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(Carbon Sequestration)

 

 

 

Carbon sequestration 2009 10 07
Carbon Sequestration Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

At the present state of technological development in NSW we have few (perhaps no) alternatives to burning coal.  But there is a fundamental issue with the proposed underground sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a means of reducing the impact of coal burning on the atmosphere. This is the same issue that plagues the whole current energy debate.  It is the issue of scale. 

Disposal of liquid CO2: underground; below the seabed; in depleted oil or gas reservoirs; or in deep saline aquifers is technically possible and is already practiced in some oil fields to improve oil extraction.  But the scale required for meaningful sequestration of coal sourced carbon dioxide is an enormous engineering and environmental challenge of quite a different magnitude. 

It is one thing to land a man on the Moon; it is another to relocate the Great Pyramid (of Cheops) there.

The underground volume required to dispose of coal sourced carbon dioxide is over five times that occupied by the coal that produced it. As discussed in more detail below, to liquify and sequester just 25% of NSW coal sourced CO2 annually (for example that produced by coal fired electricity) would fill a volume of 63 thousand million cubic metres (=251 Km square by 1m deep).  As it is expected that this liquid would be pumped into porous strata, where it will fill interstitial voids to perhaps 10% of the volume, several thousand thousand square kilometers of strata would be required annually. These volumes would also require hundreds of kilometres of high pressure distribution pipeline and hundreds of injection bore holes the diameter and depth of oil wells. 

Within a few years, the underground sequestration site (or sites) required for CO2 would underlie hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of NSW countryside with high pressure liquid/solid phase CO2 that would pose probably insurmountable: geological; engineering; environmental; aesthetic; safety; and cost issues.

Power generation metals smelting and the mining that supports them are amongst civilisation’s largest enterprises.  Present installed coal thermal generating plant capacity in NSW is 12.6 GW.  This is the largest electricity generation capacity of any Australian State (32.4% of the total) and bigger than many developed countries including Switzerland, New Zealand and Denmark. But this capacity is dwarfed in world terms. China adds this capacity every few months.  A single project, their three gorges dam, will have double our entire capacity. We are small players on the world stage and what we do makes little material difference.

NSW is heavily dependent on coal. In 2005-6 the New South Wales (NSW) coal mining industry produced around 161.3 million tonnes (Mt) of raw coal, yielding 124.7 Mt of saleable coal in 2005-06. This accounted for $8.5 billion in income, or 73% of the total value of the NSW mining sector. Exports of 89.8 Mt of thermal and metallurgical coal totalled approximately $6.7 billion in value, while domestic consumption of 33 Mt of coal by the power, steel and other industries totalled $1.8 billion in value. The remaining saleable coal was placed into mining stocks.[1] Since that time exports have increased and the coal price has more than doubled.  Coal is presently worth at least $15 billion a year to the NSW economy, disregarding its economic multipliers.

 

 

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Travel

Hong Kong to Singapore 2024

 

On February 16th 2024 Wendy and I set-forth on a 20 day trip, revisiting old haunts in SE Asia.

From Hong Kong we made a brief side-trip to Shenzhen in China then embarked on a Cruise, sailing down the east coast, south, to Singapore where we spent a few days, before returning home: [Hong Kong; Ha Long Bay/Hanoi; Hoi An; Ho Chi Min City (Saigon); Bangkok; Ko Samui; Singapore]

 

Read more: Hong Kong to Singapore 2024

Fiction, Recollections & News

Recollections of 1963

 

 

 

A Pivotal Year

 

1963 was a pivotal year for me.  It was the year I completed High School and matriculated to University;  the year Bob Dylan became big in my life; and Beatlemania began; the year JFK was assassinated. 

The year had started with a mystery the Bogle-Chandler deaths in Lane Cove National Park in Sydney that confounded Australia. Then came Buddhist immolations and a CIA supported coup and regime change in South Vietnam that was both the beginning and the begining of the end for the US effort there. 

Suddenly the Great Train Robbery in Britain was headline news there and in Australia. One of the ringleaders, Ronnie Biggs was subsequently found in Australia but stayed one step of the authorities for many years.

The 'Space Race' was well underway with the USSR still holding their lead by putting Cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova into orbit for almost three days and returning her safely. The US was riven with inter-racial hostility and rioting. But the first nuclear test ban treaties were signed and Vatican 2 made early progress, the reforming Pope John 23 unfortunately dying midyear.

Towards year's end, on the 22nd of November, came the Kennedy assassination, the same day the terminally ill Aldous Huxley elected to put an end to it.

But for sex and scandal that year the Profumo Affair was unrivalled.

Read more: Recollections of 1963

Opinions and Philosophy

Tragedy in Norway

 

 

The extraordinary tragedy in Norway points yet again to the dangers of extremism in any religion. 

I find it hard to comprehend that anyone can hold their religious beliefs so strongly that they are driven to carefully plan then systematically kill others.  Yet it seems to happen all to often.

The Norwegian murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, reportedly quotes Sydney's Cardinal Pell, John Howard and Peter Costello in his manifesto.   Breivik apparently sees himself as a Christian Knight on a renewed Crusade to stem the influx of Muslims to Europe; and to Norway in particular.

Read more: Tragedy in Norway

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