RE: [geo] CDR money in DE-FOA-0000785?

[markcapron]

Mike,

 

Yes, a multi-disciplinary systems, economic, and phychology analysis that would identify the actions proponents of "Plan B" research should take to generate permission and funding for "Plan B" research or eliminate the need for "Plan B" research.

 

Note Catch 22: When Geoengineering advocates argue for research, they are accused of arguing to enable continued fossil fuel use (BAU).  Which is counter to the overriding objective of preventing or delaying rapid planet change.  Plus, even if the direct "need research" plea obtains permission, we still have the question of how to fund the permitted activity.

 

Suggestion - Decrease arguing for research on Plan B.  Instead people who expect to need Plan B should put more than half their plea efforts into "adopt a carbon tax (dividend, fee, credit, whatever).  Start and end every converstion about the need for Plan B, or the options for Plan B, or descriptions of the technology with the need for countries to unilaterally adopt a carbon dividend (fee, credit, whatever, tax) that applies to their imported goods.

 

Why -

1.  It becomes obvious (by our actions) we are working with the Plan A people.  Do not go for the last word when attacked by Plan A people.  If you cannot restrain yourself from responding to a "Plan B is bad" attack, limit your response to "Yes, we desperately need a carbon fee (credit, whatever, tax, dividend)."

2.  A carbon credit (whatever, tax, dividend, fee) would be a big step toward preventing rapid planet change and some of it could be made available for Plan B research.

 

Mark E. Capron, PE
Oxnard, California
www.PODenergy.org

 

 

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [geo] CDR money in DE-FOA-0000785?
From: Michael C Trachtenberg <mctr...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, March 21, 2013 9:50 am
To: soco...@princeton.edu
Cc: "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" <r.d.schuil...@uu.nl>,
"gh...@sbcglobal.net" <gh...@sbcglobal.net>, geoengineering
<geoengineering@googlegroups.com>, kcalde...@gmail.com,
markcap...@podenergy.org

Kudos Rob.

A systems analysis is demanded.

CCS should be DOA; it is a poor choice economically and operationally, and the transactional costs will be far larger than stated (if stated). I project they will be up to 50% of total cost & this does not to count the elephant in the room, money carrying costs.

For its real cost & real time to delivery we should act to replace brown fuels (largely fossil) with green fuels immediately.

We can facilitate rate of change by democratizing decision making & thereby making the decision less costly with products that will have a shorter lifetime promoting technological change.

Compare the rate of change & breath of availability telephone handsets when controlled by AT&T vs mobile phone options.

Grid and pipeline backup ail always be needed but local production trumps centralized delivery - presuming  costs can be controlled, maintenance minimized & installation made easy, i.e., make apparatus both idiot-proof and drop & drive - intelligent.

Mike

On Mar 20, 2013, at 12:55 PM, Robert H. Socolow <soco...@princeton.edu> wrote:

Come on, Ken and others: The “logic” depends on the baseline.

 

If one’s baseline is that the oil industry will be producing in the vicinity of 80 million barrels per day (mbd) of oil -- the current value -- for several decades, then the comparison is between alternate ways of doing this. Using public policy to encourage CO2-EOR for  few of these mbd’s, then, to first order, has no effect on the rate of oil extraction or its price, and is a lower-cost subsidy of CCS than direct subsidy. Experience on both the capture side and the storage side is gained and results in lower future costs and a better understanding of risks.

 

If one’s baseline is that the oil industry is about to shut down as the combined result of public transport, efficient cars, biofuels, and electric vehicles, then EOR postpones the inevitable and is a thoroughly bad idea.

 

The DOE is using the first baseline. It is not illogical.

 

Rob

 

From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 11:54 AM
To: markcap...@podenergy.org
Cc: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf); gh...@sbcglobal.net; geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] CDR money in DE-FOA-0000785?

 

I think Greg's logic is impeccable.

 

With this call, the US DOE is soliciting proposals to increase, not decrease, CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.

 

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 7:24 AM, <markcap...@podenergy.org> wrote:

Dear all,

 

Generally, if you don't propose within the small box described in the FOA, your proposal won't rise to the level of "educating" DOE, let alone get funded.  But, if anyone would like to question DOE about the limits of the "box", I can do so for the group.  The questions need to be of the nature "Might ____ approach be considered for funding?" 

 

"Questions regarding the content of the announcement must be submitted through the FedConnect portal. You must register with FedConnect to respond as an interested party to submit questions, and to view responses to questions.  It is recommended that you register as soon after release of the FOA as possible to have the benefit of all responses.  DOE will try to respond to a question within three (3) business days, unless a similar question and answer have already been posted on the website."

So far, all the questions have to do with properly formatting the proposal.  Most interested parties do not pose technical questions for fear of "giving away" technical information to the other proposers.

