GOVERNMENT & POLICY

E N V I R O N M E N T

HOW TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GASES ΝΑΕ meeting considers range of technologies and measures, including carbon sequestration BETTE HILEMAN, C&EN WASHINGTON

NOT ALL MEETINGS ON GLOBAL

climate change are focused on the science of global warming. Many actually address how to slow the buildup of green­

house gases in the atmosphere. Such a symposium was held last month by the Na-tional Academy of Engineering. It dis­cussed current and emerging technologies that can be applied to carbon dioxide re­duction and government and state policies that would help this effort. In addition, speakers spent a great deal of time dis­cussing which energy futures would both be economical and produce little or no net co2.

One aim of the meeting was to develop a set of recommendations that may even­tually influence federal research programs and help shape future government policies for reducing greenhouse gases.

Last year, the Bush Administration re­jected the Kyoto protocol that would have set specific goals for C 0 2 reduction by the U.S. At the same time, the Administration made a pledge to intensify the search for technologies to reduce or control the buildup of C 0 2 in the atmosphere over

the long term. The technologies under con­sideration range from renewable energy sources that produce little or no C 0 2 to sequestering the C 0 2 from fossil fuels in biomass, geologic formations, or the deep ocean. Separating and sequestering C 0 2

from stack emissions could allow the use of fossil energy to continue while making the transition to nonfossil energy sources.

Robert H. Socolow, professor of aero­space and mechanical engineering at Princeton University opened the meeting by observing that for every 2.1 billion tons of C 0 2 (measured as carbon) that humans add to the atmosphere, the concentration will go up 1 ppm. "We are now transferring between 6 billion and 7 billion metric tons of carbon per year from belowground to the atmosphere, but the increase in the con­centration of C 0 2 is about 1.5 ppm per year," he explained. This means that about half the C 0 2 emitted is finding its way in­to terrestrial and ocean sinks, he said.

COAL IS VERY likely to remain a major source of energy over the coming century because it is cheap and abundant relative to oil and natural gas, Socolow said. China

CARBON STORAGE Injecting C02 into depleted oil wells is one strategy being considered for removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

and India get most of their energy from coal, and the US. is expected to continue using large amounts of coal during this cen­tury, he explained. Therefore, if a near-zero carbon emissions option for coal were feasible, this would go a long way toward solving the greenhouse gas problem—at least over the next 100 years, he said.

One concept that could contribute to this goal is what Socolow calls a "carbon refinery "This would be a large facility that could use coal, natural gas, biomass, or pe­troleum to produce a variety of fuels and chemicals as well as export electricity— and it would capture the C 0 2 it emits and place it in geologic formations or on the ocean floor, he said. Over time, as hydrogen-consuming fuel cells begin to be used on a large scale, a greater portion of the carbon refinery products would be hydrogen.

Rules for federal permitting of C 0 2 stor­age sites should be worked out now, So­colow said, adding that Environmental Protection Agency rules for the under­ground injection of hazardous wastes pro­vide an inadequate precedent for such reg­ulations. A permit for hazardous waste injection requires, for example, almost no monitoring after injection to see if the models are right.

Gardiner Hill, the C 0 2 program man­ager for BP, described a C 0 2 capture proj­ect to use C 0 2 to recover natural gas and oil and to store C 0 2 in depleted oil and gas wells or in coal mines that cannot be mined economically The U.S., Norway, and the European Union, as well as eight com­panies—BP, ChevronTexaco, ENI, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Statoil, Norsk Hydro, Suncor Energy, and PanCanadi-an—are participating in the project. It is reasonable for oil and gas companies to in­vest in this project, Hill said, because "it builds on many years of experience suc­cessfully managing geologic reservoirs and storage of fluids and gases."

The goal of the $25 million project is to achieve major reductions in the cost of C 0 2 capture and storage and to demon­strate to stakeholders "that C 0 2 storage is safe, measurable, and verifiable," Hill said. The participating companies aim to have "at least one large-scale application in operation by 2010," he said. If C 0 2 se­questration is to be useful in the long term, he explained, it must be large-scale because many industrial operations emit more than 20,000 tons of C 0 2 per day

HTTP: / /PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN C&EN / MAY 27, 2002 37

GOVERNMENT & POLICY

C 0 2 R E D U C T I O N

Lack Of Coordination Among State Plans Creates Uncertainty For Business

Many climate policies are not waiting for federal regulations—they are being implemented today on the

state level, said Robert LaCount Jr., air quality manager for environmental affairs at PG&E National Energy Group, an inte­grated energy company that is part of PG&E Corp. He was speaking at the recent National Academy of Engineering meeting on controlling C02 emissions. These poli­cies will eventually result in greenhouse gas reductions, he claimed, even though the Bush Administration does not favor mandatory controls.

Massachusetts and Oregon require C02

offsets for new projects that increase emis-

Enormous amounts of C0 2 could po­tentially be stored in geologic formations, Hill said. An estimated 40 billion to 50 bil­lion tons could be stored in depleted oil reservoirs, 80 billion to 100 billion tons of C0 2 could be stored in U.S. gas reservoirs, and 15 billion to 20 billion tons could be sequestered in unminable coal beds.

