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The Bullroarer - Friday 14th November 2008
Posted by aeldric on November 14, 2008 - 12:44am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
SMH - Energy revolution vital
WITHOUT an energy revolution to create cleaner power, warns the world's peak energy body, global greenhouse gas emissions will rise to a level that could increase temperatures by six degrees by the end of the century, triggering catastrophic climate change.
NZ Herald - Banks lays waste to transport budgets
Cutting tens of millions of dollars from Auckland City's cycling, walking, public transport, footpath and school safety budgets makes a mockery of Auckland being a world-class city, says Cycle Action Auckland.
Co-chair Barbara Cuthbert yesterday said cutting the cycling and walkway budget from $27 million to $4 million over the next 10 years would have a devastating effect on the number of people adopting active transport options in the city.
LiveNews - World-first coal combustion trial launched in Qld
The Queensland and federal governments are hoping a world-first combustion technology project launched today will revolutionise coal-fired power.
The technology, being trialled at Callide A power station in central Queensland, is aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 90 per cent compared with conventional coal-burning systems.
Yahoo! News - Nyrstar says carbon trading could shut smelters
The world's largest zinc producer, Nyrstar, said Thursday its Australian smelters could become unviable under a proposed national greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme.
From 2010 polluters will trade permits to emit carbon-based gases that are blamed for global warming, under the government's plan to reduce the country's greenhouse emissions.
Courier Mail - BrisConnections investor Fang He faces $65m charge
FANG He has a $64.6 million dilemma - she has become the biggest individual shareholder of Airport Link toll road builder BrisConnections.
The Melbourne woman's status comes after recently picking up 20 million units for just $20,000.
The purchase took her total holding to 32.3 million units - which means that in April she will be legally obliged to stump up $32.3 million for the second $1 share instalment on the toll road group's units
NZ Herald - Crash of car giants 'would be catastrophe'
"I'm not talking about my little store on the corner," she said. "It will affect people in so many widespread ways it's unbelievable."
ABC - ARTC defends Hunter rail coal infrastructure
The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) chief executive officer, David Marchant, has rejected claims rail infrastructure on the New South Wales Hunter's coal chain is shoddy and out of date.
In a submission to Infrastructure Australia, the Minerals Council of Australia has labelled the coal chain a planning failure.
It says it contains old mismatched rail infrastructure and ancient train signalling systems that in many cases only work one way.
The Australian - Felix not seeing change in coking coal demand
FELIX Resources said it has not seen any changes in coking coal demand despite wide-ranging steel output cuts.
The Australian coal producer’s managing director Brian Flannery also said October was “the best month” Felix had recorded.
“We supply north Asia and India, and we’ve not seen any changes (in demand). Steel mills are continuing with blast furnaces, though some electric furnaces have shut down,” Mr Flannery said.
ABC - Aus car lobby group wants fuel tax abolished
The Australian Automobile Association wants the Australian government to abolish fuel tax and charge drivers on the basis of how often they use the roads.
The Australian - Oil from wasteland tree to power Air NZ jet
A BIOFUEL due to be used in a world-first Air New Zealand flight test next month may give aircraft an energy boost and reduce their environmental footprint.
Tests by engine-maker Rolls Royce show the 50/50 blend of Jet A1 and fuel converted from jatropha plant oil met or exceeded all critical criteria, including a freeze point of -47C and flash point of 38C.
But it also has a higher energy content and lower specific gravity than the Jet A1 fuel available in most countries and the Jet A fuel airlines buy in the US.
Energy Matters - Greens Continue Offensive On Big Coal, Pushing Renewable Energy
Senator Christine Milne of the Australian Greens launched an offensive on Wednesday against the coal industry's latest public relations effort in re-branding as "NewGenCoal", stating that "Coal, by any other name, is on the nose".
ABC - Aurora predicts another difficult year
Tasmania's electricity retailer Aurora Energy has acknowledged the hardship families and businesses have faced with rising electricity prices.
Aurora says that while every effort is made to keep price rises down, it can not make guarantees in what will be a difficult year ahead.
The Australian - Kevin Rudd to abandon fuel watch plan
THE Rudd Government has walked away from its controversial FuelWatch scheme after it was defeated in the Senate, declaring it was not the "be-all and end-all" of moves to fight petrol prices.
Northern Star - Fuel subsidy loss will cripple local truckies
TRUCKING company director Reg Mills fears local operators will be ruined if the State Government carries out its plan to bin the Northern NSW fuel subsidy in July.
Mr Mills, of Mills Transport, said local livestock, milk and cane carriers would be hardest hit.
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Re the "Callide-A" power plant - trial burning of coal in pure oxygen and underground storage of some of the CO2 ("Oxyfuel" process). That article is fairly light-on for detail.
We the taxpayers are paying for this from the "clean coal" fund. There's a more informative short pdf about the project here:
www.qrc.org.au/_dbase_upl/Chris%20Spero.pdf
- For the trial, only 20% of the CO2 will be captured, the rest will be vented.
- Motor transport (presumably CO2 emitting) will be used to move the liquid CO2 to the storage site.
- Overall they are drawing a long bow to claim 90% CO2 reduction.
- The storage site selection doesn't appear to have been announced yet, despite it having a 2008 timeline in the project plan. According to www.qrc.org.au/_dbase_upl/Chris%20Spero.pdf the reservior capacity is 13 million tonnes of CO2. It sounds like a lot, but even the pilot plant at Callide-A will produce 500 tonnes per day.
I have severe doubts about the scalability of this scheme, and anyway - why do it if wind and centralised-solar are already better than the 50-75% increase in power costs for Carbon Capture and Storage estimated in the Spero slideshow above?
Thanks for the background info Cretaceous. I also have mental reservations about this approach to cleaning up CO2. I'm as worried by climate change as anybody else - but we need sane responses, not band-aids over BAU processes.
I am a bit slow on my TOD readings this week, but the question of storage volumes has been a constant question that has bugged me about sequestration for which there has been no real answer from any of the clean coal pursuers.
A few basic calculations show the the storage volume of CO2 needs to be huge.
1 m3 of coal weighs 1200kg
1 kg of coal produces 3.6 kg of CO2
1 m3 of CO2 weighs 1.8 kg (at 20 deg C and atm pressure)
Therefore, if my calcs are correct, 1 m3 of coal produces 2400 m3 of CO2!
Australia uses about 145 million tonnes of coal a year. Which would roughly translate to 522 mill tonnes of CO2 or 290 km3 storage volume.
As a comparison, Sydney Harbour has a capacity of 500 GL (10e9). 1 cubic kilometre has a volume of 1 TL (10e12).
Therefore Australia needs to find the storage capacity for the CO2 emissions for aprpoximately 580 Sydney Harbours a year!
This seems incredibly huge (- perhaps my calculations are wrong?).
Of course this is CO2 in uncompressed gaseous form.
If you want a smaller storage volume you have to increase pressure thus requiring more energy for containment etc... Overall you will end up chasing your tail.