carbon capture - Green Prophet

Mars found a way to store carbon. Can we?

Julie Steinbeck — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 08:57:56 +0000

What we can learn from Mars about climate change

Mars, the dusty red planet that once held our wildest dreams of alien life, is revealing its past—and perhaps a glimpse of Earth’s future. Today it’s a frozen desert, with no breathable atmosphere and no surface water in sight. But new findings from NASA’s Curiosity Rover suggest Mars was once warm, wet, and much more Earth-like—possibly with rivers, rainfall, and lakes.

The key? A humble mineral called siderite, a type of iron carbonate that’s helping scientists piece together how Mars may have once locked away its carbon—and lost its atmosphere in the process.

In a recent SETI Live conversation, Dr. Ben Tutolo, a geochemist at the University of Calgary and a science team member on the Curiosity mission, shared the breakthrough. While analyzing rocks inside Gale Crater, Curiosity detected up to 10.5% siderite in some layers of Mount Sharp—far more than expected.

This wasn’t just a geochemical oddity. It was evidence that Mars once had abundant CO₂, likely released by volcanoes, which dissolved in ancient waters and was then mineralized into rock. That’s the same basic carbon capture strategy we’re exploring here on Earth today to combat climate change—except Mars figured it out a few billion years earlier.

Carbon Capture on a Planetary Scale—Then Collapse

On Earth, carbon gets locked up in limestone—made of calcium carbonate. On iron-rich Mars, siderite takes that role. Its presence, alongside evaporite minerals like magnesium sulfate, suggests a long phase of evaporation, meaning Mars had standing water. For that to happen, the atmosphere had to be thick—at least 1,000 times denser than it is today, rich in CO₂.

But something happened: the atmosphere thinned, water disappeared, and the climate collapsed. Where did the CO₂ go? Some was lost to space, but this discovery shows that much of it was mineralized into the Martian crust.

The lesson is sobering. On Earth, we’re now injecting carbon into the atmosphere faster than the planet can absorb it. Mars shows us what can happen when a planet’s carbon cycle gets thrown off balance—even slightly—over geological timescales. A world once capable of supporting liquid water became uninhabitable. This is more than a Martian mystery; it’s a cautionary tale. If Mars could lose its habitability after capturing its carbon, what could happen to Earth if we fail to?

Related: dealing with gravity on Mars

The next steps will involve returning samples from these siderite-rich layers to Earth, possibly offering clues not just to climate, but to life. If Mars held onto water for long enough, it might have also given life a fighting chance. And if a “dead” planet like Mars once supported a warm, wet climate, then our definition of what makes a world habitable—whether in our solar system or beyond—may need a radical rethink. Maybe Elon Musk will get there soon with SpaceX and report back to earth before it’s too late. The United Arab Emirates plans on joining Musk on Mars.

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Carbon Capture in 2025: Technologies, Markets, and Investment Trends

Julie Steinbeck — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 08:33:40 +0000

PHLAIR project Dawn Commercial Direct Air Capture facility Providing >20,000 tCO2/year Alberta, Canada

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) has entered a phase of rapid scale-up in 2025. Driven by national emissions targets, investor pressure, and the emergence of structured carbon markets, this sector is moving from pilot projects into industrial deployment. Global CO2 capture capacity now exceeds 50 million tonnes annually, and it’s expected to triple by 2030. Investment is accelerating in membrane separation, modular capture units, direct air capture (DAC), and nature-integrated CO2 recovery systems.

This article presents a detailed snapshot of the 2025 carbon capture landscape, key companies and technologies, and where the carbon credit market is heading.

Global Technology Leaders and Market Movers

Evonik is scaling its SEPURAN® polymer membranes for CO2 separation in biogas upgrading and industrial emissions. Their focus on decentralized, energy-efficient modules makes them well-suited to sectors like chemicals and food processing.

Air Liquide continues deploying Cryocap™ cryogenic carbon capture at hydrogen and ammonia facilities. In 2025, the company expanded CCUS clusters in Europe and the Middle East to support industrial decarbonization at scale.

Air Products is delivering some of the world’s largest hydrogen production projects with integrated CO2 capture. Its blue hydrogen project in Louisiana captures more than 5 million tonnes of CO2 annually, using proprietary reforming and capture technologies.

UBE Corporation is developing polyimide-based membrane systems for post-combustion capture, with pilot projects in Japanese utilities and Southeast Asian petrochemical plants.

Linde Engineering licenses its RECTISOL® and amine-based technologies for syngas and natural gas CO2 removal. In 2025, Linde delivered several modular capture units to decarbonize refineries and hydrogen valleys across Europe.

Grasys specializes in membrane and pressure swing adsorption (PSA) systems used widely in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The company’s gas purification units are increasingly being adapted for landfill gas and industrial CO2 separation.

Airrane, a Korean membrane manufacturer, is expanding hollow fiber technologies for nitrogen and CO2 separation. Their systems are being adopted across Korea’s chemicals and energy sectors.

