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Friday, April 19, 2019

Why Carbon is inevitable to achieve Zero Carbon emissions?


Generating electricity using fossil fuel is a well-established technology, that has been practiced over several decades all over the world, despite its low efficiency. But this technology inherited certain disadvantages even before it was commercialized such as post combustion emissions, large amount of waste heat, and water intensity. Millions of people died of Carbon pollution over decades. Large scale usage of water both inland and on shore power stations created shortage of drinking water in many parts of the world resulting in desalination technologies creating its own environmental issues. Large scale mining of coal and unsustainable exploitation of oil and gas both on shore and off shore caused enormous environmental pollution. However, such emissions were completely ignored while the world celebrated the discovery of electro-magnetism, steam engine and petrochemicals. Millions of people were employed, and industries grew worldwide. Energy became synonymous with security of a nation. Population grew exponentially. However, we have reached a point in the history of mankind and all great discoveries once acclaimed as human achievements have started a new painful chapter of warming globe and changing climate for new generations to deal with. It is a great challenge of our time, but new generation can take this challenge and convert them into opportunities. The past lessons can show them a new clean and sustainable pathway while dealing with ever increasing population growth. The challenge for the new generation is to curtail and eliminate Carbon pollution completely while meeting the energy demand in a time bound manner because we are running out of time. Currently renewable energy generation is too low to meet these challenges within the time frame to avert disastrous consequences scientists predict. Renewable Hydrogen is a potential substitute for fossil fuel to eliminate Carbon pollution but that will not solve our current problem soon because renewable energy generation is too small and too slow while our energy demand is huge. Battery technology is only a storage technology and without a base load power generation all other forms of technologies will not meet our current challenges. I am not discounting the potential of renewable energy and its critical role in the future energy mix but that alone will not solve the current crisis. Hydrogen is a weak and unstable atom and it requires a backbone such as Carbon. That is why Hydrogen do not exist in a free state in Nature, but it exists in the form of water or natural gas. Therefore, it is only logical to convert renewable hydrogen into renewable natural gas so that it can be used as a fuel as we have been using for decades. It does not require to create a special type of infrastructure such as required for Hydrogen or any storage technologies. Our focus should be to achieve Zero Carbon emission in the shortest time scale possible while generating a base load power of 24 x7 using a renewable energy source. It looks like a daunting task but, it is not too big a challenge to overcome. In fact, the technologies are already available, and we are almost there to achieve the above, but governments should understand the challenge and its gravity and extend all the support it requires. Government around the world should implement the following with great urgency to achieve the above objectives. 1.Tax Carbon with immediate effect and minimum tax should be $500/ Mt of CO2 emitted. It should be centrally monitored by government agencies with appropriate technology implementations. 2. Encourage Oxy combustion technologies for coal, oil and gas-based power plants with incentives to eliminate emissions pollution and reduce the cost of Carbon capture. 3. Encourage large scale deployment of super critical Carbon dioxide power generation technologies with liberal grants and low interest loans for research and development of super critical CO2 technologies using Brayton cycle using fossil fuels with Zero Carbon emission. 4.Encourage large scale deployment of SNG plants using CO2 and renewable Hydrogen. By using the above steps all fossil fuel-based power plants existing and operating can be converted and continue to generate base load power 24 x7 with Zero Carbon Emission within a time frame. Simultaneously it will generate large scale renewable hydrogen and renewable synthetic natural gas which can generate base load power with Zero Carbon emission. Such Zero emission power plants can then power all electric and fuel cell cars and eliminate Carbon pollution completely from our roads. The above implementation will create millions of jobs worldwide! The greatest advantage of these technologies is to recycle Carbon indefinitely while generating power using renewable natural gas with Zero Carbon emission and fresh fossil fuel usage will be gradually eliminated from our planet earth.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

It is time to tax Carbon emissions


There is a growing concern among the nations in the world about the changing climate due to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and the natural disasters associated with them such as loss of human lives and billions of dollars’ worth of damages in assets. Yet there is no political will or consensus among the largest emitters of CO2 on Carbon emissions at the peril of their own economy and the rest of the world. Paris agreement remains on paper, but largest emitters are either moving away from such an agreement or they continue to emit CO2 without any regard to their agreement. Unfortunately, such a situation has risen due to a scepticism among the public and politicians about the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. They believe science has failed to establish a clear evidence between GHG emissions and climate change. Secondly there is a fear among the public and politicians that complete elimination of CO2 will be a prohibitively expensive exercise and such expenses will be eventually passed on to the consumer and such a move will make the governments in power unpopular and it is a risk and they may lose their future elections as a government. Some countries such as US, Australia and many EU countries believe elimination of CO2 completely will lead to job losses and lead to closure of industries such as automobiles, coal mines, steel plants, cement plants and make the government unpopular. All these notions are based on an erroneous belief that it is impossible to eliminate man made CO2 emissions from earth without compromising an economic growth or risking high energy bills. CO2 emissions can be eliminated by simply converting them back into a fuel using renewable Hydrogen. For example, CO2 emissions by using natural gas such as combined cycle or cogeneration/ trigeneration plants can be recovered and converted back into SNG using renewable Hydrogen so that natural gas can be substituted with SNG. Such substitution will spur the growth of renewable energy industries such as solar, wind, geothermal and biogas in a big time while fossil fuel industries can continue their operations with Zero Carbon emissions. But this will be practically possible only if renewable hydrogen industry is suitably rewarded while penalties are levied against CO2 emitters. The market will take care of the rest of the issues and government can stay away from the politics of Carbon and allow industries to address GHG emission problems. Currently the cost of recovering CO2 from polluting plants is about US$ 75/Mt and therefore Government should tax polluters at least at the rate of US$ 100/Mt and pass it on to renewable Hydrogen generators @ US$ 100 /Mt of CO2 eliminated as an incentive. It will lead to a healthy and robust industrial growth, large scale employment and guaranteed sustainability. It will completely eliminate the necessity to store energy. At the same time, it can also help create alternative energy technologies such as batteries and Fuel cell etc and eliminate CO2 emissions from transportation. Renewable Hydrogen can supply energy sustainably and there will be no need for mining coal or exploring oil and gas to manufacture Nitrogenous fertilizers. Petrochemical industries too can continue their operations without CO2 emissions. The only requirement will be to design a plant for a pre or post combustion CO2 recovery and Oxy-combustion technology for fossil fuels. #tax Carbon emissions # renewable Hydrogen # Zero Carbon emission Advertisements