of a word or phrase may be manipulated to favor their belief system. A good example is their change from "global warming" (which hasn't happened for a decade) to "climate change", which conveniently can include any weather event.
Likewise, anyone encountering the term "clean coal technology" could reasonably expect this to mean how one cleans coal from impurities such as rock and pyrite, and to include all the processing prior to it being used as a fuel in a power station, or where ever. Like with the term "gay marriage", we are in for a surprise. "Clean coal technology" sounds wonderful but the term is now used by politicians to mean a process whereby CO2 is stripped from fossil fuel combustion gases and then sequested, or pumped into underground storage reservoirs so as to prevent it from "polluting" the atmosphere thus contributing to global warming.
It takes a lot of energy to strip the CO2 from a hot combustion exhaust gas stream and then compress it for eventual underground storage. The US utility companies' estimates on this indicate that 81% more coal will be consumed to generate the same amount of power. This means the cost of base level electricity will go up by 80% and we would burn up our coal reserves 80% faster, if we were silly enough to try and do so, and if the technology worked! This does not seem to worry the politicians!
The idea for carbon sequestration has come from practices developed on the US oil and natural gas fields. Natural gas must be refined before being used as a fuel. Propane is a useful byproduct (autogas), as is helium. Hydrogen sulfide and CO2 gas must also be removed so as to have a pure high thermal energy methane product that is piped to your home.
Natural gas has variable amounts of CO2, sometimes up to 10%, which must be removed. Ideally it would be nice to be able to sell it for some useful purpose instead of venting it to the atmosphere, or pumping it into underground storage and forgetting about it. Today much is used in the US for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) whereby it is pumped into dwindling oil wells to improve the flow rate. By this means 30 - 50% more of the reservoir's original oil can be extracted.
There is no shortage of CO2 gas being produced in the world. Today it is liberated when ever fossil fuels are burnt, such as in power stations, cement works and steel works, or from autos, airplanes and ships. The important thing to realize is that this release of CO2 into the atmosphere is a good thing and
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by Allan Taylor
Sequester means to seclude or isolate. Carbon sequestering means that CO2 gas is isolated, fixed, or hidden in some place
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a vital component in photosynthesis; the process plants and phytoplankton use to harness the Sun's
The world population is over six billion. We must burn fuel (coal, oil and natural gas) to keep all those people warm, to
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Ipcc) was created in 1988. The IPCC released its first assessment of the
by B. Stone
Today we are coming to terms with global warming and the ever-growing carbon footprint that humans are making on the environment.
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Carbon sequestering: A critical issue to explore in the global warming debate
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