🤓 carbon capture & storage has been given a bad rap.
yes, we've wasted $billions trying to graft it on to coal — we absolutely need to give up on that — but it's likely we'll eventually need the technology.
there are / have been just 3 significant #CCS+coal projects:
1. boundary dam🇨🇦: $1.4bn project captures CO₂ from a 110 MW coal unit (tiny), averaged 0.592Mt/yr since oct 2014 — 40% below design.
25% of the plant's power goes to extracting and compressing the CO₂.
2. petra nova🇺🇸: heralded by @JoshFrydenberg in 2017, cost US$1bn to build, captured ~4mtCO₂ before being mothballed this year as was uneconomic.
NRG built a 75MW gas power station to power the CCS project.
3. kemper project🇺🇸: after 10 years of construction and US$7.5bn the project was abandoned and converted to a gas power station.
[each of these projects uses/used/was going to use the captured CO₂ for "enhanced oil recovery". ie, using CO₂ to make more CO₂… which would be a bit like the fire brigade knowingly hiring arsonists.]
🇦🇺 we had a go building a #CCS+coal power station in QLD.
the "ZeroGen" project spent $188m in gov't grants before being abandoned as they realised $1.7bn for a 390MW plant was ridiculous.
living up to its name, ZeroGen generated zero energy & sequestered zero tonnes of CO₂.
there's a lot of debate about whether #CCS+coal works.
there's *no* doubt _technical_ feasibility has been demonstrated in 2 small (and several tiny) projects, with some failures.
however also *no* doubt that it's utterly uneconomic.
i'm so confident that #CCS+coal will remain a dud that i've offered this bet:
…and there are other industrial products that might benefit from similar tech.
…and #CCS+bioenergy (if done responsibly) provides a credible path to actually pulling CO₂ out of the atmosphere.
it's a crying shame that the coal sector hijacked an important decarbonisation technology (that they never intended to implement) to prolong their life / muddy the debate.
hardly a week goes by without some 🪿telling me that "saudi arabia built a nuclear power station in just 8 years" or similar.
south korea built it for the UAE & it'll be 16+ years from formal announcement to project completion.
no, it was not on time & likely not on budget
any 🪿telling you nuclear can be built in australia in 2-3, 5, 10 or 15 years:
• ignores years of work required before construction starts
• doesn't understand IAEA's "construction" ignores _years_ of actual construction
• assumes an established regulator & warm supply chain.
☢️ with the #coalition expected to announce its #nuclear plan on wednesday, here are 18 questions every diligent journalist should be seeking answers to:
🧵
1. how will dutton remove the ban?
the coalition would require control of the senate to repeal the ban, which is embedded in two acts.
the coalition hasn’t controlled the senate since 2004-2007.
2. which state(s) would dutton build the reactors in?
only VIC, NSW and QLD grids are big enough to handle a large nuclear reactor.
WA, SA and TAS grids are too small to host a GW-scale reactor.