Death by Carbon Capture

 

The Biden administration is fixin’ to roll out four new rules for energy production. One is for mercury. Another tightens the ozone standard that will put most big cities into non-attainment, which will add costs to every business that uses chemicals or combustion. The rule with the biggest impact will require power-generating facilities to reduce CO2 emissions by 90%. This rule will cause tremendous hardship and a decline in prosperity in America.

CO2 emissions are basically fixed by the chemical reaction of burning coal, oil, or methane. Since the chemistry of burning cannot be changed, the only options to hit the 90% target are to shut down the facility or to capture the CO2. Capturing CO2 has been demonstrated, but it is far from a mature technology. The best technology today involves the use of amine catalysts to grab CO2 from exhaust, which then has the CO2 split off. This process is at most 90% efficient and costs $1000/ton of CO2. Aside from cost, there is also the challenge of what to do with the 1.5 gigatons per year of CO2. Some can be used to improve oil field production and some can be used for industrial purposes, but most will have to get shoved into holes in the ground. Is that even scalable?

A ton of coal costs about $50 and that should produce about 3 tons of CO2, which means that carbon capture will add about $3000 to the price of producing electricity. A kilowatt-hour will go from $0.03 to produce to about $1.80. Your electricity cost at home will go from $0.15 to about $2.00 per kilowatt-hour, which cannot compete with other generation options and the market will force all coal plants to close in 10 years. The economics of natural gas are better (less CO2 per kwh), but still not competitive with wind and solar with the added cost of carbon capture. Biden and John Kerry have put us on a path to eliminate fossil fuel based power generation and reverse 150 industrialization.

How much will electricity cost without gas and coal? It is hard to predict. Wind and solar in ideal situations costs about the same as gas and coal, but most of the country does not have strong wind and sun, so costs will go up as systems are deployed to less efficient areas (see chart at right). Another reason the cost of electricity will be higher is that wind and solar need backup power/storage, because even on the good days electricity demand during the day does not match electricity production during the day (see Duck Curve). https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Decarbonization-United-States-Electricity-Mix.jpegOn bad days (cloudy, freezing or calm) wind and solar will fail and need backup. Having backup power capacity will probably double the cost, because the infrastructure is doubled. The third way costs will be affected is that other fossil fuel uses (heating and transportation) are being forced to electricity. This means the generation and demand curves will be more misaligned as people come home from work/school and plug in the car, turn on the AC, start a load of laundry and turn on the oven to heat a pizza. Peak pricing will hit consumers hard.

Graph displaying life expectancy vs. energy consumption (data for... | Download Scientific DiagramThe energy sector is about 10% of the economy. When the price of energy triples and lots of new infrastructure needs to be built, just to get back to where we are today, the effect is to make people poorer. I usually estimate this as a 25% of decline in the standard of living of Americans, but it could be much higher. Germany has shown us that high energy costs leads to a de-industrialization, which reduces high-wage manufacturing jobs. Costs are up and wages are down. Cheap/abundant/reliable energy is essential for prosperity and a longer life. The chart at left shows the relationship between energy use and life expectancy. People with more energy live longer and people with less energy die earlier. Poor, cold, dark, short, and hungry is what life is like without cheap electricity. That is why Biden’s new carbon capture rules will reduce lifespans of Americans–death by carbon capture.

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  1. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Let them eat bugs. 

    • #1
  2. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam): The Biden administration is fixin’ to roll out 4 new rules for energy production … will put most big cities into non-attainment …  will require power generating facilities to reduce CO2 emissions by 90% … Biden’s new carbon capture rules will reduce lifespans of Americans–death by carbon capture.

    Sane big city mayors/governments should declare as sanctuary cities. Sane governors/state legislatures (even better as organized groups of sane states) should declare as sanctuary states.  

    • #2
  3. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam): Germany has shown us that high energy costs leads to a de-industrialization, which reduces high-wage manufacturing jobs.  Costs are up and wages are down.  Cheap/abundant/reliable energy is essential for prosperity and a longer life.  The chart at left shows the relationship between energy use and life expectancy.   People with more energy live longer and people with less energy die earlier.   Poor, cold, dark, short and hungry is what life is like without cheap electricity.  That is why Biden’s new carbon capture rules will reduce lifespans of Americans–death by carbon capture.