However, before C02 can be sequestered on a large scale, key technical questions need to be answered, Hill said. Where are suitable formations with the right properties to pro­vide C0 2 traps? What is the geochemical andgeotechnical response of faults and cap rocks to large quantities of C02? "In trying

sions. Massachusetts and New Hampshire have regulations or are debating legislation to regulate C02 from existing plants.

The New Hampshire legislation signed by Gov. Jeanne Shaheen on May 9 re­quires cuts in emissions of four pollutants from power plants operated by the state's largest utility, Public Service Co. It man­dates that C02 emissions from the plants return to 1990 levels by 2010.

In California, the Assembly and the Senate have each passed legislation to reduce C02 emissions from private transportation "to the maximum extent feasible." The significantly revised measure passed by the Senate must

to solve one environmental problem, we don't want to create a newproblem," he said.

Geologic formations can definitely store high-pressure gases for geologic times, said Franklin M. (Lynn) Orr Jr., petroleum en­gineering professor and dean of the School of Earth Science at Stanford University. Oil and gas reservoirs store carbon in the form of methane and petroleum on timescales of millions of years, he said, and the technologies for C0 2 injection into oil and gas reservoirs are well established.

Currently, Orr said, the use of C0 2 for enhanced oil recovery is limited only by supplies of natural C0 2 in the ground. In

now be approved again by the Assembly. In addition, North Carolina took a very

serious look at C02-reduction legislation last year, and Illinois is considering it. "I think it is a matter of time before most of the states have regulations for C02," La-Count said.

Another factor is that the Bush Admin­istration has targeted existing coal gener­ation for significant reductions in sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury over the next decade. But the capital invest­ments needed to reduce these pollutants vary depending on the C02 policies in the state, LaCount said. "If you are making wise investments for S02, N0X, and mer-

the U.S., 66 projects are using natural C0 2

for oil recovery, producing about 180,000 barrels per day

Another way to sequester C0 2 is to use it to displace coal-bed methane—the methane that is absorbed on coal surfaces in mines, Orr said. "Ifou can absorb about twice as much C 0 2 as methane in coal beds," he explained. However, again, some questions need to be answered before this can be done on a large scale, he said. Tech­niques are needed to select seams with good lateral permeability, and the long-term integrity of C0 2 sequestration in coal beds needs to be investigated.

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cury, then there should be regulations on C02," he said.

There are big drawbacks for industry in the piecemeal approach embodied in the various state laws and regulations, LaCount said. Their lack of coordination impedes optimal compliance decisions. Moreover, the short regulatory deadlines in some of the measures do not provide adequate time for innovative solutions.

What is needed instead, LaCount said, is national multipollutant legislation reg­ulating four pollutants—C02, N0X, S02, and mercury—from the power sector. This would establish national targets, set uniform timelines for reductions, and provide certainty about future regula­tions, he explained.

PG&E National Energy Group belongs to the Clean Energy Group, an organiza­tion of nine energy companies that is ac­tively promoting such legislation.

"There are also interesting geochemi-cal questions about the long-term fate of C0 2 in aquifers," Orr said. One is the pos­sible reaction chemistry of low-pH brines with aquifer minerals.

It is easy to meter how much C0 2 goes into a saline aquifer, Orr said, but it is more difficult to tell where it goes after that. Fail­ure of a large injection well, for instance, could produce a dense low-lying cloud of C02—an asphyxiant.

REFORESTATIONp saving old-growth forests, and improved land management are good for humankind but have little long-term impact on the C0 2 content of the atmosphere, said Dale R. Simbeck, vice president of technology for SFA Pacific, a consulting firm. Much of the carbon tied up in forests and soils moves back into cir­culation again in 30 to 60 years, as forests are harvested and as soil carbon is oxidized.

David W Keith, assistant professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, argued that the total cost of using fossil fuels for electricity pro­duction and sequestering the C0 2 in ge­ologic formations is now in more or less the same ballpark as electricity produced by renewable means. "We often hear that the cost of solving the climate prob­lem will be very high," he said, "but I am skeptical."

The Department of Energy is aiming to bring down the cost of carbon seques­tration to $10 per ton of carbon, from the current estimated cost of $100 per ton. "But is $100 per ton of carbon a big num­ber?" Keith asked. This cost would increase

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GOVERNMENT & POLICY

the producer price of electricity by a few cents per kilowatt-hour. That is certainly a signifi­cant rise, he said, but not in the context of varying electricity prices over the past few decades, which have been "all over the map." If the U.S. abated half of all its C 0 2 emissions (or 0.75 billion tons per year) at $100 per ton of carbon, the * total cost would be $75 billion Ξ per year, Keith said. This j= amounts to 0.75% of the gross > domestic product. In con- g trast, the current bill for all en- S vironmental controls is 1 to 2% of the gross domestic product, or $100 billion to $200 billion, he said.

