In the last few weeks a number of serious errors have come to light in the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) plan for Net Zero. The CCC plan was published mid-2019 in a document titled ‘Net Zero Technical Report’.
In summary, the CCCs plan for Net Zero is to shift transport and heating from using petrol, diesel and gas to using electricity and then to decarbonise the electricity grid.
To decarbonise the grid, it is assumed that electricity will be generated using nuclear and renewables. During periods when nuclear, wind and solar cannot meet demand, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will be deployed to remove CO2 emissions as the electricity must be generated using gas.
Carbon Capture and Storage is a new and untested technology that has never been deployed at scale anywhere on earth. However, it is clear from the CCC’s report that CCS plays a major roll in achieving Net Zero. As I reported in a previous article, regardless of this being an untested technology, the U.K. only plans to build a quarter of the required capacity to hit Net Zero by 2050 (the plan requires the U.K. to capture and store 176Mt of CO2 annually).
Nevertheless, our Government envisages significant CCS capacity at 50Mt annually. Carbon Capture and Storage involves filtering CO2 from the exhaust produced from gas turbines used to generate electricity, then piping the captured CO2 to plants that compress the gas into a liquid before it is then injected into underground storage areas around the U.K.
Compressed CO2 is currently being commercialised as a way to store energy for use in periods when nuclear and renewables are unavailable. The company Energy Dome has developed a working 4MWh system in Sardinia, Italy. The company says its technology has an energy storage density 10-20 times higher than other compressed air energy storage (CAES) solutions and two-thirds that of liquid air energy storage (LAES).
The CCC’s plan requires vast quantities of CO2 to be compressed and stored under the U.K. Given this potential energy could be released at any time should something go wrong, it seems sensible to consider the safety implications of Carbon Capture and Storage.
Energy Dome has recently raised $11m and is building a larger 100MWh system. Its 100MWh store requires about 2,000 tonnes of CO2. This means the company is expecting to store 0.05MWh of energy per tonne of compressed CO2. Using this energy density, the CCC’s plan to store 176Mt per year will mean 8.8TWh of potential energy is being trapped beneath the U.K. annually. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima exploded with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT or 0.0174TWh. Therefore the energy we will be storing under our feet is equivalent to 505 Hiroshima bombs every year or the energy released by 16 magnitude seven earthquakes per year.
Fracking is currently banned in the U.K. due to the risk of causing earth tremors. The planned Carbon Capture and Storage facilities are of an altogether different magnitude. Fracking can be stopped in an instant if a problem is detected. Obviously, if there is an issue with 505 Hiroshima bombs worth of energy under our feet, we cannot just release this vast amount of trapped energy.
No one knows what the effects may be of creating a whole series of high pressure areas in the earth beneath our feet, it has never been done at this scale.
There are other issues. CO2 is a colourless and odourless gas that is about 1.5 times heavier than air.
In addition to the asphyxiation hazard of CO2 displacing oxygen in the air, the inhalation of elevated concentrations of CO2 can increase the acidity of the blood, triggering adverse effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular and central nervous systems. A CO2 concentration of around 5% by volume in air may cause headaches, dizziness, increased blood pressure and difficulty breathing within a few minutes. If concentrations above 17% by volume in air are inhaled, this could cause loss of purposeful activity, unconsciousness, convulsions, coma and death within one minute.
The Lake Nyos disaster saw massive release of carbon dioxide from Lake Nyos in Cameroon on August 21st 1986.
The 1.6 million tonne cloud of magmatic gas was deadly, and a count of the fatalities indicated that 1,746 people, most from villages by the lake, had been asphyxiated by it, along with some 3,000 cattle and innumerable birds, insects and other animals. The bodies of the dead showed no signs of trauma or struggle; these people had simply died where they were.
The CCS plan means vast quantities of CO2 are going to be piped around the U.K. and ultimately injected into the ground. By 2050 we will be dealing with over 110 times the amount of CO2 released in the volcanic event that took place at Lake Nyos, every single year.
Of course to actually achieve Net Zero the CCC state we will need to store 176Mt of CO2 by 2050. That’s 3.5 times more than we have just been discussing.
As the years go by, the risks increase. The Carbon Capture and Storage plan means that every five years we will be pumping just shy of one billion tonnes of CO2 into the earth beneath our feet.
Does that sound like a smart move to you? What will your children and grandchildren think? They’re going to be stuck with this issue for ever.
As any commercial glass house grower will tell you, the plants on earth are currently pretty much starving. During daylight hours glass houses maintain CO2 levels that are double to three times more than our current historically low levels of atmospheric CO2. Plants have evolved for hundreds of millions of years; the fact they are adapted to thrive in an atmosphere with three times our current CO2 levels is a pretty good indicator that CO2 ain’t the problem.
CO2 is fundamental to all life on earth, but as we have seen with the Lake Nyos disaster, it is also capable of taking life if there is enough of it available in one place. Perhaps storing billions of tonnes of the stuff under our feet is just plain stupid, regardless of the reason?
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I would strongly advise John Gray to stick to his day job – philosophising, because it is clear from the above that he has done absolutely zero research on net zero.
“Remember, most climate scientists agree that once human-induced climate change is in the works, it goes on for decades or even centuries.”
Can you provide any proof of “human induced climate change?”
No. Well STFU!
Why is DS printing utter garbage such as this?
Not only DS, why is Uherd giving him a voice?
“ He thought that climate change would consist of sudden jumps and it could transform things quite quickly, in a couple of decades. We might be in the middle of it. That’s my view – I’m not a climate sceptic.”
’Sudden jumps’: according to the geological data ‘sudden’ is tens of thousands or millions of years.
There is a serious possibility that we’re now in the early stages of runaway climate change.