    Such anti-American behavior is completely consistent with the Biden administration being a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party.

     

    • #3
  4. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    When the blackouts come, they will invite us to the camps where there will be heat and light. Do not go to the camps. They will feed us bugs in the camps.

    • #4
  5. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    Great post. Very interesting.

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam): People with more energy live longer and people with less energy die earlier.   Poor, cold, dark, short and hungry is what life is like without cheap electricity.  That is why Biden’s new carbon capture rules will reduce lifespans of Americans–death by carbon capture.

    And then after killing the energy sector, they go after our food. These are evil people. Evil.

    • #5
  6. Fritz Coolidge
    Fritz
    @Fritz

    The nation needs more cheap energy, not less. At the very least, such a reduction in emissions ought to have a gradual timeline of a decade or three so necessary technology can be developed to achieve what is reasonably doable and affordable, keeping the cost down to save the economy.

    Better yet, Congress needs to act, to make it clear that CO2 is not a pollutant subject to EPA regulations, and all these EPA rules are null and void.

    A guy can dream.

     

    • #6
  7. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    Great post. Very interesting.

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam): People with more energy live longer and people with less energy die earlier. Poor, cold, dark, short and hungry is what life is like without cheap electricity. That is why Biden’s new carbon capture rules will reduce lifespans of Americans–death by carbon capture.

    And then after killing the energy sector, they go after our food. These are evil people. Evil.

    So no nitrogen leads to less cow farts? Got it. But how about wheat and corn? You know the stuff that needs nitrogen fertilizers to grow?  Guess the bugs will substitute right? 

    • #7
  8. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    Can someone explain their new attack vector using nitrogen? They didn’t go after the farmers in the Netherlands on the basis of CO2, instead their excuse was nitrogen. I know it’s all magic and lies to the left, but the nitrogen angle caught me by surprise.

    • #8
  9. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    The problem with CO2 capture, is that it takes annoying chemicals out of the atmosphere, and allows them to leach into our ground water where they could be harmful if not potentially deadly.

    The greens oppose fracking because they worry contaminated water from the drilling operation might contaminate ground water, bringing gas and oil along with it. This has never been demonstrated to have happened since fracking was first developed in the 1950… However injecting a pressurized gas deep underground would migrate upward… This is demonstrated by Radon, a natural radioactive gas that does come from deep underground to contaminate living spaces and give cancer to those unlucky enough to be exposed.

    The better solution would be a fluid bed combustion chamber… So your combustion chamber has some sand in it… Under the sand are spigots for natural gas and pressurized air – the gas is ignited which heat the broiling  sand to the point that its nearly melting – 800c or so… Your solid fuels are fed from the top of the chamber (coal or even municipal garbage) the gasses given off by the burning solid fuels are absorbed into the molten sand and can be sent to a land fill once its overloaded with ash.

    This is a far better workable solution for burning coal than carbon capture… Environmentalists arent interested in solving environmental problems, they interested in controlling and reducing your standard of living….Otherwise, they’d be for Nuclear Energy, They’d be for natural gas…But because these solutions work at providing cost effective reliable energy, using them would not disrupt the energy consumer’s life.

    • #9
  10. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Can someone explain their new attack vector using nitrogen? They didn’t go after the farmers in the Netherlands on the basis of CO2, instead their excuse was nitrogen. I know it’s all magic and lies to the left, but the nitrogen angle caught me by surprise.

    been going on for some time now. Reason why folks in Sri Lanka are starving since they would not allow nitrogen fertilizers.  Good call Climate folks. 

    • #10
  11. MikeMcCarthy Coolidge
    MikeMcCarthy
    @MikeMcCarthy

    Poor, cold, dark, short and hungry is what life is like without cheap electricity

    poor, nasty, brutish, and short?