Generon IGS offers skid-mounted, plug-and-play CO2 capture units suited to oil & gas and industrial clients in North America. Their membrane and PSA systems are increasingly used for enhanced oil recovery and low-volume emitters.

DMT International delivers turnkey biogas upgrading systems with integrated CO2 recovery. They are now expanding operations into Southeast Asia, targeting landfill and wastewater treatment opportunities.

Membrane Technology & Research (MTR) is piloting “CaptureX” membrane systems on gas-fired and coal plants with support from the U.S. Department of Energy. MTR’s polymer technologies offer reduced energy penalties and simpler installation.

Fujifilm is innovating in membrane and sorbent materials for CO2 separation under high-temperature and corrosive environments. Their collaboration with academic labs is helping to refine long-life membranes for industrial settings.

Toray is commercializing advanced hollow fiber modules for carbon and nitrogen separation. Their CO2 capture products are being piloted in water treatment and desalination plants to lower embedded emissions.

BORSIG is bringing high-efficiency amine systems to market with integrated energy recovery. Their focus is on upgrading legacy power plants and industrial boilers across Germany and Central Europe.

SLB (formerly Schlumberger) is repositioning itself as a carbon management leader. Its CENOS™ line of capture technologies now includes solvent, membrane, and storage integration. SLB has over a dozen active CCUS projects across oil, steel, and cement in 2025.

Sumitomo Chemical is commercializing advanced hybrid sorbents for municipal solid waste and waste-to-energy facilities. Their systems blend chemical absorption with physical separation for higher capture efficiency.

Honeywell continues to expand its UOP Separex™ membrane and Ecofining™ capture systems. In 2025, it launched a carbon capture-as-a-service platform targeting mid-sized industrial firms with bundled hardware, monitoring, and credit integration.

Carbon Markets and Access to Carbon Credits

The voluntary carbon market is consolidating around more rigorous methodologies. Projects using CCUS are now eligible for carbon credits under frameworks from Verra, Gold Standard, and the Puro.earth platform.

Credits from bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) and DAC are in increasing demand, especially by corporations pursuing science-based targets. Marketplaces like Patch and Nori allow businesses and individuals to purchase verified CO2 removals, with real-time tracking and blockchain-based auditing.

Direct air capture projects from firms like Climeworks and Carbon Engineering remain high-cost (above $600/tonne), but prices are expected to fall by more than half as modularity and renewable integration improve.

Outlook: Innovation Needs and Investment Trends

Significant gaps remain in capture cost reduction, especially for low-concentration flue gases and DAC. Key areas of innovation include:

Low-energy solid sorbents and hybrid systems
Waste heat integration and process intensification
Durable membranes resistant to contaminants
Long-term, verifiable CO2 storage options

Governments are supporting deployment with instruments such as the U.S. 45Q tax credit, the EU Innovation Fund, and the UK’s CCUS cluster support. The IEA, Global CCS Institute, and ARPA-E continue to back R&D in electrochemical capture, DAC, and value-chain integration.

By 2028, the global CCUS market is projected to surpass $14 billion. Companies able to deliver scalable technology and tie it directly to revenue from high-integrity carbon credits are best positioned to benefit from the next wave of climate finance and regulation.

Carbon capture technologies are accelerating in 2025, reshaping how industries and investors tackle emissions across the globe.

Read more on Green Prophet:

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A guide to rewilding your cities

Karin Kloosterman — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 07:26:24 +0000

Re-wild your city

Cities like Tel Aviv are giving out free trees to create a food forest. And in Berlin, researchers like Ingo Kowarik are laying the blueprint for how to create sustainable cities using what we’ve already got. The illustrated handout above works to understand some of the principles developed by Ingo Kowarik and his team of urban planne

Ingo Kowarik imagines re-wilding cities

As urbanization continues to dominate the global landscape, cities are faced with the challenge of accommodating growing populations while maintaining a healthy relationship with nature. This is important for mental health and also for urban plants and animals. Ingo Kawarik, a leading urban ecologist from Berlin, proposes a revolutionary approach to greening cities, where space—an ever-precious commodity in urban settings—is utilized to foster biodiversity and support ecological resilience.

Kawarik’s approach resonates deeply with a group of ecologists, geographers, and urban planners, who together advocate for the intelligent optimization of urban environments to benefit both people and the natural world. They have a plan and blueprint they have shared on Nature Reviews.

As cities expand, they increasingly encroach on natural habitats, contributing to the loss of biodiversity and diminishing the quality of life for residents. Urban environments often become hotbeds of pollution, limited green spaces, and artificial lighting, which negatively impact both human health and local ecosystems. In response to these challenges, urban planners are exploring innovative methods to transform cities into more sustainable, nature-friendly spaces.

Kawarik’s approach presents an opportunity to address these issues, focusing on sustainable design practices that integrate biodiversity into the very fabric of urban life.

Kawarik’s approach is centered around the idea that even in densely populated urban areas, space can be optimized to promote ecological balance. By rethinking the way cities are designed, planners can incorporate nature-based solutions that simultaneously enhance the environment and improve residents’ well-being.

