A Different Perspective on How Many Billions of Tons of CO2 Equivalents We Dump Each Year.

[NNadir]

The working figure for CO2 emissions I often use in my posts is 35 billion tons per year dumped into the atmosphere while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here, and won't come.

This evening, catching up on my reading - I'm way behind for various personal reasons - I came across this paper: Alkalinity Generation Constraints on Basalt Carbonation for Carbon Dioxide Removal at the Gigaton-per-Year Scale (Benjamin M. Tutolo, Adedapo Awolayo, and Calista Brown Environmental Science & Technology 2021 55 (17), 11906-11915.)

This is a paper about the limits of one much discussed scheme for dumping the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in a way such as it doesn't destroy climatic stability, that is via mineralization, the formation of solid carbonates from rocks. This would be in lieu of not burning dangerous fossil fuels at all, something that has been difficult, not because it is impossible, but because we have lots of people running around saying that nuclear energy is "too dangerous" which implies that climate change is not "too dangerous" even though climate change is destroying vast areas of territory and causing untold economic destruction because...because...because...Fukushima.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

From the paper's introductory text:

Synopsis
This study highlights the differing carbonation efficiencies expected during gigaton-per-year scale CO2 injection into basalts versus those inferred from lab and pilot-scale studies.

Introduction

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are expected to double during the latter half of the 21st century unless aggressive action is taken to reduce anthropogenic emissions.(1) The 2015 Paris Agreement was set to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit anthropogenic warming to 1.5–2 °C, which is the largely cited threshold above which many of the most severe consequences of global climate change would become inevitable.(2,3) However, the International Panel on Climate Change has noted that even if emissions are kept to the levels prescribed by the Paris Agreement, global temperature increases would still be expected to exceed 1.5 °C.(4) Thus, restricting emissions alone will likely be insufficient, and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques such as mineral carbonation coupled to direct air capture (DAC)(5) of CO2 will be required to prevent the most dire consequences of global climate change.(2)
Mineral carbonation mimics Earth’s so-called silicate weathering “thermostat”, in which the weathering of silicate rocks converts atmospheric CO2 gas into carbonate minerals.(6) Mineral carbonation is thus a method for “mineral trapping”, which is the most stable CO2 trapping mechanism (in order of increasing stability, these are structural/stratigraphic trapping, residual trapping, solubility trapping, and mineral trapping(5,7)). The carbonation process is heavily dependent on the presence of divalent cations (Mg2+, Ca2+, and Fe2+) such that ultramafic and mafic rocks, i.e., peridotite and basalt, respectively, are ideal for mineral carbonation.(5,8,9) Due to their abundance on Earth’s surface (they underlay all of Earth’s oceans and are commonly exposed in continental settings), high concentrations of cation-rich silicate minerals and generally favorable porosity, permeability, and injectivity of basaltic rocks have become ideal target lithologies for the rapid injection and mineralization of large volumes of CO2.(5)

While many people turn into Ayn Rand when, and only when discussing nuclear energy, and whine insipidly about cost, please note that this scheme implies cost for no value added. Dumps are money holes. They provide no value, and in fact destroy value. The need for dumps is a hidden cost of the complete and total failure of the reactionary so called "renewable energy" scheme tp address climate change, just as the need to construct redundant systems is a hidden cost, while everyone carries on, again insipidly with very selective attention about how "cheap" so called renewable energy is. Energy prices in Europe hit record highs this week in mid September 2021 because the wind isn't blowing in the North Sea. Either they turn out the lights everywhere except France - which runs on nuclear electricity generally - or they burn dangerous natural gas and dump the dangerous natural gas waste, carbon dioxide, directly into the planetary atmosphere because they ignore the question of whether climate change is "too dangerous."

I'm not going to discuss the cited paper in any great length. There is a nice discussion of the thermodynamics of this scheme and a few remarks on some tiny pilot programs that are very late in the game, since industrialization of the dumping scheme - assuming the money can be found for it, which it won't be - is sure to be way to late as climate change has arrived already, big time, not that this has had any effect on our belief that the return to the 18th century, where all the energy on Earth was allegedly "renewable," is a good idea.

The pilots discussed in the paper were in Iceland, where CO2 is released by the use of geothermal energy, and Wallula, Washington, where CO2 was injected as supercritical fluid, the creation of the supercritical fluid itself an energetically expensive proposition. One may refer to the paper if one has access.

Here's a nice little graphic from the paper about rocks used in the experiments to check out whether mineralization waste dumps would work, even if we could find the money to build them:



The caption:

Figure 3. Masses of minerals present in the system during CO2-driven basalt dissolution into the Site 1301 aquifer fluids (Na+ = 463 mmol/kg) and into otherwise identical fluids with initial alkalinity adjusted by increasing the initial Na+ by 5 and 10% and charge-balancing on HCO3–. Calculations assume a constant fCO2 = 100 bar and a water-to-rock mass ratio of 100. Mineral abundances plotted at 25 °C (a, c, d) and 60 °C (b, e, f) demonstrate that aquifer alkalinity and temperature have a dramatic effect on the amount of carbonate (dolomite and ankerite) precipitated and thus the amount of CO2 mineralized. Note the differing y-axis scales at 25 °C versus 60 °C due to the larger amount of carbonate precipitation at 60 °C.