    • #11
  12. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    navyjag (View Comment):

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Can someone explain their new attack vector using nitrogen? They didn’t go after the farmers in the Netherlands on the basis of CO2, instead their excuse was nitrogen. I know it’s all magic and lies to the left, but the nitrogen angle caught me by surprise.

    been going on for some time now. Reason why folks in Sri Lanka are starving since they would not allow nitrogen fertilizers. Good call Climate folks.

    Nitrate fertilizer runs off into the watershed and eventually ends up in ocean where it causes bacterial blooms that remove oxygen from the ocean and cause dead zones in the ocean.

    The same is happening in Canada. Trudeau wants to cut fertilizer use by 30% by 2030. Which would eliminate Canada’s ability to export any grains at all.

    • #12
  13. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Can someone explain their new attack vector using nitrogen? They didn’t go after the farmers in the Netherlands on the basis of CO2, instead their excuse was nitrogen. I know it’s all magic and lies to the left, but the nitrogen angle caught me by surprise.

    The large quantities of nitrogen fertilizer are only available because of the Haber-Bosch Process which requires a massive amount of energy to break up the triple bond of atmospheric nitrogen. The process does result in a significant amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Also, the necessary large usage of nitrogen fertilizer has caused increased leaching of nitrates into surface and ground waters. Of course, elimination of nitrogen fertilizers would kill not millions, but billions of people, as without nitrogen fertilizer it is estimated that enough food could be produced for 4 billion or so people max. That’s a feature, not a bug for the environmental left as they believe, along with the population control crowd, that at base, people are the problem.

    World Population supported by nitrogen fertilizer

    • #13
  14. Mad Gerald Coolidge
    Mad Gerald
    @Jose

    Start hoarding old tires.  When the electricity goes out they can be burned for warmth.

    • #14
  15. BillJackson Inactive
    BillJackson
    @BillJackson

    My question has always been this: What will happen when folks who’ve always have had comfort have to live the way this will require them to.

    My first 6 years out of college, I never had air conditioning living in the hot and humid Midwest. All of my other friends did, and none of the younger people I’ve worked with have ever lived and worked in non-climate-controlled environments. 

    I wonder if trying to sleep in 90 degree/90 percent humidity will change their minds? Or if it’ll be the sudden lack of travel (because we all have electric cars)?  Or if it will be food scarcity (something, again, I’ve experienced a couple times, but nobody else I know has) …maybe that will change their mind?

    But I do know our leaders will never suffer as we will, so maybe they’ll be able to pull this whole anti-humanity plan off. 

    • #15
  16. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    Were I a Dalek, one of the creatures from Dark City, one of Lewis´s Macrobes, or some other Sci-Fi monster, what would I do that the ecototalitarian Left is not doing?

    • #16
  17. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    BillJackson (View Comment):
    My question has always been this: What will happen when folks who’ve always have had comfort have to live the way this will require them to.

    I”m willing to bet that not one person in a thousand who supports the mad socialist green agenda thinks it will ever affect them

    • #17
  18. BillJackson Inactive
    BillJackson
    @BillJackson

    Barfly (View Comment):\

    I”m willing to bet that not one person in a thousand who supports the mad socialist green agenda thinks it will ever affect them.

    Absolutely! We’ve seen in it my former town of Chicago: A Sanctuary City that doesn’t want to take migrants. 

    So I’m interested in what comes next. In the above example, the community spoke, they made it clear they didn’t want the migrants, the media covered it, the government heard them … and the migrants are still there. 

    My former friends there thrived on finding the exemptions so they wouldn’t have to live by the rules. Gas prices high? Get a company car! Don’t agree with the ban on cellphones in cars? Ignore it! COVID restrictions got you down? Make sure your crappy job in media is “essential!”

    But what happens when they lose their AC, the mobility and their food, and all the pieties they mouth and all the “In this House we believe …” signs don’t make anything better? When they find out they are just as deplorable in the eyes of the elites as we are? 

    That, to me, is fascinating. 

    • #18
  19. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Why are you hung up on costs, practicality, chemistry, and physics when it is all about appearing to save the planet?  How do you put a dollar figure on smug virtue-signalling?

