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Showing posts with label Fracking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fracking. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Can CCS and CCUS lead us to achieve Net Zero emission by 2050?

 CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) and CCUS (Carbon capture, utilization, and storage) technologies are essentially “after thought” to fix the CO2 emission by 2050. It also indirectly encourages continuity of fossil fuel usage for a foreseeable future to help those industries who have invested billions of dollars in creating their infrastructures such as “fracking”. Fracking generates hundreds of cubic meters of toxic effluent whose salinity is more than ten times that of the salinity of seawater.  It is an environmental nightmare. Are these technologies practicable? Will they pay $100 or more for a ton of CO2 to capture and then transport hundreds of kms distance to find a suitable site; and even if they pay what will be the cost implications? Certainly, their cost of production will sharply increase, which will be necessarily passed on to the consumers whether it is a power industry or oil and gas industry. Why some of the CCS projects are dormant in many parts of the world? They claim injecting CO2 into existing oil field will increase oil production. Is there an evidence to substantiate such claims? But how many such oil fields exist in Australia, for example? The same question should be raised for all the countries around the world especially those oil importing countries like India, for example.  IEA should publish necessary data to back up they claim that CCS and CCUS will lead to zero emission by 2050. In the absence of such data and hard evidence and the cost and economic analysis these projects will lead us nowhere? Without imposing Carbon tax as a financial incentive (not as a penalty) will these industries embark upon such a venture? The Carbon tax cannot be less than $250/Mt (because Carbon capture from air, for example, cost more than $150 to 200/Mt depending upon the maturity of technology). Now they want to utilize capture Carbon to produce synthetic fuel with green Hydrogen. Green hydrogen is awfully expensive, renewable energy is costly and storing them is prohibitively costly and converting them to Hydrogen by electrolysis is even more expensive. Despite all these expensive measures can zero emission be achieved by 2050. The cost of green fuel will be 10 times more than fossil fuels currently used. Will consumers afford to pay for such high fuel cos? Many questions remain unanswered. The word “Carbon capture” implies continuity of fossil fuel. It is like tobacco industry. At least in cigarette packs there is a warning ” smoking is injuries to health” but there is no such warnings in CCS or CCUS because the “captured CO2 will be released into atmosphere slowly at the point of usage in the near future , for example, Urea made out of captured CO2 will slowly release CO2 back into atmosphere by soli enzymes. Conversion to “concrete” or “nano Carbon” are claimed to be potential products but only future can tell. We are talking about “billions of tons of CO2”. Only carbon recycling and circular economy will be the answer and not CCS or CCUS.