Forum.17
• Grassroots support in the US
• In the US, there is at least one student group
  Kyoto Now! which aims to use student interest to
  support pressure towards reducing emissions as
  targeted by the Kyoto Protocol compliance.
• As of November 15, 2004, nine Northeastern US
  states are involved in the Regional Greenhouse
  Gas Initiative (RGGI) 18, which is a state
  level emissions capping and trading program. It
  is believed that the state-level program will
  indirectly apply pressure on the federal
  government by demonstrating that reductions can
  be achieved without being a signatory of the
  Kyoto Protocol.
• Participating states Maine, Massachusetts, New
  Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
  New York, New Jersey, Delaware.
• Observer states and regions Pennsylvania,
  Maryland, District of Columbia, Eastern Canadian
  Provinces.
• As of June 22, 2005, 165 US cities representing
  35 million Americans support Kyoto after Mayor
  Greg Nickels of Seattle started a nationwide
  effort to get cities to agree to the protocol.
• Large participating cities Seattle, New York
  City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Denver,
  New Orleans, Minneapolis, Austin, Texas,
  Portland, Oregon, Providence, Rhode Island,
  Tacoma, Washington, San Jose, California, Salt
  Lake City, Utah, Little Rock, Arkansas, West Palm
  Beach, Florida, Annapolis, Maryland

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Opposition to Kyoto

• USA and Australia,
• Some critics say there are problems with the
  underlying science (see global warming
  controversy).
• Some critics state that the protocol will prevent
  or damage economic growth.
• American Council for Capital Formation 19
• United States Department of Energy 20
• National Bank of New Zealand 21
• The 1997 Leipzig Declaration called the Kyoto
  Protocol "dangerously simplistic, quite
  ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs
  and standards-of-living". However, most of the
  signers of the Leipzig Declaration were
  non-scientists or lacked credentials in the
  specific field of climate research.
• Some argue that the protocol does not go far
  enough to curb greenhouse emissions (Niue, The
  Cook Islands, and Nauru added notes to this
  effect when signing the protocol 22),
• Some theorists predict that even if the world's
  leading industrial nations agree to reduce their
  greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the Kyoto
  Protocol, it is likely that there would be no net
  change in emissions worldwide. .
• It is argued by many that Kyoto fails to address
  larger issues of sustainability. While one may
  agree with establishing an international
  precedent for regulation of greenhouse gasses,
  failing to address other sustainability issues,
  such as typically rapid population growth among
  "non-Annex I" countries, suggests to some that
  Kyoto represents an anti-industrial agenda rather
  than a fair attempt to mitigate climate chang