60 °C, for those who don't know, is a fairly high temperature, 140°F, meaning one needs to find energy to use these temperatures, energy that does not come from dangerous fossil fuels, even though the use of dangerous fossil fuels as an energy source is rising, not falling, despite all those wind turbines and solar cells on which we've bet the planetary atmosphere, a bet we lost.

Before providing the conclusion of the paper, I note that "DAC" - direct air capture of carbon dioxide - is also energetically expensive, since it involves recovering a considerable portion of the energy produced when the carbon dioxide was dumped in the first place; we're talking at approaching on some level, a kind of perpetual motion machine, a perpetual motion machine being a violation of the immutable laws of thermodynamics.

The conclusion of the paper:

If direct air capture (DAC) coupled to basalt carbonation is implemented at the gigaton-per-year scale, it is likely that many offshore CO2 injection operations would inject free-phase CO2 in order to maximize per-well capacity of CO2 injection. In these situations, our thermodynamic and kinetic calculations show that carbon mineralization will be less efficient than suggested by many published experiments and field demonstration projects due to the heightened solubility of carbonate minerals under free-phase CO2-buffered conditions. Simply put, more basalt will need to dissolve in order to yield comparable amounts of carbonation when free-phase CO2 sets the pH and solubility of carbonate minerals at representative values of solution alkalinity and water-to-rock ratio. Assuming similar rates of basalt dissolution, carbonation is likely to take longer in these systems because it will take longer to dissolve enough basalt to generate enough alkalinity to exceed the thermodynamic saturation of carbonate minerals. These results imply that serious consideration should be given to alternating CO2 injection with water injection (i.e., water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection), even if dissolved CO2 injection is not feasible, in order to promote CO2 dissolution and increase carbonation efficiency. Nevertheless, our simulations demonstrate that, given time and the ability of the impermeable sediments overlying subseafloor basalts to prevent leakage as the free-phase CO2 dissolves and converts to carbonates, significant mineral carbonation can be expected.

Oh well then.

The motivation for looking into this paper was the figure in the abstract in the text for the amount of carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere each year while we all wait for the grand "renewable energy" nirvana that is not here and won't come. This figure is 51 Gigatons per year, higher than the working figure I often use, 51 Gigatons/year.

In the text of the paper it says:

The world adds about 51 billion tons (1 gigaton (Gt) = 1 billion tons) of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year.(43)

Reference 43 is this one: 43. Christiansen, L.; von Kursk, O.; Haselip, J. A. UN Environment Emissions Gap Report; 2018. 2018

It is open sourced, anyone can read it: Emissions Gap Report 2020

The difference between my 35 gigaton/year figure and the 51 gigaton/year cited in the paper is that the UN authors used carbon dioxide equivalents as opposed to the fossil fuel waste that is carbon dioxide, which some people seem to think is not "too dangerous" even though in their ignorance, they claim that so called "nuclear waste" is "too dangerous" even though used nuclear fuel has had a spectacular record over half a century of killing very, very few people, if, in fact, anyone has died as a result of its accumulation as an object of fear and, again, ignorance.

For convenience, a graphic from the open sourced UN report, breaking down the carbon dioxide equivalents graphically:



I'd like to note the role of land use changes, which is a huge contributor, second only to dangerous fossil fuel waste (including methane), to climate change. As I noted earlier in another post in this space, just one of the California Wind Turbine Areas, the Tehachapi "Wind Resource Area" is spread over 800 square miles, laced with access roads for diesel trucks for the purpose of servicing the turbines over their 18 to 25 year lifetime.

Busbar Electricity Prices at the Tehachapi Wind Farm This Evening

In that post I compared land footprint of the Tehachapi wind turbine area with that of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which is due to be shut in 2025, prematurely, as part of a vast crime against the future of humanity. I wrote:

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant operates as a physical plant, on 12 acres, (0.018 sq miles or 0.049 sq km) on a plot of around 700 acres (1.1 sq miles or 2.2 sq km), most of which is undisturbed marine chaparral. The plant has been producing between 2261 MW (low) and 2267 MW (high) consistently and reliably all day long, as of 18:30 PDT, July 12, 2021. In other words, the land footprint of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant is 0.1% that of the Tehachapi Wind Resources Area.

I've been monitoring at the CAISO website the output of all the wind turbines in California, including but not limited to the Tehachapi Wind Resources area. All of them.

California has been experiencing, over the last week or so, an incident of wind Dunkelflaute. For a significant periods of this week, all the wind turbines in California have been producing less power than Diablo Canyon was producing in two buildings located on 12 acres of land.

I plan to discuss some of the data in a subsequent post, should I find the time to do so.

This dramatic information will not induce wisdom on the part people who even at this late date, with the coasts of major continents burning or burned, incredible weather events causing huge destruction and death, still think that wind turbines and solar cells will save the world. They haven't, they aren't, and they won't.