Here are some key strategies proposed by Kawarik and supported by ecologists and urban planners:

1. Reducing Urban Lighting

One of the primary sources of disruption to urban biodiversity is excessive artificial lighting, which not only wastes energy but also affects the behavior and health of nocturnal species. Kawarik suggests that cities can reduce urban lighting to minimize light pollution, which can hinder the natural processes of plants and animals. Strategies like dimming streetlights or implementing motion sensors in low-traffic areas can conserve energy while promoting healthier ecosystems. Unnatural light isn’t good for humans either. See LED light and human health.

2. Creating Multi-Functional Greenbelts and Parks

Greenbelts and parks are essential components of any sustainable city, offering green spaces for recreation, wildlife habitats, and ecological services. Kawarik advocates for multi-functional green spaces that serve not only as recreational areas but also as corridors for wildlife, helping to restore fragmented ecosystems.

These greenbelts can provide refuge for a variety of species while also improving air quality, reducing the urban heat island effect, and promoting mental well-being for urban dwellers. Greenbelts can be small, like in the streets of space between buildings in Montreal, or large like in huge rural spaces like north of Toronto.

3. Incentivizing Green Roofs

With space at a premium, the rooftop offers an untapped resource for urban greening. Green roofs—vegetated surfaces on buildings—are a powerful tool in Kawarik’s strategy. Not only do green roofs provide habitat for birds, insects, and plants, but they also help to reduce the urban heat island effect, improve energy efficiency in buildings, and capture rainwater. Kawarik suggests that city governments incentivize the installation of green roofs through tax breaks or grants, making it a viable option for developers and homeowners alike. Green roofs do require management and may lead to leaks and other concerns, but when done right the risks outweigh the benefits.

4. Increasing Tree Cover

Trees are critical for urban ecosystems, providing shade, improving air quality, and supporting biodiversity. Kawarik advocates for increasing tree cover in urban areas, particularly in densely built environments where green space is limited. Planting more trees in streetscapes, parks, and even along highways can create vital corridors for wildlife, absorb carbon dioxide, and mitigate the negative impacts of urbanization. Tree planting initiatives can also engage communities, fostering a greater sense of connection between people and nature. See the MIT study on which cities have become greener in their urban tree maps.

MIT city tree researcher

Kawarik’s vision emphasizes that greening cities is not just about creating spaces for biodiversity—it is also about enhancing the quality of life for urban residents. A greener city can offer numerous benefits, from cleaner air and cooler temperatures to opportunities for recreation and relaxation. Moreover, integrating nature into urban environments has been shown to have positive effects on mental health, reducing stress and increasing overall well-being.

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RepAir Carbon: The Game-Changing Carbon Capture Tech Set to Revolutionize Net-Zero Goals

Julie Steinbeck — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 09:07:58 +0000

The future is knocking, and it demands solutions. Net-zero isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a survival strategy. But the road to a carbon-free world is filled with potholes. Traditional carbon capture technologies? Too expensive. Too bulky. Too difficult to scale. And the worst part? Many rely on chemical solvents that degrade over time, creating hazardous waste. Enter RepAir Carbon, an Israeli startup rewriting the rules of carbon capture with an elegant, scalable, and affordable solution.

Founded in 2020, RepAir Carbon is the brainchild of some serious innovators. Chairman Yehuda Borenstein, a serial entrepreneur, has a track record of building disruptive tech startups, including LIGC, MataGene, Carbonade, and NitroFix. CEO Amir Shiner steers the ship with a keen focus on commercialization. CTO Dr. Ben Achrai leads the R&D, while Professor Yushan Yan brings the academic firepower—his patented innovations from the University of Delaware form the backbone of RepAir’s tech. Their mission? To make carbon capture efficient, affordable, and sustainable at the gigaton scale.

Forget the old-school, energy-hungry carbon capture plants. It’s the same idea as the machines that suck water from air. They require an enormous amount of energy for what they do making the endeavor almost pointless. RepAir’s electrochemical carbon capture system is a game-changer. Unlike conventional methods, it ditches solvents altogether, slashing operating and capital costs while eliminating waste. The process is fully electric—no heat required—meaning it can run on renewable energy with minimal environmental impact.

The numbers are staggering: RepAir’s solution uses 70% less energy than traditional carbon capture (0.6MWh/tCO2). It operates with a carbon footprint of less than 5%, making it one of the cleanest capture methods available. And, crucially, it’s scalable—a modular design allows for mass production and seamless integration into existing industrial sites.

Power Moves: Shell, Mitsubishi, and More

RepAir isn’t just talking the talk—it’s signing major deals. The company recently inked an agreement with Shell US Gas and Power and Mitsubishi Corporation to develop a large-scale carbon removal project in Louisiana. Meanwhile, in Europe, RepAir Carbon US Inc. has joined forces with C-Questra to launch the EU’s first onshore carbon removal project in Grandpuits, France. This initiative is about more than carbon capture—it’s about local job creation and sustainable infrastructure development.

But that’s not all. RepAir is tackling diluted point source emissions (1%-5% CO2 concentration)—a segment that could bring in multi-million-dollar contracts. Most carbon capture tech struggles with low-concentration CO2 streams, but RepAir’s system is tailor-made for this challenge, opening up a massive new market.