 

Mark E. Capron, PE
Oxnard, California
www.PODenergy.org

 

 

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [geo] CDR money in DE-FOA-0000785?
From: "Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf)" <r.d.schuil...@uu.nl>
Date: Wed, March 20, 2013 1:53 am
To: "'gh...@sbcglobal.net'" <gh...@sbcglobal.net>,
"markcap...@podenergy.org" <markcap...@podenergy.org>, geoengineering
<geoengineering@googlegroups.com>

Why are people still focused on the silly idea that one should sequester CO2 from industrial point sources, and governments on sequestering “their own” CO2 emissions? The atmosphere is a well-mixed reservoir on a time scale of months, so where the CO2 is produced, and where it is sequestered are irrelevant for the climate. So don’t go for the most expensive solution, but do it the way nature has always done it, natural weathering. We only should help that solution a bit, because presently we pump much more CO2 in the system than nature normally does. Attached my proposal (one of the last eleven finalists, from originally more than 2600 proposals) to the Virgin Earth Challenge for the best idea to remove 1 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, Olaf Schuiling

From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of RAU greg
Sent: dinsdag 19 maart 2013 22:39
To: markcap...@podenergy.org; geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] CDR money in DE-FOA-0000785?

 

Thanks, Mark. 

 

To quote the FOA:

"A market-based solution to improve the economics of CO2 capture includes the utilization of captured CO2 for EOR to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions from coal-based power generation sources while improving energy security. A National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) study[1] estimates that the utilization of approximately 20 billion tonnes of CO₂ captured from coal-fired power plants, natural sources, and industrial sources in EOR applications could produce up to 67 billion barrels of domestic oil from economically recoverable resources."

 

So let's see if I understand this. If 0.42 tonnes of CO2 are released to the atmosphere per barrel of oil, the 67 Bbls of oil produced from 20 Gt CO2 injected will "unsequester" 28 GT CO2.  Considering that power plant CO2 would only make up 18 GT of the injected CO2 (see fine print)  means that 1.6 GT CO2 would be unsequestered for every tonne of anthro CO2 injected.  The current CO2-EOR industry average is more like 3 GT CO2 out per GT injected and it is unclear what the economic motivation would be to lower this ratio given the high cost of CCS CO2 relative to conventional geologic CO2 sources for EOR. 

 

Then there is this interesting analogy offered to put things in perspective: 

"However, large numbers such as billions of tons of CO2 demand and storage capacity are different [sic] to grasp and thus often of limited value. An alternative way to illustrate the CO2 demand and storage capacity offered by “Next Generation” CO2-EOR is to use the metric of the number of one-GW size power plants that could rely on CO2-EOR for purchasing and storing their captured CO2....:

§ After subtracting out the 2.3 billion metric tons of CO2 supply currently available, CO2-EOR still offers sufficient technical storage capacity for all of the anthropogenic CO2 captured from 228 one-GW size coal-fired power plants for 30 years of operation." [1]

 

What is not stated is that the equivalent CO2 emissions of 365 one-GW coal-fired power plants x 30 years will be unsequestered and released to the atmosphere via the oil produced and combusted. This does not square with the FOA's stated intent: "...to provide solutions for addressing the CO₂ emission and global climate change concerns ..."

 

In any case, a cost of concentrated CO2 of <$61/tonne is the stated goal, a real challenge for retrofit CCS at conventional power plants, and a miracle for CDR (Socolow et al., House et al.). Those offering to mitigate CO2 by (cheaper) means other than making conc CO2 (for EOR) need not apply (FOA, pg. 7), and can continue to wait for meaningful policy and public funding in support of ideas that might actually help save the world rather that perpetuate BAU.

 

-Greg

---

[1] Dipietro, Philip, Improving Domestic Energy Security and Lowering CO2 Emissions with “Improving Domestic Energy Security and Lowering CO2 Emissions with “Next Generation” CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2-EOR)”, Report # DOE/NETL-2011/1504, June 2011. http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/NextGen_CO2_EOR_06142011.pdf

 

---

From: "markcap...@podenergy.org" <markcap...@podenergy.org>
To: geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, March 19, 2013 7:07:03 AM
Subject: [geo] CDR money in DE-FOA-0000785?

The U.S. Department of Energy seaks proposals for capturing coal exhause CO2, due May 2nd.  They expect the captured CO2 will be used for Enhansed Oil Recovery. 

 

If you have a capture-CO2-from-air (CDR) system that could be located close to an oil well and might therefore be less expensive than capture-from-exhaust, you might propose.  DOE is likely to consider such a proposal "non-responsive." 

Bench- and Pilot-Scale Applications for Research and Development of Post-Combustion and Pre-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies for Coal-Fired Power Plants

 

Funding Opportunity Number:   DE-FOA-0000785 

Response Due Date: 5/2/2013 11:59:00 PM ET 

Use the following link to view this opportunity:

https://www.fedconnect.net/fedconnect?doc=DE-FOA-0000785&agency=DOE

If you wish to continue to be notified about this opportunity, please be sure to Register. If someone else in your company has already registered your company's interest, add yourself to the Response Team by clicking Join.

This message is sent to you as a courtesy because you listed DOE in your FedConnect user profile. If you wish to be removed from future emails about this agency, please update your user profile athttps://www.fedconnect.net/fedconnect

 

Mark E. Capron, PE
Oxnard, California
www.PODenergy.org

 

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