The power of ignorance is not limited to the anti-vax types. There are many other examples of similar rhetoric in other areas, and some of us need to take a good hard look in the mirror. I don't expect we will, but we need to do so.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Despite your nuclear cornucopian views, I still hold that the population of the earth needs to be

cut in half, with a large % of that happening in 'developed' countries, over the next 20-30 years ... or nature itself it going to do it for us.

And I also hold that allowing people to 'migrate' in remotely large numbers from 2nd and 3rd world countries to 1st world countries, out of some notion of 'fairness', is totally misguided if one actually cares about the future of humanity.

I agree w/you about building more nuclear plants, and esp. about keeping functioning ones online ... but I also think it's too late to stop a massive depopulation, via one means or another.

IMHO, the most important thing is for people TO AGREE TO STOP MAKING SO MANY BABIES, and then do it.

And yes, I know, some developed countries are already at negative population growth. That's good start. It should more negative.

We also desperately need to move away from a 'perpetual growth/debt-based' world economic system.

[NNadir]

2. I wouldn't characterize my views as "cornicopian."

It is, I note, cornicopian to talk endlessly about so called "green cars." I have long argued that the car CULTure is not sustainable in any form, although we hear lots and lots and lots and lots of junk thinking about how "green" electric cars are.

Birth rates almost universally tend to be the highest in areas where infant mortality is high. These are generally areas in which poverty dominates the population.

I have argued that the key to population control is to eliminate poverty. This is why I embrace the "anti-Lovins" "pro-Jevons paradox" position that the purpose of energy efficiency is not to reduce energy output but rather to increase it by extending access to it to those who lack it.

I hear these "it's only population" arguments all the time, often from old people who have not committed suicide. Many of them are bourgeois consumer types but nonetheless consider themselves "liberal." While I agree that the Earth is well past its biological carrying capacity for human beings, I still work as hard as I can to argue that we should make every effort to reduce population by allowing people to afford lower birth rates rather than by catastrophe.

However catastrophe is looking more and more likely. I'm not entirely sure that Covid, which has measurably reduced life expectancy, is unrelated to environmental collapse.

I am not looking to nuclear energy to power cars, McMansions, tourist trips to Ankor Wat, and the Louvre. I am looking to it to clean up the environment damage done already, and to provide for a sustainable world for future generations so that they may do the great things that humans may do, as opposed to the venal and trivial things they often do.

This is not going to happen if everyone on the planet tries to embrace the American lifestyle.

Whatever the societal choice is to do with energy - to use it for good or for bad - the fact remains that nuclear energy is the one that will do the least damage to the environment. It is not risk free, but all other forms of energy involve much greater risk than does nuclear energy.

Demographically, low birth rates place greater strain on productive young people and higher costs. This is observable in China, Japan, and other countries where birth rates are low.

Therefore encouraging low birth rates should also involve raising retirement ages. Personally, I can't imagine retiring. It seems like it would be boring as hell. One hears about these people who retire to play golf, which to me, sounds obscene.

If we want to reduce population by suicide, I note that given per capita energy and material consumption rates, one American suicide has the same environmental impact as, loosely maybe, tens or hundreds of Malian suicides.

It's interesting to note that the highest suicide rates right now in this country seem to involve Magats and anti-vax types. This may improve both the gene pool and the voter pool.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. "by allowing people to afford lower birth rates"

I would argue that outside the relatively rare (these days) condition where one needs to have more kids to work the family farm, because they mostly die young, EVERYONE in the world can 'afford' to have no kids whatsoever, on a personal level.

On a societal level, because how long people are living (also not something I particularly 'support' perpetuating, in the era of ACC, unpopular as that will be on DU), the economic equation is different, as you suggest.

It's good to see you discussing something other than nuclear is good and 'renewables' are bad, which seems to be the majority of what you feel like discussing, even if your overall view is more esoteric.

I agree expanding nuclear is 'our best shot at avoiding utter climate catastrophe', but it has no REAL chance of doing so at this late date in anything approaching the proverbial 'vacuum'.

The entire world needs to change its mentality about a WHOLE LOT of 'stuff'. First and foremost, in my book, is the idea that everyone 'needs' >0 children. Cause in the vast majority of cases, they don't. And they shouldn't. And a close second is that we can't continue with a constant-growth-based economy.

[NNadir]

4. I'll probably have more to say about your remarks...

...if and when I have time but note that while I am proud of a capacity to change my mind about many things, the OP here is consistent with my long held view, going back at least 10 years, that solar and wind energy are unacceptable forms of energy if the goal is an environmentally stabilized world.

It's a prominent premise in the OP.

I argue that calling these forms of energy "renewable" is an abuse of language.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. I've always been sketchy on that term as well ...

Is your grounds, though, the fact that they still require consistent backup power from sources like LNG plants? What if they were backed up by Nuclear, would they qualify as 'renewable' then? How about Hydro? IOW is their inherently intermittent nature what makes you say 'renewable' is the wrong word?

Or is it the fact that the parts wear out, and that you can't really make (and deliver?) those parts in the first place without some fossil fuel usage?