Funding and Expansion

Tech like this doesn’t come cheap, but investors are paying attention. In December 2022, RepAir closed a $10 million Series A funding round, led by Extantia Capital and joined by Equinor Ventures, Shell Ventures, and Zero Carbon Capital. Before that, a $1.5 million seed round in 2021 got the ball rolling. The capital is fueling expansion, R&D, and global partnerships.

With headquarters in Yokneam Illit, Israel, and operations extending to the U.S. (Florida) and Europe, RepAir is positioning itself as a global leader in carbon capture. The vision? A world where CO2 is pulled from the air efficiently, affordably, and at a scale that makes a real impact.

The carbon capture space is heating up. Companies like Carbon Clean, Captura, Charm Industrial, and Agreena are all vying for dominance, each bringing unique solutions to the table. But while others focus on costly infrastructure or niche applications, RepAir’s lean, scalable, and cost-effective model puts it in a league of its own.

Achieving a net-zero future is impossible without carbon capture. But until now, the solutions have been too expensive, too complicated, or too slow to scale. RepAir Carbon is proving that there’s a better way—one that’s ready for the real world. The question isn’t if this technology will transform the industry. It’s when.

::RepAir

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Ivanpah: the value of first-of-line green energy projects, even when they fail

Karin Kloosterman — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 06:50:04 +0000

A major solar power plant project called Ivanpah, that was granted over a billion dollars in US Government federal loans is now on the road to closing two of its three units, with energy experts labeling it a “boondoggle”. While critics argue that the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility is another example of government waste, it’s essential to recognize the role such first-in-line projects play in advancing clean energy.

In 2011, the US Department of Energy (DOE) under former President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in loan guarantees to finance the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, a project consisting of three solar concentrating thermal power plants in California. At the time, then-Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz called it an “example of how America is becoming a world leader in solar energy.”

The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, a $2.2 billion concentrated solar plant in California, was once hailed as a breakthrough in renewable energy.

It was a time when spending on green energy projects was flush, starting with a boon around 2006 and 2007. Investors and government subsidizers were looking to fund dreams and Ivanpah promised a world with free energy harnessed from the sun.

Solar thermal versus photovoltaic PV panels

Solar thermal technology uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight, generating heat that produces steam to drive a turbine for electricity. It is known to kill birds that pass by it, attracted to the light. In contrast, photovoltaic (PV) panels convert sunlight directly into electricity using semiconductor materials. While solar thermal can include energy storage with molten salt, PV is generally cheaper, more efficient, and easier to scale.

Ashalim is producing power but local financial estimates say it was not worth the cost.

Ashalim producing power in 2022. You will see a blinding light when you drive by it in the desert

Now, after more than a decade, Ivanpah is set to shut down 2 out of 3 of its units. The facility never lived up to its energy production goals and required backup natural gas to stay operational. Its primary buyer, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), has canceled its agreement 14 years early, citing cost savings for customers. Critics argue that the plant was not only financially unsustainable but also had environmental drawbacks, such as harming wildlife in the Mojave Desert.

The plant’s operators plan to begin closing units in early 2026, with decommissioned units potentially being repurposed for photovoltaic solar energy production. Operator NRG Energy plans to shut down two-thirds of the Ivanpah Solar CSP plant after Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) decided to terminate two power purchase agreements (PPAs) with the facility to save ratepayers money.

Ivanpah sp;ar energy panels

But while Ivanpah may not have been a commercial success, dismissing it entirely as a failure ignores the bigger picture. Groundbreaking energy projects often face immense technical, financial, and environmental challenges—many of which only become apparent through real-world implementation. These projects are bold experiments that inform future innovations, providing invaluable lessons that improve the next generation of technology.

Ivanpah isn’t the only example. The solar thermal plant at Ashalim in Israel also fell short of expectations, proving too costly to compete with newer photovoltaic solar technologies. Similarly, MASDAR City in the United Arab Emirates, envisioned as a fully sustainable zero-energy metropolis, has struggled to achieve its initial ambitions and remains sparsely populated. We have an intern dispatch what it’s like. However, these efforts have contributed to advancements in green energy, from refining solar technology to informing large-scale urban sustainability planning.

Even failed projects serve as milestones on the road to a more sustainable energy future. Without Ivanpah and other early ventures, the solar industry wouldn’t be where it is today—producing cheaper, more efficient energy. Green innovation requires trial and error, and while not every project will be a financial success, the lessons they provide are often worth far more than their price tag. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is investing in hydrogen energy projects which may never be commercially viable without massive investments to sustain them. So let’s see “failing” as an outcome of bravery.

Ivanpah wasn’t the first to fail.

Ivanpah is connected to Israel through BrightSource Energy, the company that developed the solar thermal technology used in the plant. BrightSource is an Israeli-founded company specializing in concentrated solar power (CSP). The same technology used in Ivanpah was later implemented in Ashalim, a large CSP plant in Israel’s Negev Desert. Both projects faced challenges related to efficiency, cost, and environmental concerns, highlighting the difficulties of scaling solar thermal technology.