Really..? The only thing that is ‘running away’ is the hysterical reaction of people who have followed the hyperbole, but have forgotten to ask critical questions or think for themselves.
And your comments earlier today under New Round-up, and those of JeremyP99 with the graphs are equally valid here.
Mr Gray is a Bernard Looney…..
The great game was, in fact, simple paranoia; Russia then, as now, a paper tiger.
China seems likely, particularly economically, to follow the well trodden path of so many socialist fascist states, something to which Britain itself should pay heed….tin eared though its political apparatchiks currently appear…..
As long as people like John Gray, “political philosopher,” stipulate that emissions are causing a runaway climate crisis it doesn’t really matter what else he has to say. He’s giving the “CO2 will kill us all” loonies all the ammunition they need to destroy the west and kill billions world-wide with their insane Net Zero bollox.
Sad to say that at this time Exhibit A of the CO2 Will Kill Us All Loonies includes most Western governments.
Perhaps he can explain how CO2 at levels of 150ppm drove the climate out of Ice Ages, then at levels of 4 000pppm, 6 000ppm and above, managed to drive the climate out of tropical ages back into Ice Ages.
Until any of these idiots can explain that, I’m not interested in their ramblings.
“Worth reading in full.”
I don’t think so.
“There is a serious possibility that we’re now in the early stages of runaway climate change.”
Evidence please? There is nothing to indicate a ‘runaway climate change’, nothing. What does a runaway climate change look like and Michael Bay type films are not evidence? There is plenty of evidence that the inter-glacial that we are currently in will end sometime in the next 500 years, and end it will. If we have somehow, and inadvertently, manged to stop the next glacial expansion then we will have dodged a massive bullet, except the forces that dictate the glacial cycles have not stopped, so I don’t see how..
The Earth having two ice caps is rare in its history. Having even one is unusual. We are therefore in an unusually cold period of Earth’s history.
I have to be honest, if this is ‘progress’ then it’s not very progressive. This is hilarious. Can you imagine what Khant would do if this were black cabs in London?
https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1705651803168366638
Texan Gold there Mogs.
Well if there is a climate emergency, it is not shown in the heat waves in the USA. Debunked by Steve Koonin and John Christy. Chapter 5 of Unsettled S Koonin -explains the trick to explain the scary looking graph in the Climate Science Special report from 2017.
The fact that Gray mentions James Lovelock in a positive way instantly tells you anything he says is going to be garbage. Lovelock was bonkers and only appeals to the Charles “I talk to plants” type of environmentalist. He one of the first people to claim that by some point this century the Arctic would be the only part of the Earth that would still be habitable. Why any media site is giving Gray any kind of a platform is beyond me.
Yes but Lovelock as he got older realised he was wrong and admitted so. He should at least be credited for that, because the current lot of eco socialist government funded data adjusters simply double down on their propaganda masquerading as science with no intention of ever admitting they are way off the mark.
I gave up reading Lovelock’s books/statements a long time ago. Did he say that there isn’t going to be runaway climate change, or did he just say he was wrong about how quickly it would happen?
“Charles “I talk to plants””. Always a good thing to talk to plants as you’re giving them CO2 (plant food) from your breath. Mind you in Charlie boy’s case there’s an awful amount of hot air.
JugEars has always been several sandwiches short of a picnic …. we’d be far better served with his sister at the helm.
As long as you don’t think the plants are talking back, or understand what you say.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66906201
Armed forces, suitably armed, to replace police who have handed in arms permits following the arrest of the officer after Chris Kaba killed.
It is difficult to know where to start with this jumble of mainly nonsense. The first thing I see is references to James Lovelock, but infact Lovelock actually said that he was WRONG about climate change. He said he thought he knew what was going to occur 30 years ago and even wrote books about it, but “it just hasn’t happened”. Gray then redeems himself a bit by criticising Net Zero and the lack of the technology required for it. But he quickly dives into more nonsense again by saying “There is a serious possibility that we are now in the early stages of runaway climate change”——–This is an evidence free statement. Then he doubles down on the nonsense with the following “Remember, most climate scientists agree that once human induced climate change is in the works it goes on for decades or even centuries. You can’t stop it” ———I have always liked the Daily Sceptic for the fact that we can all have a point of view. So my point of view on this article is that the author has jumped into a subject he knows little about. He has written a jumble of fictions with a few facts sprinkled on top.
I missed the facts.
Incidentally the nonsense was from John Gray – Richard was simply reporting what he said.
He did say Net Zero was nonsense. He did say we entered it before the technology for it was available and he did say that many of the raw materials for batteries etc were produced by China. So a few facts in amongst the evidence free nonsense.
How can you possibly describe this as excellent? It is utter rubbish. Gray accepts that humans are causing climate change and they might not be able to stop it. It talks about uncertainty about the climate initially but effectively he is saying the science if fixed and we are causing climate change. It is utter nonsense as many physicists point out and they are being slowly silenced because of it. Unherd is becoming a promoter of nonsense.
“John Gray questions the effectiveness of current climate policies, suggesting they were implemented prematurely and lacked the necessary technology and materials.”
The policies were designed by idiots to solve a non-existent problem, by replacing working existing technology with unworkable and non-existing technology based on the conceit that Mankind, not physics, controls the Universe and that a global coalition of vested interests can control the Earth’s hugely energetic heat budget by legislation, taxation, initiatives, fraud, grift, lies, wishing and Pagan Mother Earth worship.
“Remember, most climate scientists agree ….”. Oh pleeeease, not that old 97% of scientists agree rubbish? Yes, 97% of a small number of so-called scientists who are already sold on man-made warming.
100% of “climate scientists” agree that they like the funding.
Grey still seems to accept that they are required.