Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Removing the Legal and Regulatory Barriers

M. Granger Morgan, Sean T. McCoy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781617261015
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136293740
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Business

The United States produces over seventy percent of all its electricity from fossil fuels and nearly fifty percent from coal alone. Worldwide, forty-one percent of all electricity is generated from coal, making it the single most important fuel source for electricity generation, followed by natural gas. This means that an essential part of any portfolio for emissions reduction will be technology to capture carbon dioxide and permanently sequester it in suitable geologic formations. While many nations have incentivized development of CCS technology, large regulatory and legal barriers exist that have yet to be addressed. This book identifies current law and regulation that applies to geologic sequestration in the U.S., the regulatory needs to ensure that geologic sequestration is carried out safely and effectively, and barriers that current law and regulation present to timely deployment of CCS. The authors find the three most significant barriers to be: an ill-defined process to access pore space in deep saline formations; a piecemeal, procedural, and static permitting system; and the lack of a clear, responsible plan to address long-term liability associated with sequestered CO2. The book provides legislative options to remove these barriers and address the regulatory needs, and makes recommendations on the best options to encourage safe, effective deployment of CCS. The authors operationalize their recommendations in legislative language, which is of particular use to policymakers faced with the challenge of addressing climate change and energy.

1

THE IMPORTANCE OF CARBON CAPTURE AND GEOLOGIC SEQUESTRATION IN A CARBON CONSTRAINED WORLD

The world’s economy runs on energy. Today most of that energy is obtained by burning “fossil fuels,” comprised mainly of coal, oil, and natural gas. Burning these fuels releases prodigious amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO₂ into the atmosphere. Unless the world reduces its emissions of CO₂ by about 80% by the middle of this century, the future looks grim.¹ Our grandchildren may see the complete disappearance of summer sea ice in the arctic and the end of polar bears in the wild. As Figure 1.1 suggests, they may also witness the loss of sugar maples and most of the ski industry in New England.² Because sooner or later most CO ends up in the ocean, by late in the century they can expect to see the end of most coral reefs³ as shown in Figure 1.2, as well as the demise of many zooplankton at the bottom of food chains, which are a food source for salmon, whales, and other sea life.⁴ If the worst happens, their grandchildren may see all of South Florida and the Gulf Coast disappear under rising sea levels, as shown in Figure 1.3.

In order to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations by the amount necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, industrialized and developing nations must reduce dramatically the emissions that result from burning coal, oil, and natural gas.This will require changing the way energy is produced and used around the world.

Box 1.1

The Link between CO2 Emissions and Concentration

Why do we say that the world must reduce its emissions of CO>₂by roughly 80%? Carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases that produce global warming are not like conventional air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO₂), oxides of nitrogen (NO_x), smog, and fine particles (PM). These conventional air pollutants only remain in the atmosphere for a few hours or days. As a result, the concentration of these pollutants decreases relatively rapidly once their emissions are decreased and, thus, their effects on the atmosphere are short-lived.

In contrast, most of the CO₂and other greenhouse gases produced by human activities that enter the atmosphere remain there for a century or more. Even if we could halt the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases that cause warming will continue to rise.

If we want to reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO₂and other greenhouse gases, we must reduce their emissions by approximately 80%.

A useful analogy is a bathtub (the atmosphere) with a very large faucet (human emissions) and a much smaller drain (natural processes that remove CO₂and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere). Without us turning down the faucet significantly, the bathtub continues to fill up.

The rise of emissions in countries such as China and India makes turning down the faucet even more difficult. China’s annual emissions of greenhouse gases recently passed those of the US, and emissions from India are also rapidly growing. However, it will be decades before these additions to the “global bathtub” of atmospheric greenhouse gases surpass the quantities that the US, Europe, Japan, and other developed countries have already poured in. Disagreements over the necessary quantity of emissions reductions depends on what people believe is a “safe level” of CO₂in the atmosphere. The exact quantity (e.g., 80% versus 70% in 2050) is far less important.