Ashalim, developed and owned by EDF Renewables, is operating today, but at a loss. There are more than 25 similar CSP towers across the world, including China, Spain, Morocco and the United States — but only one, in the United Arab Emirates, stands taller than the plant in Ashalim, Israel.

An Israeli business newspaper, Calcalist, called the Ashalim power plant “one of the saddest stories” in the history of Israeli infrastructure. Others say the tower’s more expensive energy is, in fact, almost imperceptible to Israeli citizens, since the higher cost is spread across the millions of consumers on the national grid.

Let’s look at a few failed power plants from the west:

1. Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project (USA)

Investment Cost: $1 billion
ROI: Negative – declared bankrupt in 2020
What Happened? Crescent Dunes, a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Nevada, was backed by a $737 million federal loan guarantee. It was supposed to provide 10 hours of energy storage using molten salt technology, allowing it to generate power even after sunset. However, persistent technical failures—including leaks in the molten salt storage system—resulted in multiple shutdowns. In 2019, its sole customer, NV Energy, terminated its contract, leading to its financial collapse.

2. Kemper Clean Coal Plant (USA)

Investment Cost: $7.5 billion
ROI: Negative – converted to natural gas after exceeding budget by $5 billion
What Happened? The Kemper Project in Mississippi was designed to be the first large-scale “clean coal” power plant using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Initially estimated to cost $2.4 billion, expenses ballooned to $7.5 billion due to construction delays, cost overruns, and unproven technology. In 2017, after years of setbacks, the project was abandoned as a clean coal facility and converted to a conventional natural gas plant, making its CCS ambitions a complete failure.

3. Pelamis Wave Energy Project (Scotland)

Investment Cost: Estimated £100 million+ (~$130 million)
ROI: Negative – company went bankrupt in 2014
What Happened? Pelamis was one of the first large-scale attempts at harnessing wave energy. It deployed snake-like floating devices off the coast of Scotland to generate electricity from ocean waves. While the technology showed promise, it struggled with durability, maintenance costs, and efficiency. After failing to secure further investment, the company went bankrupt in 2014, demonstrating the difficulties of making wave energy commercially viable.

These examples highlight the immense challenges of scaling up new energy technologies. Despite their failures, they provided valuable lessons that inform ongoing advancements in solar, clean coal, and wave energy.

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Will Carbon Sequestering give us Clean Coal?

Brian Nitz — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 03:46:49 +0000

The best way to deal with carbon is not to release it in the first place. Carbon capture is not the ultimate solution.

Sometime in the 1970s when our family outings were usually to places like Yogi Bear Jellystone park or the local drive-in movie, my father drove us to a coal-fired power plant. The local electric company had just installed smokestack scrubbers to comply with the Clean Air Act. The transformation from sooty grey smoke to puffy white clouds of steam seemed like a miracle.

Nixon-era greenwashing

Dad taught Science so he was able to explain how the scrubbers used electricity to attract ash and soot. It was similar to the way a charged balloon attracted our hair or clinged to the wall. These scrubbers were amazing but they were not designed to reduce the lung-rotting sulphur dioxide (SO2 – sox for short), nitrogen oxides (NOx – nox for short) or ozone (O3). They did little to reduce the levels of brain-rotting mercury or lead and did nothing to slow the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into our atmosphere.

Twenty-five years later the company proposed three additional “clean-coal” power plants on the same site to take advantage of the grandfather clause of environmental laws written when the original plants were constructed in the 1950s. The proposal’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) said that new technologies did capture more pollution. Per megawatt-hour, each new plant would produce less SO2, NOx and O3 than the older ones. This factoid was repeated on advertising along with the promise for jobs. But the devil was in the details. In sum total along with the existing plants, regional air quality would decline and barely meet Clean Air Act standards only if the smokestacks were built higher than the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) allowed.

I learned that photovoltaic solar energy was considered to be too expensive and that new nuclear power plants were disqualified until someone figured out a safe way to store the waste.

The new “Clean-coal” power plants were expensive to build so they would have to stay online for at least 50 years in order to be cost-effective. Gas turbine power plants produce less CO2 per megawatt and are cheaper to build but they are more expensive to operate. Computer models recommended thousands of megawatts of offshore wind farms as the most cost-effective energy source. But these models were ignored.

Jobs were the ultimate trump card in the power plant debate but environmentalists brought up the probable negative impact of mercury and thermal pollution on the state’s fishing industry and the impact on traffic from the freight trains that would bring more than 6000 tons of coal every day to generate approximately 1100 Megawatts of electricity and release 12,000 tons of Carbon Dioxide into our atmosphere.

Despite more than a century of science showing the impact of CO2 on climate and the fact that a CO2 concentration of 4% is fatal, this invisible gas is not considered a pollutant. When anyone brought up the topic of CO2, the word “sequestering” was used as if it was a magic incantation that would cure our carbon-based troubles.

What is Sequestering?

The dictionary gives:
Se·ques·ter verb

isolate or hide away.

