3 hours ago, studiot said:

assiciated with Drax.

Completely off topic but I found it humorous when googling "drax", that only one entry on the first page was for what I was making sure you were talking about. The rest were all for "Drax the Destroyer" from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

11 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Why are you introducing this neoliberal BS? Unlike a household economy, the UK government has the Royal Mint. If it needs money for capital investment, it can print it.

What? How come we can't do that over here? We have to issue bonds and run up the national debt. Or raise taxes.

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

What? How come we can't do that over here? We have to issue bonds and run up the national debt. Or raise taxes.

I find this guy very good.

https://youtu.be/ZGFpBU37riM

@sethoflagos - I'm not opposed to things that reduce emissions but I am unconvinced CCS is the best option or best use of resources. Or ultimately is a scalable option. This looks more like a pilot project to me, an investment in an experiment rather than in reliable emissions reductions - given CCS does not have good track record of delivering reliable results and even now more captured CO2 gets used for enhancing oil production than any other use. It risks an "oh, too bad, that didn't work as well as hoped" outcome that came tied to investing less in other options.

I was thinking power plants burning wood pellet biofuels would be counted as low emissions and that, like most governments and affected businesses the UK's would not normally or willingly go above and beyond the minimum requried under international agreements (where their negotiators sought doing the least possible). If so count me surprised and amazed. Or confused. Are emissions from burning woodchips in the UK counted as UK emissions the same as if they were burning coal or gas? And the forest growth that produces woodchips gets counted as emissions reductions or offsets by the source nation? The producer nations will want the 'credits' for themselves, in their efforts to minimise their obligations.

Carbon removal is certainly being promoted as a major emissions reduction option but looks primarily a keep on as we are with minimal change now and reduce atmospheric concentrations later option. Somehow later has to be paid for. If issuing more money is a viable way, with minimal economic downsides I'd like to see a lot more of it. I'm not seeing it, at least not for this purpose.

With levies/carbon taxes CCS become financially dependent on continuing to make emissions - funding beyond that for atmospheric CDR looks problematic to me; the absolute quantities involved mean it needs to be an industry as large or larger than any other industry sector, to run for a long time into the future. I'd like to think we will do so despite the costs (which minimise the cumulative climate costs) but I am doubtful of it and see maximising growth of low emissions energy as better. Unwillingness to commit to major government expenditures on such things later - given they seek to avoid commitments now - seems likely.

CO2 pipelines like that seem roughly equivalent in engineering terms to gas pipelines. That is not low cost or short life infrastructure and having spent that money, those doing it will be resistant to the low emissions options that obsolete them before their use by date. The running costs of power plants equipped for it have to include ongoing fuel supply as well as CO2 removal that seems likely to be as costly or more costly, which at best will be a lot less than 100% capture.

Gas fields full of old boreholes may not have the geological integrity of pre-exploitation - this is an experiment, with long term results that are uncertain and probably unknown well beyond the time of the project. CCS will have running costs, including energy requirements. The weight of CO2 is very large and volumes large too, even if more dense than gas.

The efficiencies will matter to assessing the effectiveness. If forest growth draw down persistently fails to equal the emissions, or combustion inefficiency results in post-use emissions that weren't counted we need to know that.

Like I said it seems more about delaying and evading investment in low emissions energy than doing emissions reductions better. Some delaying - use of interim options - can make sense, to ease the transition ; I see businesses decarbonising and getting time (and government support) to do so as the alternative to having rising carbon pricing or ultimately climate liability imposed on them.

@studiot I don't know how well other greenhouse/district heating options will do the job - ground source geothermal has a lot going for it but it takes significant foresight, planning and investment. Which is true of most elements of a transition to low emissions.

Edited November 3Nov 3 by Ken Fabian

8 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

@sethoflagos - I'm not opposed to things that reduce emissions but I am unconvinced CCS is the best option or best use of resources. Or ultimately is a scalable option. This looks more like a pilot project to me, an investment in an experiment rather than in reliable emissions reductions - given CCS does not have good track record of delivering reliable results and even now more captured CO2 gets used for enhancing oil production than any other use. It risks an "oh, too bad, that didn't work as well as hoped" outcome that came tied to investing less in other options.

I was thinking power plants burning wood pellet biofuels would be counted as low emissions and that, like most governments and affected businesses the UK's would not normally or willingly go above and beyond the minimum requried under international agreements (where their negotiators sought doing the least possible). If so count me surprised and amazed. Or confused. Are emissions from burning woodchips in the UK counted as UK emissions the same as if they were burning coal or gas? And the forest growth that produces woodchips gets counted as emissions reductions or offsets by the source nation? The producer nations will want the 'credits' for themselves, in their efforts to minimise their obligations.

