Carbon Capture and Storage

Killing King Coal is the First Step Towards Halving Our Emissions

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As I have spent some sleepless nights since the latest IPCC report on how Mankind has to halve its carbon emissions by 2030. For both the European Union and the United States of America, the first step in doing so is killing King Coal. As we shall see, this is already currently happening, it is the moral … Read more

Book review: Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker

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Enlightenment Now is Steven Pinker’s latest book. Pinker was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and his books are regularly featured in the best-selling lists. 

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Canada, the US and Mexico to partner on energy

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The agreement signed late last month may be the beginning of a new era of collaboration on climate change as the three North American countries signed an agreement to push cleantech and fight climate change.

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Concentrated Solar Power to get major boost

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Concentrated Solar Power, or CSP, is another possible technology to generate electricity from the sun. While it can store energy and thus provide electricity after the sun went down, the global current capacity is still around 5,000 MW, compared to solar PV’s being above 220,000 MW.

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Carbon Capture and Storage is still nowhere to happen

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A recent article in the New York Times recently outlined the massive problems of one of the key CCS project in the United States. The plant is still not online and is way over costs.

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On biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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Biomass energyIf my Friday post got you down, this might cheer you up a little bit. After the study quoted three weeks ago, another one states that we could actually limit rising temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. But we have to act FAST.

This one was carried out by the Climate Action Network and Climate Analytics and shows that global emissions levels have to peak in 2020 if we want our beautiful planet to cool from the middle of the century. Now that’s good news !

One of the leading scientists quoted in RTCC stated that we need new technologies, a derivative of carbon capture and storage.

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Could we really reverse climate change ?

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Given how we are on our way to warming global average temperatures by no less than 4 to 6 °C by the end of the century, stopping climate change seems already a huge ordeal and a tall order. It’s not a question of solutions, but of political courage. Now according to Grist, a team of … Read more

IEA pushes for more renewables, efficiency, faster

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The prestigious International Energy Agency published this week an interesting report on both renewables and efficiency and how they are being deployed. The results are clear :

Despite growing very fast, cleantech is not growing fast enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. Under the business as usual scenario, temperatures would warm by 6°C this century.

Among many other measures, the IEA stresses the importance of ending fossil fuels subsidies, deploying carbon capture and storage and promoting energy efficiency everywhere.

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Too much uncertainty on CCS

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I blogged two years ago that CCS won’t solve the climate change problem as it is too risky, too expansive, too little and… too late. Joe Romm, the main contributor behind Climate Progress recently noted : ” There are simply too many unanswered questions for anyone to say today that we could rely on large-scale … Read more

The ten most promising cleantechs

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The Guardian Sustainable Business blog published last week an interesting post on the ten most promising future cleantechs. I have to admit I am not sure all of them really are as I spotted at least one odd out. Indeed, even if algae, zinc air batteries, organic solar cells or marine energy and most other … Read more

A new idea : Carbon Capture and Utilization

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Since carbon capture and storage (CCS) doesn’t make much sense and is nowhere near being ready (we have seen it here and  there), why not capture carbon and simply use it ? To CleanTechnica :

” Rather than treating carbon dioxide as a waste, technology, energy, industrial and power industry participants, would be better served investing in researching and developing Carbon Capture & Utilization (CCU) systems.”

I think that applying the 3R to something as huge as CO2 is great idea. Indeed, using something previously seen as waste is typically sustainable. Let’s hope these applications will reach daylight soon.

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Carbon Capture and Storage fails to deliver

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You may perhaps remember it, the International Energy Agency is banking a lot on carbon capture and storage (CCS). Indeed, the IEA believes that it could account for 15 % of greenhouse gases emissions reductions.

However, CleanTechnica got an interesting article on how this solution fails to deliver. One of the main reasons is that ” globally there are now fewer than half a dozen full-scale CCS projects in operation around the world. ”

I believe we should stop banking on this technology. I previously wrote that it won’t solve the climate change problem as it is is too risky, too expansive, too little and… too late.

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