Box 1.2

Some Climate Change Basics

Energy from the sun powers the circulation of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans in addition to sustaining most life on earth. That energy largely arrives in the form of visible light. About 30% of it is immediately reflected back into space. This fraction of the light that is reflected is called the “planetary albedo.” The other 70% of the incoming energy is absorbed by clouds, land, and the oceans. If that energy just continued to be absorbed, the earth would rapidly heat up, and most living species would be unable to survive. To keep the earth at a constant temperature, the 70% of solar input that is absorbed must be radiated back into space as heat (infrared). However, while the atmosphere is transparent to visible light, it is largely opaque to infrared. This is because water vapor, CO₂, and other trace gases that occur naturally in the atmosphere absorb infrared radiation, trapping the heat energy. As a consequence, the earth heats up until it reaches a temperature at which enough heat energy is radiated back into space from the top of the atmosphere to bring the outward flow of energy into balance with what is being absorbed. As a result of this “greenhouse warming,” the average temperature of the earth is about 33°C (approximately 60°F) warmer than it would be if there was no atmosphere.

Human activity has been adding more CO₂(and other greenhouse gases) to the atmosphere, which increases the naturally occurring greenhouse effect, causing warming and other changes in climate. Because CO₂, once released into the atmosphere, remains there for over 100 years, the atmospheric concentration of CO₂has been steadily rising, and with it the average temperature of the earth. This, in turn, is leading to a variety of other changes in climate.

Details on climate change and its impact can be found in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at www.ipcc.ch. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides additional information at www.noaa.gov/climate.html.

1.1 WHY DOES THE WORLD STILL NEED FOSSIL FUEL?

Many believe that when the US and the rest of the world do finally embark on major reductions in the emissions of CO₂, this could be achieved by simply switching to more energy efficient cars and appliances and converting to solar, wind, biomass, and nuclear power. All these can help, but each also has its practical and economic limits.

There are big opportunities to save energy through improved efficiency, often with savings or modest cost and with few drawbacks.⁵ For example, lighting comprises 20% of all US electricity consumption. Use of compact fluorescents can significantly reduce energy consumption, and solid-state lighting (e.g., light emitting diodes or LEDs) offers the potential to further reduce energy consumption from lighting at lower cost.⁶ With better design, buildings can be made much more energy efficient.⁷ In the transportation sector, which is responsible for roughly one-third of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, regular hybrid and plug-in electric hybrid automobiles also show promise to reduce both emissions and our dependency on imported oil.⁸

While using energy more efficiently can contribute greatly to reducing emissions, energy must still come from something. Today, the US makes roughly half of all its electricity from coal and other fossil fuels. This fraction is even larger in other countries, as shown in Figure 1.4. Displacing fossil energy with renewable and nuclear energy sources will help, but each alternative has its practical and economic limits.

The big limitation on energy from wind and solar is that it is inherently variable and intermittent.The wind does not blow all the time. Even when many wind farms are connected together, intermittency is still a problem.⁹ As it becomes cheaper, storage will help, but in the meantime, many utilities must use gas turbines to fill in the gaps when the wind fluctuates.This can cause large increases in emission of nitrogen oxide air pollutants.¹⁰ Sunlight is only available during the day, and passing clouds can create considerable intermittency. Even in sunny Arizona, the output from solar arrays is a little less than 20% of what it would be under full sun 24 hours a day.¹¹ Although the cost of solar power continues to decline, it is still extremely

expensive and, barring unexpected technical breakthroughs, it appears likely to remain too expensive for bulk electricity supply for many decades.¹²

Biomass is another possible energy source for both electricity generation and transportation. However, biomass is not without drawbacks: the amount of land required to grow energy crops to supply a significant fraction of human energy requirements would have significant impacts on availability of land for food crops, and is already having impacts on world food prices.¹³ In addition, the scientific understanding of the greenhouse gas implications of using biomass to generate electricity or transportation fuel continues to develop, but it has become clear that all biomass energy is not created equally.¹⁴

Nuclear power, which today produces about 20% of electricity consumed in the US, and a larger fraction in Europe, is expensive and faces other environmental and safety concerns.¹⁵

Existing investme...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• About Resources for the Future and Rff Press
• Resources for the Future
• Disclaimer
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Authors
• Preface
• Acknowlegments
• Abbreviations
• 1 The Importance of Carbon Capture and Geologic Sequestration in a Carbon Constrained World
• 2 Technology for Carbon Capture and Geologic Sequestration
• 3 Siting CO2 Pipelines for Geologic Sequestration
• 4 Permitting Geologic Sequestration Sites
• 5 Learning from and Adapting to Changes in Geologic Sequestration Technology
• 6 Access to Pore Space for Geologic Sequestration
• 7 Liability and the Management of Long-term Stewardship
• 8 Greenhouse Gas Accounting for CCS
• 9 Making CCS a Reality
• 10 Conclusions and Recommendations
• Appendix
• Notes
• Index