    I am so old I can remember when Democratic big-city mayors complained about unfunded mandates–the government mandating stupid expenditures by state and local governments.  Then Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell said that he was ordered to put wheelchair-accessible curb cuts on every corner–even on those where crossing was illegal and dangerous and at a total cost that would consume the entire capital budget.  On top of that, many millions would have to be sent to raise the dissolved oxygen levels in the Schuylkill River by some small amount the fish would not notice.  NYC Mayor Koch had a similar list. 

    The feds order hugely expensive undertakings with very little benefit. And it takes a lot of (bi-partisan) pushback to embarrass them into backing down.

    When all hell breaks loose during winter power outages, people will finally muster the courage to tell the greenies to shove it. A few thousand deaths and a trillion in economic losses done to reduce planetary warming by .001 degrees in 30 years is a bad tradeoff.

    • #19
  20. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    A few thousand deaths and a trillion in economic losses done to reduce planetary warming by .001 degrees in 30 years is a bad tradeoff.

    I don’t remember the numbers, but I remember back in the days of the Kyoto Accord when the proponents were saying that if the accord is not enacted, the world would be X.X degrees hotter by 2100, I think.  Using the formula that arrived at those numbers, someone figured that if the accord were enacted and obeyed we would still hit that temperature – but not until a few years later.  So sacrifice hundreds of billions of dollars and lower people’s standards of living for a century so that we we can push some catastrophe out by a few years a century from now.

    • #20
  21. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Deleted.  Comment posted twice for some reason.

    • #21
  22. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    I don’t remember the numbers, but I remember back in the days of the Kyoto Accord when the proponents were saying that if the accord is not enacted, the world would be X.X degrees hotter by 2100, I think.

     

    1. It is assumed that the Green New Deal programs will do what they claim to do, yet there is no mechanism to assure that.  Historically such environmental programs have had serious negative side effects, while regular technological development has done the most good.  (Why would we have a climate crisis on the 50th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Agency?)
    2. The main incentive in politics is to come up with a virtuous excuse to spend treasury money on programs, pocketing a percentage in the process.
    3. And these proposals happen to be in the best interests of the Chinese Communist Party.  So they’ll fund politicians who promote them.
    • #22
  23. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    I don’t remember the numbers, but I remember back in the days of the Kyoto Accord when the proponents were saying that if the accord is not enacted, the world would be X.X degrees hotter by 2100, I think.

     

    1. It is assumed that the Green New Deal programs will do what they claim to do, yet there is no mechanism to assure that. Historically such environmental programs have had serious negative side effects, while regular technological development has done the most good. (Why would we have a climate crisis on the 50th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Agency?)
    2. The main incentive in politics is to come up with a virtuous excuse to spend treasury money on programs, pocketing a percentage in the process.
    3. And these proposals happen to be in the best interests of the Chinese Communist Party. So they’ll fund politicians who promote them.

    What is so insane is no one in the MSM looks at the real numbers. Watt’s Up With That lays it all out.  For 50 years, when CO2 in the atmosphere went up by 50% (now about 400 I think) the temperature rose 1.3 degree Centigrade. So 0.137 per decade. Anyone notice the difference? I didn’t. But the UN folks think that much more CO2 should have raised it twice as much.  What idiots. But Kerry and AOC have bought into it so more good times coming.  

    • #23
  24. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    navyjag (View Comment):
    So 0.137 per decade. Anyone notice the difference?

    I have not.  The mainstream news keeps covering that there is less and less ice in Antarctica.  But I have read that while one end of Antarctica is losing ice, ice for the continent overall is about the same.  So “journalists” are going to find where the ice is most depleted and ignore where the ice is growing thicker.  I’m sure a fair number of people roll their eyes every time there is some some catastrophic weather event and the TV news chalks it up to climate change.

    • #24
  25. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    navyjag (View Comment):
    So 0.137 per decade. Anyone notice the difference?

