Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Professor Snowball lecture on coal carbon sequestration's record to date


FutureGen 2.0 carbon sequestration just lost most of its funding - all that was left from the 2009 Obama federal stimulus funding, because it's far too late to to spend it responsibly between now and the September 2015 deadline.

This is a pattern with CCS (aside from CO2 injection for recovering more fossil fuels). It's kind of like nuclear power, not penciling out under the green eyeshades.

That cancellation happened is also Not A Good Thing - we need options, wedges to reduce carbon, and this was one of them. Biomass-plus-CCS is also one of the very few carbon-negative options available to bring down not just emissions but actual CO2 levels.  It won't be any more economical than coal CCS, quite likely less economical. I'd like CCS and especially biomas CCS to happen, but the facts are being stubborn, absent some revolution.

Guess we're going to have to rely on biochar.