The CCS conundrum

Retching jargons comes naturally in the realm of climate change. You have not arrived until you know what the pet acronyms mean and a recent instance made me realize that even CCS, as omnipresent as it may be, is not an obvious one to many. So today my post is dedicated to my pet concept, Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS)! And I am tempted to add, dobara mat poochna:P

CCS is the concept by which you capture CO2 emissions from point sources, viz. power plants, where the concentration of the gas is maximum. The effluent stream of a power plant contains about 12% CO2 by volume. Its easiest, technologically speaking, to capture this at the source than at any other place downstream. The captured CO2 is then compressed and stored. This method is akin to treating a problem at the source itself! Or as the slang goes, catch 'em young!:)

CCS is, in a way, like the ersatz school teacher who used to watch over your bad habits until you became mature enough to understand them! It allows you to consume the BAD energy sources, coal, oil and natural gas, while reducing their carbon impact until the world evolves to a more renewable energy based economy. It allows us the crucial time in which we can mend our ways and evolve our technologies incrementally, for a seamless transition to the 'green' future. And given that renewables constitute about 3% of our global energy consumption, we do need as much time as we can get!

Despite the crucial role for this technology, its deployment is not as simple as it sounds. The energy and cost requirements of capture are huge but the biggest problem comes on the storage side. The compressed and liquefied CO2 has to be stored somewhere. The quantity of captured CO2 is such that it cannot be used industrially, viz. in fizzy drinks or the manufacture of dry ice. Unless of course, if each person starts drinking 30 liters of carbonated drinks every day. That would not be the solution we are looking for:)

So the storage will be done mostly in underground aquifers or under the ocean. This runs into the problem of NIMBY and NIMO, something I have discussed in an earlier post. The public perception of CO2 leaking from the underground aquifers is also an issue. People are scared to death at the mere thought of this evil gas coming out of the ground and annihilating the planet earth. But most importantly, CCS is mired in the incentives problem. The costs of implementing this are such that the power producing companies have no incentives in doing this, until there is a evolved cap and trade program where they can claim credits for the tons of CO2 captured. The Government should be the ideal player to pick the tab for implementing this. We know what the Governments around the world are going through at the moment to criticize them for not sponsoring CCS.

So, there is a certain pessimism about this technology currently. A concept that should be so central to our existence, technically speaking, is languishing at the sidelines. Dr. Steve Chu, US Secretary of Energy is still very optimistic about this, professing the development of 20 demonstration plants, that capture more than a million tons of CO2 each year, by 2020. The reality is that its almost 2010 and we do not have even a single one so far. And we are talking about building 20 such plants in the next 10 years!!!

Where did I leave my magic wand? I have been trying to look for it for quite some time now. Can any of you find that for me please?:)

Blogging v_2.0

Hello to my favorite people! Its great to be writing here and to have our discussion going! I apologize for my absence, graduate student life hits you in more ways than you can imagine:) But, with the Copenhagen summit only days away, its only logical to renew our vows to energy and to saving the world:)

So where do I start? Lets finish off the 101 that we were having and that shall be a good segue to a greater discussion on Copenhagen. I had finished elucidating Cap and Trade and its only fitting to have some words on Carbon Tax today. A carbon tax works as any other tax, a levy on your consumption of certain things. In this case, it will keep account of your carbon consumption.

So, in the printout analogy, you can imagine being charged an extra amount for each page. This extra amount is supposed to induce people to print less, and use the electronic means more often. Now, this amount is difficult to determine. The extra money that will force me to print less is entirely different from the amount required for Bill Gates! The problem with carbon tax arises from this basic ideology. Who determines the amount? The Government? The same government that bails out people who cause a financial mess and regretfully apologizes for not creating enough jobs? Naah....I would have my reservations against that!

There are certain good things about the tax, when compared to the Cap and Trade system:
- The tax amount is fixed and helps people and companies plan well for the future for they can be assured of the financial impacts of their carbon emissions. In the cap and trade system, the allowance price can go as high as the markets can make them go. And we all are well aware of the consequences when speculations are allowed to run amok.
- The Government gets a steady stream of revenue from it. In the cap and trade system, the government had the revenue only at the point of selling the first set of credits. Once the credits are out there, its the market that makes money and not the government. Hence, this money can be used for further R&D and deployment of the low carbon energy sources, a much needed push! Although, if more money means that the government can bailout more banks and too-big-to-fail institutions, I am certainly moving this argument to the cons side!
- No more MARKETS!:) In the spirit of taking a dig at financial markets, a carbon tax will not form an additional market, that of carbon credits! It will be a simple, regular tax that people will get used to.

In the same breath, lets look at the cons side.
- As broached above, the tax amount is completely out there! Nobody knows the exact way to fix it.
- Fears of overshooting climate goals! The reduction of consumption due to the tax should take us to the goal of restricting atmospheric carbon concentration to below a pre-fixed number. However, the odds of that happening are lower than me dating Priyanka Chopra. I wish the odds of the latter event were higher, only so that the odds of saving the world were better:)
- The Big Brother! Denizens of the world are already fed up with large governments and what they bring along. There is a push towards more decentralization of power in all parts of the world and this tax would only entail more government presence in our lives. Where you vote on this depends on where you sit, to quote a favorite expression:)

All in all, carbon tax is not a favorite tool in the discussions currently. Cap and Trade is the way the world seems to go at the moment. However, its always good to know that one has options:)

And that goads me to quote another favorite line from the movie Matrix:

"You have already made the choice Neo, now its time to understand why you did so!"

See you next week!