Sequestering carbon dioxide

Some say the answer to global warming is to sequester carbon dioxide from power stations as it's burned. Even if this idea was technically practical, my opinion is that it's doomed to failure. The reason has little to do with technology and everything to do with human nature.

"If you have enough of anything, it's valuable"

The example on the right illustrates the point. To most people, manure is something to be removed as soon as possible. Very elaborate and expensive sewer systems have been constructed to remove this product. Yet other people have become rich selling manure. So, it's likely that sequestered carbon from coal fired power plants would present a similar opportunity.

Just as a manure vendor with a large amount of material will eventually find a market for that product, somebody will figure out a way to sell railway cars full of sequestered coal plant byproducts. Short term, the most likely market will be the U.S. government. It's yet another way for politicians to subsidize the fossil fuel industry while getting a re-election subsidy themselves. By the time the public realizes this, the U.S. government will likely have entered into multi-year contracts that will force the government to pay top dollar to transport the carbon to underground in former gas wells. But will that really solve the problem? It might be possible to economically transport the gas to an underground location and successfully contain the gas. It might even be efficient rather than having the problem of Ethanol where it takes nearly the same amount of energy put in as is released. However, assuming it was efficient and technically possible, there is another problem. There is more than one way for gas to escape.

The fact is, storage facilities might be able to be built to withstand the pressures of escaping gas but few systems can withstand government corruption! It's a good bet that this resource will simply be re-sold a few years later by private companies as is now being done with helium reserves. Unlike other coal fired waste products such as mercury or sulfur, carbon dioxide is non-toxic (in the same sense water is) and would be made relatively pure in the process of being compressed. This makes it an attractive resource to re-sell or even steal.

Due to this, it's likely that railway cars and trucks of this material will re-appear in the open market. If prices become low, percolating the last dregs out of tired oil wells becomes economical. If prices become still lower, I suspect entirely new uses will develop too. Perhaps inexpensive dry-ice powered camping refrigerators will appear in the market. Perhaps people will insist on auto tire inflation with dry CO2 just as some buy nitrogen tire fill-ups now. Compressed air engines may also appear on the market, fueled by inexpensive CO2. I know not the uses that will come into being if gas sequestering coal plants are built. However, human nature being what it is, I am relatively sure that zero profit geological formations will not be the final destination for most captured carbon dioxide.