CC Not Ready for Primetime 'til 2015, Clean Energy Summit MONDAY, "Pis'dOff" Diesel

Power fantasies are not limited to those with Napoleon complexes, it seems.

Although he also says, "You have to be an optimist ... in infrastructure," President of North American Operations for Alstrom, Pierre Gauthier said in, "a wide ranging interview with Power Engineering magazine on the sidelines of CERA Week in Houston February 13", 2009 that, "... carbon capture technology could be ready for commercial rollout in 2015."

Note that he said "could" be ready, not "would" be ready by 2015. That's what I call optimism all right. But I would also call it "not-ready-for-Primetime," too.

Coal is relying heavily (and legislation seems to support their fantasy) that Carbon Capture and Sequestration is a viable option for keeping the "old smokers club" going. The idea that we should simply have faith that the coal-fired power plants will have an effective capture and sequestration technology ready soon, but that we will have to wait (at least) 6 more years before we judge whether it is ready or even, "could be ready for commercial rollout in 2015," is asking for too much trust. Notice too that this is a prediction of "rollout", not blanket market saturation of this imaginary technology. I am not convinced that we won't be in a situation all to similar to the AIG fiasco in which they, and others claimed (to both State Insurance commissioners and the SEC regulators) that they were the only ones who understood these complex cross-industry "insurance" and security products in the derivatives markets, and that therefore they were the only ones who could regulate themselves.

I am afraid that when the proverbial 800 pound gorilla starts stomping through federal and state legislative processes, smoking a big, stinky cigar, that just because he is an 800 pound gorilla is no reason to believe his claim that cigar smoke is harmless and, besides, he's going to give up smoking soon anyway. If you'll allow me to stretch this analogy a little further, this coal-burning side of the power industry needs at least to be required to "wear a patch" that reduces the harmfulness of this behavior in the first place. That is, in my estimation, that carbon dioxide mitigation (along with restrictions on particulates and NOx and SO² reductions) has to be implemented and effective and it needs to get started now, not 6 years from now. That is why I applaud the few power plants that have already announced plans to use algae ponds to absorb their carbon dioxide output. It may not trap all of the carbon dioxide output, but at least it is starting now, not waiting for the invention of a new technology.

I read recently that the Canadian government (I hope I am remembering this correctly, and wishing I had made a note of the source) has announced that they believe that deep, high pressure carbon dioxide sequestration in geological formations has a "less the 1% chance" of leaks back into the atmosphere, with the qualifier that those leaks would be unlikely because of the unlikelihood of "explosions" causing such a disaster. Since an explosion of a non-combustible gas is fairly unlikely in the first place, and the "container" is miles of thick rock (not just a 1/4 inch of metal like in helium tank in a balloon store) I am almost certain that their narrow little prediction is correct. It is about as likely as a fire being the result of pouring water on your cheeseburger. They didn't say it wouldn't leak, just that it wouldn't explode back into the atmosphere.