    I have not. The mainstream news keeps covering that there is less and less ice in Antarctica. But I have read that while one end of Antarctica is losing ice, ice for the continent overall is about the same. So “journalists” are going to find where the ice is most depleted and ignore where the ice is growing thicker. I’m sure a fair number of people roll their eyes every time there is some some catastrophic weather event and the TV news chalks it up to climate change.

    And more Arctic ice.  When it was supposed to be gone. And more polar bears. WTF? Paul Erlich must be 0 for 50 by this time. And they still interview the idiot. 

    • #25
  26. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    navyjag (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    navyjag (View Comment):
    So 0.137 per decade. Anyone notice the difference?

    I have not. The mainstream news keeps covering that there is less and less ice in Antarctica. But I have read that while one end of Antarctica is losing ice, ice for the continent overall is about the same. So “journalists” are going to find where the ice is most depleted and ignore where the ice is growing thicker. I’m sure a fair number of people roll their eyes every time there is some some catastrophic weather event and the TV news chalks it up to climate change.

    And more Arctic ice. When it was supposed to be gone. And more polar bears. WTF? Paul Erlich must be 0 for 50 by this time. And they still interview the idiot.

    Yeah, it’s incredible.  He’s the most famously discredited environmentalist there is, and he’s still treated as an expert.

    • #26
  27. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    The Party of Science™️ hates actual science.

    https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/2059/2023/

    • #27
  28. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    navyjag (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    navyjag (View Comment):
    So 0.137 per decade. Anyone notice the difference?

    I have not. The mainstream news keeps covering that there is less and less ice in Antarctica. But I have read that while one end of Antarctica is losing ice, ice for the continent overall is about the same. So “journalists” are going to find where the ice is most depleted and ignore where the ice is growing thicker. I’m sure a fair number of people roll their eyes every time there is some some catastrophic weather event and the TV news chalks it up to climate change.

    And more Arctic ice. When it was supposed to be gone. And more polar bears. WTF? Paul Erlich must be 0 for 50 by this time. And they still interview the idiot.

    Yeah, it’s incredible. He’s the most famously discredited environmentalist there is, and he’s still treated as an expert.

    Michael Mann might be worse. But close. 

    • #28
  29. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    tigerlily (View Comment):

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Can someone explain their new attack vector using nitrogen? They didn’t go after the farmers in the Netherlands on the basis of CO2, instead their excuse was nitrogen. I know it’s all magic and lies to the left, but the nitrogen angle caught me by surprise.

    The large quantities of nitrogen fertilizer are only available because of the Haber-Bosch Process which requires a massive amount of energy to break up the triple bond of atmospheric nitrogen.

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    been going on for some time now. Reason why folks in Sri Lanka are starving since they would not allow nitrogen fertilizers. Good call Climate folks.

    Nitrate fertilizer runs off into the watershed and eventually ends up in ocean where it causes bacterial blooms that remove oxygen from the ocean and cause dead zones in the ocean.

    The same is happening in Canada. Trudeau wants to cut fertilizer use by 30% by 2030. Which would eliminate Canada’s ability to export any grains at all.

    No, it’s NOx they’re complaining about. I mean, yeah they complain about fertilizer too, take a minute to appreciate the humor there, but they’re going after agriculture for emitting the gases NO and NO2. 

    From the Guardian:

    Dutch farmers have found themselves pushed to the wall by the government, which is offering them a final choice to make their farms more climate-friendly, or change jobs.

    The new coalition government wants to release 25 billion euros ($28 billion) by 2035 to help reduce herd sizes and reduce emissions of nitrogen, a greenhouse gas emitted particularly by fertilisers and manure.

    That’s from 2022, but I saw it again a few times recently. So they’ve somehow slid animal husbandry under the big CAGW Climate Change tent. 

    The issue with Holland’s cow farms isn’t perfectly clear cut; they do produce a lot of waste and that, I think, was the original complaint from the Eee Yoo. It’s the nitrogen/greenhouse angle that interests me. 

    • #29
  30. KCVolunteer Lincoln
    KCVolunteer
    @KCVolunteer

    When many of my neighbors have cut down trees in their yards, I like to kick back in the shade of my trees knowing they are capturing carbon for free.

    • #30
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