Monday, February 20, 2012

warming by burning each type of fossil fuel







http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/coal-not-oil-sands-the-true-climate-change-bad-guy-analysis-shows/article2343528/

... oil sands were mined and consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about .36 degrees C.

... natural gas would warm the planet by more than three degrees.

... In contrast, the paper concludes that burning all the globe’s vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase.

Burning all the oil in the world would only raise temperatures by less than one degree, the paper concludes...

Dr. Weaver’s analysis only accounts for emissions from burning the fuel. It doesn’t count greenhouse gases released by producing the resource because that would double-count those emissions.

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D - there are other considerations. For example, does fracking for gas in shale cause earthquakes (see UK)? Will it contaminate ground water? These $ #s are cold, hard calculations, devoid of opinion. But the answer may not please either the green lobby or the big-energy companies. Society, however, needs to consider all holistic factors that result from the use of any particular energy source.

D - since both USA and China (followed by Russia) have vast coal reserves, we should resign ourselves to heavy exploitation of remaining coal reserves. However, let us do that as intelligently as possible.

D - the 3 ways to handle coal would be:
1) clean coal - co2 sequester at the coal (or before)
2) scrub co2 out of atmosphere
3) use various sunlight albedo schemes to offset co2 in the air.
I think a cursory look will show only 1) is viable in a cost- effective fashion, so will now simply examine "clean coal".
First of all, at present time "clean coal" is merely a catch phrase by the coal industry. It may not always be, but it is today. A handful of baby steps are being taken to test the concept.

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(wiki)
Typically, clean coal is used by coal companies in reference to carbon capture and storage, which pumps and stores CO2 emissions underground, and to plants using an Integrated gasification combined cycle which gasifies coal to reduce CO2 emissions.
Options include point-of-combustion co2 capture and syngas gasification. I'd like to look at a promising approach - leave most contaminants in the coal seam underground.

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(wiki)
Underground coal gasification (UCG) is an industrial process, which converts coal into product gas. UCG is an in-situ gasification process carried out in non-mined coal seams using injection of oxidants, and bringing the product gas to surface through production wells drilled from the surface. The product gas could to be used as a chemical feedstock or as fuel for power generation. The technique can be applied to resources that are otherwise unprofitable or technically complicated to extract by traditional mining methods, and it also offers an alternative to conventional coal mining methods for some resources.

Economics
Underground coal gasification allows access to coal resources that are not economically recoverable by other technologies, e.g., that are too deep, low grade, or seams too thin.[2] By some estimates, UCG will increase economically recoverable reserves by 600 billion tonnes.[10] Livermore estimates that UCG could increase recoverable coal reserves in the USA by 300%.[11] Livermore and Linc Energy claim that UCG capital and operating costs are lower than in traditional mining
Underground product gas is an alternative to natural gas and potentially offers cost savings by eliminating mining, transport, and solid waste. The expected cost savings could increase given higher coal prices driven by emissions trading, taxes, and other emissions reduction policies, e.g. the Australian Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

(D - better than nothing - reinject co2 or n2 to extract more oil.)

Oil displacement by carbon dioxide injection relies on the phase behaviour of the mixtures of that gas and the crude, which are strongly dependent on reservoir temperature, pressure and crude oil composition. These mechanisms range from oil swelling and viscosity reduction for injection of immiscible fluids (at low pressures) to completely miscible displacement in high-pressure applications. In these applications, more than half and up to two-thirds of the injected CO2 returns with the produced oil and is usually re-injected into the reservoir to minimize operating costs. The remainder is trapped in the oil reservoir by various means.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/plotting-a-road-map-for-a-low-carbon-future/article2341616/

The gathering was organized by the Waterloo Global Science Initiative, a partnership between the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, a research centre started by Research in Motion co-founder Michael Lazardis.

Their report lays out five key areas where technologies need to be advanced and deployed commercially to achieve a low-carbon, electrified future: battery storage, enhanced geothermal, advanced nuclear, off-grid power and smart urbanization.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/air-pollution-hazardous-to-chinas-economic-health/article2279684/

Pollution costs China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, hundreds of millions – perhaps billions – of yuan annually. It also threatens the ability of the world’s second-largest economy to evolve into a fully developed, first world country from its current industrializing state.

“There’s no way they can grow to high income levels with the levels of pollution they have,” said Carter Brandon, environmental co-ordinator for the World Bank in Beijing.

The World Bank estimates that, in 2009, the effects of air pollution were equivalent to about 3.3 per cent of China’s gross domestic product. The impact on health alone, including premature deaths, amounted to about 700 billion yuan ($110.2-billion U.S.) in 2009.

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D - food for thought. Economic growth that masks pollution costs is false growth. It does not contribute anything, yet still contributes to inflation, as well as immediately impacting on productivity by way of health complications. Wage increases in China are rapidly pricing them out of the less-developed nation work market. Pollution that is not addressed contributes to this - it makes them uncompetitive. Any economic growth policy that does not vigorously address pollution is as damaging as a national policy that does not keep inflation in check directly. A wise nation would implement strong anti-pollution safeguards simply as a long-term economic policy.

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