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How effective is carbon capture? Are we talking 30% less carbon? 99% less carbon? somewhere in the middle? How much cost does it add to a typical coal plant? H

How effective is carbon capture? Are we talking 30% less carbon? 99% less carbon? somewhere in the middle? How much cost does it add to a typical coal plant? How does that compare to new solar installations? Is carbon capture tech renewable? I.e. does it depend on some finite chemical material? Is carbon capture feasible in smaller scales? E.g. can we stick a carbon capture system on a car?

semi-extrinsic 9y ago
> How effective is carbon capture? Are we talking 30% less carbon? 99% less carbon? somewhere in the middle? Usually this is something you can tune to optimize your total system and the cost of capture. But typical requirements are >90% CO2 captured, often you see >95% or even 99%. > How much cost does it add to a typical coal plant? How does that compare to new solar installations? IIRC the target for something like a coal plant is getting below $100 total cost per ton of CO2 captured, transported and stored. Usually that's calculated summing up CAPEX paid down over some time span, plus OPEX, plus the price you pay someone else for taking the CO2 and storing it. To put that into perspective, if you pass this cost directly on to the consumer, it would correspond to almost doubling the price of electricity. Usually some form of government subsidy accounts for this price increase. > Is carbon capture tech renewable? I.e. does it depend on some finite chemical material? Depends very much on the tech. Broadly, we can split into four categories: solvent-based, adsorbent-based, membrane-based and liquefaction-based. E.g. for membranes for H2/CO2 separation, palladium is a key ingredient, which is hardly renewable (but we're not exactly running out tomorrow). > Is carbon capture feasible in smaller scales? E.g. can we stick a carbon capture system on a car? On a car? No. I've heard it discussed for diesel locomotives, anything smaller than that your CAPEX and OPEX are so high it makes much more sense to either go electric, or do "pre-combustion" capture, such as converting natural gas into CO2/H2 in a big plant and separating out CO2 while distributing H2 for use in cars.

semi-extrinsic 9y ago

> How effective is carbon capture? Are we talking 30% less carbon? 99% less carbon? somewhere in the middle? Usually this is something you can tune to optimize your total system and the cost of capture. But typical requirements are >90% CO2 captured, often you see >95% or even 99%. > How much cost does it add to a typical coal plant? How does that compare to new solar installations? IIRC the target for something like a coal plant is getting below $100 total cost per ton of CO2 captured, transported and stored. Usually that's calculated summing up CAPEX paid down over some time span, plus OPEX, plus the price you pay someone else for taking the CO2 and storing it. To put that into perspective, if you pass this cost directly on to the consumer, it would correspond to almost doubling the price of electricity. Usually some form of government subsidy accounts for this price increase. > Is carbon capture tech renewable? I.e. does it depend on some finite chemical material? Depends very much on the tech. Broadly, we can split into four categories: solvent-based, adsorbent-based, membrane-based and liquefaction-based. E.g. for membranes for H2/CO2 separation, palladium is a key ingredient, which is hardly renewable (but we're not exactly running out tomorrow). > Is carbon capture feasible in smaller scales? E.g. can we stick a carbon capture system on a car? On a car? No. I've heard it discussed for diesel locomotives, anything smaller than that your CAPEX and OPEX are so high it makes much more sense to either go electric, or do "pre-combustion" capture, such as converting natural gas into CO2/H2 in a big plant and separating out CO2 while distributing H2 for use in cars.