Although the U.S. Department of Energy is researching the viability of underground carbon sequestration, the effort is still in a preliminary phase.
In fact, a September report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that slow-paced progress by the Department of Energy and other agencies has “left critical gaps that impede our understanding” of the potential use of carbon capture and storage technologies.
At the international level, the Group of Eight industrialized countries committed in July to build 20 large-scale carbon capture and storage sites by 2010. But, in a report released in October, the Paris-based International Energy Agency stated that current investment levels are nowhere near what’s required to achieve the G8 goals.
Nevertheless, most research continues with an eye toward capturing the CO2 at a high-emissions source, such as a coal-burning power plant. “At a power plant, you have a large amount of CO2 so you can put it into a big pipe and move it” into storage, said Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment. “But if you have lots of small units all over the place [as Lackner proposes], think of the plumbing that will require.”
Proponents of direct air-capture point out, however, that vast emissions come from mobile sources, such as cars or planes.
“How do you de-carbonize a jumbo jet?” Friedman asked. “How do you de-carbonize a barge going across the ocean? There are parts of the economy where it’s going to be very hard to wring [out] the carbon."
A CO2 scrubber, such as Lackner envisions, could deal with those emissions because it does not have to be connected to a specific emissions source to clean the atmosphere.
“The concept of air capture of carbon dioxide is applying a local solution to a global problem in a sense that the device can, and does, capture CO2 emissions at one location that could have been emitted virtually anywhere on the surface of the planet,” said Wright.
And, while the future may bring electric or hydrogen-powered cars, gasoline may still be the cheapest way to fuel planes or barges for decades to come.
In any case, Lackner insists the location or size of a CO2 scrubber doesn’t matter. “I move the prophet to the mountain, not the mountain to the prophet,” he said. “I put the unit near a place where I can sequester [carbon dioxide].”
Moreover, he said, they could initially pair the machine with a CO2 consumer – and this is why Lackner and the Global Research Technologies team think they can bring the scrubber to market even without a place to sequester the carbon dioxide at first.
Dry-ice users, soda-pop makers or oil-shale miners could all be prospective customers, according to Lackner. And Global Research Technologies could edge into these CO2 markets, he said, by offering lower prices since his scrubber would be located near CO2 consumers to bypass the energy costs of transport.
If the first scrubbers can turn a profit in these existing CO2 markets, Lackner and Global Research Technologies could build up economies of scale and fine tune the scrubber design in preparation for a larger launch that could really make a dent in carbon dioxide levels.
The question remains, however, whether their price for CO2 – at first an estimated $100 a ton – could really be competitive with current purchase prices.
“These are all technologists,” Schrag said. “So when they talk about prices you have to be very careful.” Charging $100 per ton of CO2, he said, would be like charging $300 or $400 per ton of coal, when it currently trades at $30 or $40.
If the U.S. and other countries make emissions reductions mandatory, however, CO2 trading prices could rise as companies are forced to buy up CO2 credits to offset emissions. That would defray the cost of CO2 for users that would have credits to sell.
And, although the future trading price of CO2 remains unknown, the allure of what Lackner and other air-capture technology proponents say they can offer is irrefutable.
“I could collect 100 tons of CO2 and come to you and say: ‘Would you like a car that has no CO2 emissions over its lifetime?’” Lackner said. “Because the CO2 emissions of this car over its lifetime will be roughly 100 tons and I could have collected all of the CO2 the day the car was made.”
Previous Page | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Print
Email
Bookmark