“Tiberius was sequestered on an island”

In the context of carbon dioxide, sequestering refers to any method which can lock this greenhouse gas safely away from where it can harm us and our environment.

Since the O2 component of CO2 is not harmful, the simplest way to sequester CO2 would be to separate the Oxygen from the Carbon, reversing the coal-burning reaction:

C + O2 → CO2 + energy

to:

CO2 + energy → C + O2

Unfortunately unburning coal is almost as difficult as unbaking a cake. A wise college professor named Merlin once taught us the three laws of physics as:

You can’t win
You can’t break even
You shouldn’t even try.

Even if coal was pure carbon and air was pure oxygen, the coal unburning reaction would take more energy than we got from burning the coal. But let’s be optimistic. Maybe there is a way to sneak around that third law of physics, a trick to hide the carbon from mother nature.

Nature

Plants use chlorophyll and energy from sunlight to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. They already know how to sequester carbon. Over time these plants will eventually become coal which is mostly carbon. So it is possible to reverse that chemical reaction! Climate impact’s nature based solutions use plants as part of the carbon offsets which help companies move towards a carbon-neutral balance. According to an article published in the journal Nature, fast growing trees such as Eucalyptus and Acacia can absorb up to 5 tons of carbon per hectare per year.

Going back to my neighbourhood coal power plant, in order to store the 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide this 1.1 Gigawatt plant emits every day we would need more than 876,600 hectares of eucalyptus or acacia trees. That’s 8766 square kilometre, a forest more than 11 times the size of Bahrain! Even if this much land is available and not being used for housing or agriculture, trees don’t live forever and forests are typically cut down where their wood eventually decays or burns, releasing its carbon back into the atmosphere. Seaweed, algae and other plants have also been explored for their potential to sequester or capture carbon but it’s helpful to put sequestering into perspective. It took nature more than one hundred million years to sequester carbon into the coal we’ve already burned over the past 350 years. So go ahead and plant a tree. Plant as many as you have land for, but they aren’t the quick and easy solution we were looking for.

Physical Limits of Carbon Capturing

A second method for sequestering carbon is to store it directly. For example, the large caverns created by salt mining could be used as giant carbon dioxide storage tanks. Dry oil wells and abandoned coal mines could also be used for direct storage. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Canada and Norway are already storing more than a million metric tons of carbon dioxide underground every year. Other large scale underground carbon storage projects are underway in the U.S., China, Australia and Europe. But not every hole in the ground would make a good carbon dumpster. High pressure carbon dioxide could cause environmental problems similar to what we’ve already seen with fracking.

The Chemistry of Carbon Capture

One promising form of carbon sequestering involves a chemical trick. If carbon dioxide is pumped into an underground cavern made out of a type of volcanic rock called basalt, a chemical reaction takes place. The basalt is carbonized as it captures carbon dioxide into a mineral form. In an experiment conducted in Iceland where basalt volcanic rocks are common, 90% of the carbon dioxide injected was captured into stone in only two years. Similar natural processes would take thousands of years.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently refined this technique and published in a peer-reviewed journal the current record for the cheapest carbon capture at $39 per metric ton. Previous state-of-the-art carbon sequestering typically cost $57 per metric ton.

Carbon Sequestering raises the cost of coal

We know coal isn’t good for our environment but we still burn it because it’s cheap. Coal currently costs about $40 per ton. But since burning coal produces twice its weight in CO2 and the cost of burning coal and sequestering its carbon is very close to three times the cost of coal: $120 per ton.

There are other chemical tricks involving building materials. One very common building material is lime mortar. Over time the mortar absorbs Carbon Dioxide from the air as it hardens into something resembling limestone in this reaction: Ca(OH)2 + CO2 → CaCO3 + H2O

The Giza pyramids in Cairo are slowly returning to a material like limestone

The lime mortar used in the Great Pyramids at Giza are very slowly reacting with carbon dioxide as the mortar turns into something resembling the limestone from which it came. Self-healing concrete is how the Romans built structures to last thousands of years.

On the surface this reaction happens quickly but even after thousands of years, this reaction is not yet complete for the mortar that holds the great pyramids together. It is possible that new discoveries in chemistry will help us produce buildings that absorb more CO2 than was released during its construction.

What’s next for carbon sequestering?

We have more than a century of solid science telling us that our grand experiment to release millions of years of carbon into our atmosphere over the course of a few hundred years will end in tears. Each generation has kicked this looming environmental disaster down the road and passed it on to the next. The reason coal is still an enormous part of our energy mix is that our global accounting system doesn’t measure its true cost. We pretend coal is cheap but if we could measure the true cost of environmental damage or sequestering, it’s likely it would lose every advantage it has over wind energy, solar power or even nuclear power.

We must continue to explore new ways of sequestering carbon dioxide while reminding each other that the best way to remove carbon from the atmosphere is to not put it there in the first place.

