What can we do with wastes from our industrial pursuits -- from fossil fuel extraction, agriculture, chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing? We've been spewing lots of it into the air, but that isn't a good plan. Carbon dioxide, ozone, mercury, and other emissions harm human health and contribute to global warming and holes in the ozone layer. We've dumped it into the oceans. But that compromises marine life that billions of people rely on for food.
We could bury it: Out of sight, out of mind. But we're learning that hiding it below our feet isn't the best solution, either. Several scientific reports have called into question everything from injection wells to carbon capture and storage. The latter is a key component of the federal and Alberta governments' climate change strategies and budgets.
According to a recent study, little is known about leaks from the 680,000 waste and injection sites in the U.S., but structural failures are common. That's not surprising when you consider that close to 130-trillion litres of toxic liquids have been pumped underground there over the past several decades. ProPublica, an investigative journalism website, reports that "the idea that injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality, and on oversight that doesn't always work."
Researchers say wells often leak, contaminating groundwater and sending waste and toxic chemicals to the surface. According to ProPublica, "From late 2007 to late 2010, one well integrity violation was issued for every six deep injection wells examined -- more than 17,000 violations nationally. More than 7,000 wells showed signs that their walls were leaking. Records also show wells are frequently operated in violation of safety regulations and under conditions that greatly increase the risk of fluid leakage and the threat of water contamination."
Carbon capture and storage is another plan to hide our industrial wastes underground -- in this case the carbon dioxide from operations like coal-fired power plants and tar sands that would otherwise be sent into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. The federal and Alberta governments have pinned much of their climate change mitigation hopes on the strategy, ponying up close to $3 billion to test the technology.
One early venture ended in failure when the main company behind it pulled out. The Alberta and federal governments had committed close to $800 million for the $1.4 billion joint project between TransAlta, Capital Power, and Enbridge, which would have taken carbon from a coal-fired power plant west of Edmonton and either stored it underground or injected it into wells to recover oil. Even with generous government support, TransAlta spokespeople said the market for carbon sales and the price of emissions reductions were not good enough to justify going ahead and that the plan didn't make economic sense without a federal price on carbon through a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax.
The economic difficulties with carbon capture aren't the only challenge. The U.S. National Research Council concluded that storing carbon underground can trigger earthquakes. And researchers at California's Stanford University say that could fracture surrounding rocks, allowing carbon to escape. A Greenpeace report notes that the technology, which has yet to be proven effective on a large scale, is energy-intensive, expensive, unlikely to get emissions down quickly enough to avoid dangerous climate change, and undermines funding and research into cleaner energy solutions.
In Alberta, taxpayers are on the hook for any problems that might arise once the carbon has been stored. By law, the Alberta government assumes liability for any maintenance, cleanup, or other costs. That the industry demanded this provision makes one question its confidence in the safety and reliability of the technology.
On top of all that, we don't really know what effect pumping millions of tonnes of CO2 into the ground will have on bacteria and other organisms below the surface.
We need to consider many solutions to deal with waste, pollution, and global warming, but not risky and expensive schemes that serve only to enable our continued addiction to fossil fuels. Our best bet is to reduce waste and emissions. And rather than dumping money into schemes like carbon capture and storage, we should invest in renewable energy.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Editorial and Communications Specialist Ian Hanington.
Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.
For more insights from David Suzuki, please read Everything Under the Sun (Greystone Books/David Suzuki Foundation), by David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, now available in bookstores and online.
I worked on the west coast on the tug boats since 1965, from Vancouver to Alaska. Those boats were chipped and painted every summer, and thousands if not millions of used and sometimes full gallon cans of lead paint have been strewn along the coast. Also the tons of paint chips that have been washed into the chuck, and other things like oil, grease metals etc. In those days it was legal, but the boats have been around long before I was. I just wanted to say this as I have always felt guilty. For some, out of sight but not out of mind. Polluters always know what they do.
That said, a report released yesterday from the Max Planck Institute for Meterology in Germany found that the earliest human-caused carbon emissions are still present in the atmosphere and are responsible for about 9% of today's climate change.If that is the case, then the emissions that we do not control today could be in our atmosphere for millenia to come.
Carbon capture and storage is not a perfect solution. It is not the so-called "silver bullet" to combat climate change, nor is it intended to be a long term solution.
It is however, a practical solution to reducing emissions from our industrial and fossil fuel-based society until we can effectively transition to a better, cleaner and more sustainable way of living.
Even Dr. Suzuki must realize that a sudden cessation of fossil fuel use is neither practical nor advisable. It would add to, rather than subtract from, human misery. A future without fossil fuels is possible, but it will not happen overnight.
CCS allows us to transition to a new, more sustainable system, one that we at IPAC-CO2 Research Inc. hope will have less waste to be dealt with.
www.ipac-co2.com
One kilowatt hour of electricity, produced by burning coal, creates one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of carbon dioxide! One kwh of electricity, produced by Hydro electricty, creates only 4 grams!
Coal is 250 times dirtier than Hydro!
In terms of CO2, when one option is so expensive, and the alternative so cheap, it's a no brainer.
Don't build expensive carbon sequestration plants. Move away from coal altogether. Duh!
See the numbers here:
http://rodgerswriting.blogspot.ca/2012/06/electric-vehicles-vs-internal-combusion.html
Why does no one complain about the hundreds of trucks that drive from Toronto to Michigan every week, burning fuel and ruining the roads to dump Toronto Garbage approx 500KM away. It is ridiculous.
All that pollution could be easily stopped if it werent for the money being made
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/30/toronto-garbage.html
Now only shipped as far as London, ON.
Academia today is full of students. Global communication. So you create some school projects, competitions. In the meantime you start to organize production faciltiites. In order to maximize the number of workers, and to effectively slow down production, then you need charity to drive it all, perhaps the worlds worst run charity ever. The goal of charity will be to further complement research, whilst improving other people lives, both the maker, and the reciever. Eventually turning into a profitable business at a further date.
You need to develop a few industries that compensate for the problems, today, which will at the same time meet a great many peoples demands. There are a number of ways to solve any problem, but like a moth to a flame.
http://www.solazyme.com./