Carbon removal is certainly being promoted as a major emissions reduction option but looks primarily a keep on as we are with minimal change now and reduce atmospheric concentrations later option. Somehow later has to be paid for. If issuing more money is a viable way, with minimal economic downsides I'd like to see a lot more of it. I'm not seeing it, at least not for this purpose.

With levies/carbon taxes CCS become financially dependent on continuing to make emissions - funding beyond that for atmospheric CDR looks problematic to me; the absolute quantities involved mean it needs to be an industry as large or larger than any other industry sector, to run for a long time into the future. I'd like to think we will do so despite the costs (which minimise the cumulative climate costs) but I am doubtful of it and see maximising growth of low emissions energy as better. Unwillingness to commit to major government expenditures on such things later - given they seek to avoid commitments now - seems likely.

CO2 pipelines like that seem roughly equivalent in engineering terms to gas pipelines. That is not low cost or short life infrastructure and having spent that money, those doing it will be resistant to the low emissions options that obsolete them before their use by date. The running costs of power plants equipped for it have to include ongoing fuel supply as well as CO2 removal that seems likely to be as costly or more costly, which at best will be a lot less than 100% capture.

Gas fields full of old boreholes may not have the geological integrity of pre-exploitation - this is an experiment, with long term results that are uncertain and probably unknown well beyond the time of the project. CCS will have running costs, including energy requirements. The weight of CO2 is very large and volumes large too, even if more dense than gas.

The efficiencies will matter to assessing the effectiveness. If forest growth draw down persistently fails to equal the emissions, or combustion inefficiency results in post-use emissions that weren't counted we need to know that.

Like I said it seems more about delaying and evading investment in low emissions energy than doing emissions reductions better. Some delaying - use of interim options - can make sense, to ease the transition ; I see businesses decarbonising and getting time (and government support) to do so as the alternative to having rising carbon pricing or ultimately climate liability imposed on them.

@studiot I don't know how well other greenhouse/district heating options will do the job - ground source geothermal has a lot going for it but it takes significant foresight, planning and investment. Which is true of most elements of a transition to low emissions.

You don't seem to have taken on board a single point I made.

Fine.

Apparently, that's how discourse works these days.

14 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I find this guy very good.

https://youtu.be/ZGFpBU37riM

MMT, eh? (I looked at the transcript synopsis, not in a place to watch a video atm ) Will try to absorb this, but in a context where it can make sense with respect to the enormous debt of the US and the perils of default (or US spending most of its tax revenues on debt maintenance). Might be separate thread worthy, later.

5 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

You don't seem to have taken on board a single point I made.

@Ken Fabian might well be having a similar experience.

40 minutes ago, TheVat said:

@Ken Fabian might well be having a similar experience.

I guess. Must have forgotten to plug the empathy simulation chip into the autism socket this morning.

Apologies @Ken Fabian , it was an unfair comment.

I do have a positive view of this project due as much to its local socioeconomic significance as its role in carbon disposal. There's no reason for you to see it in the same light.

@sethoflagos Perhaps not a point by point response but more like an attempt at explaining my thinking.

I am unashamedly an RE optimist - one of the few aspects of the climate issue I do find cause to be optimistic about. To me it looks like RE with increased electrification is responsible for more emissions reductions - or at least reduced growth of emissions and getting nearer the necessary tipping point where FF use begins to decline and existing capacity displaced - than anything else.

9 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

@sethoflagos Perhaps not a point by point response but more like an attempt at explaining my thinking.

I am unashamedly an RE optimist - one of the few aspects of the climate issue I do find cause to be optimistic about. To me it looks like RE with increased electrification is responsible for more emissions reductions - or at least reduced growth of emissions and getting nearer the necessary tipping point where FF use begins to decline and existing capacity displaced - than anything else.

Me too. And also I believe the current UK government. This is from their Action Plan for achieving Nett Zero by 2030 published on the UK government website:

We have high ambition. That means 43-50 GW of offshore wind, 27-29 GW of onshore wind, and 45-47 GW of solar power, significantly reducing our fossil-fuel dependency. These will be complemented by flexible capacity, including 23-27 GW of battery capacity, 4-6 GW of long‑duration energy storage, and development of flexibility technologies including gas carbon capture utilisation & storage, hydrogen, and substantial opportunity for consumer-led flexibility[footnote 2].

In line with the NESO advice, this new capacity must be underpinned by the rapid delivery of 80 network and enabling infrastructure projects, most of which are already at an advanced stage of planning and development.

Over the period to 2030, security of supply will be protected with the maintenance of an expected 35 GW of unabated gas reserve capacity.

This gets little media attention due to their bias, but I think it's very hard to fault.

Far from compromising the implementation of RE, the OP project is clearly an integral part of a much bigger picture that puts RE at the heart of UK power generation. It deserves our general support even if we have some small qualms about individual elements of it.

Let's leave the mudslinging to the wealthy vested interests and their lackeys in the right wing media.

Edited November 4Nov 4 by sethoflagos