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Saudi Arabia’s oily lies at COP26

Karin Kloosterman — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 07:26:47 +0000

Saudi Arabia is pumping up its propaganda machine during COP26 to deflect the true nature of its intentions, announces Greenpeace. Saudi Arabia recently announced it will be net zero by 2060, a long way off, and with no exit plan to wean the world from oil (remember its oil shale announcement?). Meanwhile Saudi Arabia has plans to increase its oil production from 12 million barrels per day to 13 million barrels per day by 2027.

How can anyone take Saudi Arabia seriously? They are developing 90 untouched islands on the Red Sea, one with Foster + Partners, are creating the world’s most nuts environmental nightmare “green” city called Neom, where they have evicted locals and even killed a Bedouin activist. It’s like a villain making promises while crossing his fingers behind his back.

Ahmad El Droubi from Greenpeace, who obviously sees the ongoing contractions Saudi Arabia spouts out into the world: “We question the seriousness of this announcement, as it comes in parallel with plans for the Kingdom to increase its oil production … and seems to simply be a strategic move to alleviate political pressure ahead of COP26.”

Ahmad El Droubi via Flickr

But the words are likely just a smokescreen, as Saudis plan on carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS), which have not been proven to scale and which may require more energy than the emissions they sequester. The use of CCS as a golden bullet idea summons the idea that Saudi Arabia can “buy” its way out of unrestrained use of fossil fuels. The usual old world approach.

“The stipulations of the announcement are of great concern as they focus on an array of false solutions, such as CCS whose viability at scale remains largely unproven and its potential to deliver significant emission reductions by the mid-century is currently limited,” says El Droubi.

“Safe, permanent, and verifiable storage of CO2 is difficult to guarantee and there are many hidden climate impacts of such technologies.

“We’ll be carbon neutral by 2060.”

“The proposition of increased dependence on natural gas and development of a hydrogen economy, based primarily on it, are also of great concern; blue hydrogen relies on CCS and also maintains the status quo of dependency on fossil fuels, according to a recent study the total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions are only 9%-12% less than for grey hydrogen.”

Greenpeace, a leader in environmental education and action warns that climate change is a global threat that requires a global reduction of carbon emissions and that fossil fuel exporting countries have a responsibility beyond their national borders.

“We urge Saudi Arabia to stop expanding their investment in oil and gas at home and abroad,” El Droubi says. “The region has an abundance of renewable energy potential. There are faster, cleaner, safer, more efficient, and cheaper means that exist to reduce CO2 emissions.”

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Shams 1: The World’s Largest Concentrated Solar Plant Nears Completion

Tafline Laylin — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:39:29 +0000

Abu Dhabi wants to ensure that by 2020, seven percent of the nation’s energy mix will be comprised of renewables, and Shams 1 – the world’s largest single unit concentrating solar power (CSP) plant – is about to put the emirate one step closer to this goal. A 100 MW CSP plant located 120 km southwest of the capital, Shams 1 uses parabolic trough technology to convert the sun’s energy into electricity.

The mirror troughs track the sun as it makes its way across the sky, focusing sunlight onto tubes of synthetic oil that is piped through the entire system. Heat energy from this oil is eventually transferred to water, which boils and releases steam that in turn powers a conventional steam turbine. Shams 1 also has a natural gas-fired booster that literally boosts temperatures by 140 degrees Celsius, increasing its efficiency by roughly 20 percent.

After receiving funding under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the plant owned by Masdar, Abengoa and Total was launched at a time when photovoltaic technology was prohibitively expensive.

Without conceding that Masdar might have chosen a different kind of technology for the $600 million plant, Masdar’s Clean Energy Director Bader Saeed Al Lamki told us that photovoltaic technology is considerably cheaper now than it was a few years ago.

Shams Power Company Process Engineer Abdulaziz Al Obaidli, Masdar Clean Energy Director Bader Saeed Al Lamki, and Shams Power Company General Manager Yousif Al Ali

“There is a tradeoff,” he said in a recent interview. “While photovoltaics might be cheaper, CSP technology has storage capability that allows the plant to run around the clock.”

Al Lamki pointed to Spain’s Gemasolar plant, which is partially owned by Masdar and was the first solar plant in the world to hit the 24/7 milestone, to illustrate the benefits of CSP.

Expected to divert 175,000 tons of CO₂ emissions per year, Shams 1 will produce sufficient energy to power 20,000 homes. Comprised of 258,048 parabolic trough mirrors and attendant infrastructure, the plant covers an area of one square mile.

The site was chosen for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the existing electrical transmission infrastructure that facilitated easy grid integration. Natural gas facilities in the region also help to buttress the solar energy in case of intermittent supply such that Shams 1 will always be able to run at 100 MW capacity.

Developing the emirate’s western region additionally takes pressure off the burgeoning capital. Shams 1 should start pumping energy into the national grid within the first few months of this year.

Masdar’s Clean Energy director is also passionate about Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage technology (CCUS), which is seen by many scientists as one of the most important and least understood tools required to mitigate climate change.

There are several ways to capture carbon, Al Lamki explained – pre and post combustion. But the technology is not yet viable since it is still very expensive. Current CCUS technology raises the price of fuel by up to 97 percent.