Keith claimed that the costs of wind energy, nuclear energy, and fos­sil energy are similar to the cost of electrici­ty produced with carbon sequestration—on the order of 5 to 7 cents per kWh. But they all pose risks, he said. Renewables can threat­en wilderness, if large quantities of biomass are used for energy or windmills or solar pan­els occupy large expanses of land; nuclear power poses the risk of weapons prolifera­tion; and burning fossil fuels with carbon se-

Lackner

questration poses the risk that C 0 2 will leak from storage sites.

Renewable energy systems are becoming more efficient, reliable, and affordable, said Robert K. Dixon, deputy assistant secretary in DOE's Office of Power Technologies. He

Herzog Socolow Keith

said that electricity from photovoltaics now costs about 20 cents per kWh and is likely to fall to 10 cents by 2010. The cost of wind power is now 4 to 6 cents per kWh and is ex­pected to drop to 2 to 4 cents by 2007 The cost of energy from biomass gasification de­clined from 8 cents per kWh in 1995 to 7 cents in 2000, and is expected to be 6 cents in 2010. "We have plenty of wood waste, poultry manure, and hog waste that can be

used as biomass fuels," he said. "Commercial applications of renewable energy are ex­panding in the U.S. and around the world."

In contrast, Howard J. Herzog, a research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Energy & the En­

vironment, is much less opti­mistic about renewable ener­gy Fossil fuels are here to stay for 50 years if not 100, he said. "They have an 85% market share, and that market share is rising," he explained. There­fore, "we need technologies to deal with them," he said.

"Carbon sequestration tech­nologies exist today and are a

~ ~ ~ ~ robust solution for a wide range of energy scenarios," Herzog contin­ued. Norway's Statoil is putting C 0 2 from its North Sea Sleipner oil and gas field into a saline aquifer under the ocean. By law, the C 0 2 , which constitutes 9% of the natural gas, must be separated before the gas is sold.

Basically there are four reservoirs for car­bon sequestration: saline aquifers, coal mines, oil and gas wells, and the ocean, Herzog said. Right now, about one-third, or 2 billion tons,

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of yearly C0 2 emissions go into the sur­face ocean inadvertently, he said. "We can­not put the ocean off-limits as a seques­tration reservoir, but we need a lot of research to see the effects of putting car­bon in the ocean," he added. "I don't feel we are at the point where we can choose the right mix of energy sources and tech­nologies to reduce greenhouse gases."

Klaus Lackner, professor of geophysics at Columbia University, described a "sim­ple, cost-effective method" for extracting C0 2 directly from the air rather than from flue gases. This technique, which he de­vised in collaboration with researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, would allow the C0 2 from numerous small sources to be captured.

IK LACKNER'S technique, air is passed over an extraction agent—a solution of cal­cium hydroxide, for example. The C0 2 in the air reacts with the Ca(OH)2 and is con­verted to calcium carbonate (limestone), which falls to the bottom of the extractor.

The CaC03 is then heated to produce apure stream of C0 2 and CaO, which is re­turned to the extractor, Lackner said. The recovered C0 2 could be sold for enhanced oil recovery or displacement of coal-bed methane or it could be sequestered in a ge­ologic formation, he said. The extractor captures C0 2 from wind as it blows over the device.

Lowell Wood, a researcher at the Law­rence Livermore National Laboratory and a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, described a radi­cally different approach to mitigating the warming effects of increasing concentra­tions of C02 . He would allow atmospher­ic levels of C0 2 and other greenhouse gas­es to rise indefinitely and counteract their radiative effects by placing some form of reflective material in the stratosphere. For example, using sulfur aerosols whose di­ameters are "several-fold smaller" than the wavelengths of light would "selectively scatter back into space the largely delete­rious ultraviolet component of sunlight," while dimimshing the light that plants use for photosynthesis imperceptibly, he ex­plained. The cost of using such aerosols would be about $1 billion per year, he said.

Alternatively, Wood said, small, thin, metallic-walled super-pressure balloons could be placed in the stratosphere at a cost of only $200 million per year. With ei­ther method, enough matter would need to be injected to substantially scatter in­coming solar radiation over 1 million km2

of Earth's surface, he explained. Several attendees strongly objected to

Wood's approach. Lackner pointed out that if the concentration of atmospheric C0 2 is allowed to rise from its current lev­el of about 370 ppm to 550-600 ppm— as is expected by 2100 if controls are not put in place—the growth rates of corals would decline 30-40%. C0 2 dissolves in the surface ocean, increasing the level of bi­carbonate ion and decreasing the level of carbonate ion. Carbonate is required for coral growth.

The recommendations from the ΝΑΕ meeting are not yet available. However they

turn out, DOE's research on carbon se­questration is likely to remain one of the fastest growing areas of investigation in the department. DOE officials say sequestra­tion is needed because renewable or effi­cient technologies alone cannot stabilize concentrations of C02 . In 2001, DOE's budget for sequestration was $18 million, and it increased to $32 million in 2002. For fiscal 2003, the department has re­quested $54 million. And taking the ΝΑΕ meeting as an indication, the department has plenty of research areas to explore. •

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