“Masdar is currently working with the U.S. Department of Energy on a carbon capture project,” said Al Lamki. Meanwhile, a pilot CCUS project is currently underway in the United Arab Emirates.

Masdar Clean Energy has completed the front end engineering and design of the Abu Dhabi CCUS Network and the first element of this Network, the ESI Carbon Capture Facility, will commence operations by 2015, according to a recent Masdar press release.

All images by Tafline Laylin; please contact Green Prophet if you would like to have permission to use them.

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Carbon Capture the Saudi Way

Joseph Mayton — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:34:30 +0000

Saudi Arabia has a lofty goal of storing CO2, known as carbon capture, by increasing oil recovery and reducing waste.

Carbon capture utilization has become one of the most innovative means of recycling and reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the globe, but has largely remained an untouched endeavour in the Middle East. Until now. Saudi Arabia’s Aramco research and development center believes that it has the ability to establish new technology that will facilitate carbon capture (also known as carbon sequestering) to dispose of the greenhouse gas emissions in a meaningful manner in its depleted oil reservoirs.

According to a local report published by The Peninsula in early December, the country and its national oil company hopes to implement an innovative system that will capture CO2 from industrial facilities across the Gulf Kingdom.

Chief Technologist at Aramco’s Carbon Management and Hydrogen Production Team Mohammed Al-Juaied said the country hopes to launch the Saudi Arabia Carbon Capture System (SACCS).

The move aims to enhance oil production in underground reservoirs. Basically, what happens is that through carbon capture, large quantities of the gas is taken and injected into oil depleted areas, which can then increase oil recovery and reduce waste from such facilities.

“The main objective of such a method is to safely and permanently store CO2. This is the only commercially viable technology for CCS and it has the potential to be greatly expanded, enhancing efforts to reduce CO2 emissions while enabling additional hydrocarbon recovery from mature fields,” wrote The Peninsula.

According to Al-Juaied, “it will give long term benefits.”

The engineer believes that removal efficiency can reach as high as 90 percent and will reduce oil-related pollutants that enter the air and are harmful to people’s health.

While this new technology is largely new, in Germany it has been used successfully to reduce harmful greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere and furthering climate change destruction across the planet. The German government is hopeful that this will help reduce waste.

The thinking is that by capturing CO2 from major emitters, such as factories or refineries, and transporting to storage sites it can then be deposited into areas underground, such as Saudi’s idea of using it to jumpstart largely depleted reservoirs. In doing so, the CO2 remains outside the atmosphere and prevents the release of large amounts of CO2 into the air, a major cause of climate change today.

Saudi, like Germany and other countries, believe that this technology will help mitigate their contribution to fossil fuel abuse and emissions, enhance its oil recovery and create the means to limit their global footprint of GHG.

Update, in 2022 Saudi Aramco signed

Saudi Aramco signed a joint development agreement with SLB and Linde to establish a carbon capture and storage hub which will potentially be able to safely store up to 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2027, the company’s CEO, Amin Nasser, said. Aramco is set to contribute around 6 million tonnes, with the rest to come from other industrial sources.

The facility will be located in Jubail on the east coast of Saudi Arabia with a goal of making a significant contribution to the 44 million tonnes the kingdom plans to capture by 2035.

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How Will Saudi-Driven Carbon Capture Work Under the Durban Climate Agreement?

Susan Kraemer — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:20:54 +0000

The Saudis got the CDM funding for carbon capture they have long demanded: how will it work?

In the biggest turn-around since Kyoto was signed by the developed world – other than the US – now the big emitters, (besides America), are five developing countries, who were omitted from being bound by Kyoto, because back in 1995, they were poor developing countries.

Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia and China – along with the US – are the BASIC countries driving global emissions, but the Saudis may have brought them into the fold.

It is a historic first that in the Durban climate talks; these nations, the top emitters have agreed to be covered under the new treaty to be nailed down over the next 3 years and which will be law (for the entire world) by 2020. Carbon capture may have been a big part of that, because the BASIC countries and the US are the world’s biggest coal producers. And you can thank the Saudis for persistently demanding carbon capture.

Kyoto did succeed in reducing carbon emissions – of the countries that signed onto it. The EU set up the ETS (European Trading Scheme) and used cap and trade to force emission-reductions on polluters. Although criticised by right and left alike, carbon trading as a way of raising funds for investment is still the mechanism by which clean technology transfer is actually happening.

And with the CDM to allow allocation for carbon capture, the BASIC countries will likely now begin to invest seriously in carbon capture. (Related: Masdar and US to Collaborate on Carbon Capture)

Carbon on the table in Qatar

After years of debate it was decided whether and how to allocate carbon offsets under the Clean Development Mechanism to carbon capture and storage projects. Adding carbon capture has long been a demand of the Saudis.

One element of the plan for carbon capture is that because of the considerable uncertainty about their yet unproven efficacy, developers will have to put 5% of the credits earned in reserve so they will be awarded only after 20 years, provided that no carbon dioxide has leaked from the underground store.

The next meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP18 will be in December 2012 in Qatar. I think the world is finally getting somewhere…

Image: Kate Shepherd at Mother Jones

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