Inconsequential I’d guess. The mass we’d be adding would be tiny in comparison to what the Sun physically loses every day. It loses over 350 billion tonnes a day.
Plus the Sun cant fuse heavy elements beyond Carbon (I think, might be Iron).
CO2 is not toxic, and by necessity, the carbon capture process for oil and gas ends up producing relatively clean CO2, not usably clean, but not radically more toxic than the ‘sour gas’ that entered the processing stage.
The problem with CCS is that it is expensive, and given the energy expenditure involved, there is little to no prospect of it becoming economically viable in the relevant time frame. What it does do is justify continued fossil fuel production through an indefinite ‘pilot and development’ stage. Logically akin to the ‘scientific whaling’ practiced by Japan and Iceland. where the research purpose is in fact to be allowed to continue whaling.
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Ah, OK thanks. So basically those countries proposing it are dickwads?
Australia and Saudi Arabia are 2 of them, so you could be partially right
As far as I can remember the energy required to launch anything into the sun is greater than that required to expel it from the solar system entirely. The problem of launching nuclear waste into space (regardless of destination) is the possibility of launch failure… With CO2 (or other greenhouse contributors), you would first have to “package” them and then launch them - to some location in Sol (presumably). Current launch costs would make that a terrible proposition and that is not even taking into account the “packaging” and the cost in terms of launch pollutants impact.
I would be in favour of biting the bullet and committing to greener energy options. Countries such as Saudi and Australia should have no problem with moving to wind, wave and solar - they are countries with very low population density and land and coast lines amenable to such energy generating options. Even the UK could and should move towards a completely no emissions from burning carbon fuels for things like travel and energy production - it should happen within my life time but it won’t. We are still trying for shale tech development and identifying new oil/gas fields…
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I don’t think there is anything wrong with continuing to research CCS, but it is absolutely clear that it will not scale in the costs and time frames necessary to allow the likes of Saudi Arabia and Australia to continue on their current export paths.
The cheapest possible CCS facility is attached to natural gas processing, where the source gas is fairly ‘sweet’ (low sulphur content). I was part of a group circa 2012 that looked at investing in such a project, and our calculation was we needed a carbon price of ~C$200/tonne to break even. A ‘sour’ gas source pushes that out to $250 or so, which is also about the cost for extracting CO2 from processing fairly pure crude, such as Saudi. Application to Canadian oilsands is above $300. Up at the top of the cost is application to coal-fired electrical generation - the CO2 stream is so dirty the performance hit to the Rankin process is huge, ~$400/tonne is required.
Now take that $400/tonne, and consider applying it to India. It is manifestly absurd, there are so many other lower cost options in the stack order as to make it irrelevant in practical terms.
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Isn’t the UK one of the world leaders in harnessing Wind energy? I think I read that it was expected to provide enough energy for 30 million homes by 2050. Main problem being that it’s fluctual and there’s not great energy storage technology, at least on such large scales as would be needed to play a significant part in our energy security.
We are low on the % of nuclear energy and that’s always been a tricky political issue. We also have less hydroelectric power capabilities compared with somewhere like France but even so I think we could do more there, particularly with tidal energy capture.
With drawing heat from the ground or air, if every house did it, would the ground/air not get cooler over time?
I would not call the UK a world leader, but definitely in the pack immediately behind with extensive wind energy developed now. Where it has lagged is precisely in the development of ancillary services (storage, peaking) necessary to allow higher intermittent renewable penetration, hence it struggling with percentages far below where Denmark is.
As far as the problem of drawing heat from ground or air, you have to think of it in mass balance terms. The air getting cooler over time would be no bad thing (that is, after all, the heart of the problem). But cooling the ground itself would take such an enormous load that the sum of human energy use in history would not equal measurement error. The density and therefore mass is so much higher than either atmosphere or ocean.
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Yes, we may be near the top of the league but my angst is that we do it quarter-heartedly and kicking and screaming at that. Why not just go all in and use it as a crutch to develop tech that we can then sell on for example. Yes, before you or someone dredges up an example, we do do it to an extent but we can be much more aligned to, for example, in using it to uplift regions of this country that are looking for possibilities.
It is similar in academia - we have fantastic institutions and capabilities and yet we rest on our laurels and do not go all in to maximise the possibilities. We are content with the low hanging fruit, i.e. farm countries desperate to educate their offspring (at an increasingly superficial level) rather than invest more heavily in the tech being developed or indeed in developing the UK.
Ah, I see that what I read was specific to offshore.
The UK is the world leader in offshore wind, with more capacity installed than any other country. Offshore wind powers over 7.5 million UK homes a year and is set to become the backbone of a clean, reliable and affordable energy system. By 2030, the UK will be getting about a third of its electricity from offshore wind.
For total wind energy we’re in about 5th or 6th it seems (Article is 2 years old)
I would not rank ‘leadership’ by total capacity, China and the US are the two largest economies in the world and the two largest wind generation, but the key metric to me is percentage of total generation. China is about 10%, the US about 8%. By that standard, the UK is well ahead with somewhere around 17% coming from wind.
In terms of offshore wind, the UK is definitely a leader by any measure, but it has not yet reached a scale where grid integration is the primary challenge - though recent events suggest it is coming close.
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I seem to remember that one of the limiting factors in expanding the construction of more wind farms is the number of technicians qualified to maintain and repair them. Presumably an obvious growth area for aspiring engineers?
Is this wind up?
This is so embarrassing . Take a look at this: https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1452892180301889538
Then look at this amazing spin designed to denigrate the subject of the interview:
Amazing. I knew the Daily Express was bad, but this is seriously just so wrong. The interviewer was the one who said something stupid, not the guy who answered well, being interviewed.
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This is his come back:
Worst come back since elements of the German 6th Army broke out of the encirclement around Stalingrad. Again, trying to make the subject of his interview seem “stupid”, when the radio host himself is coming across as an absolute imbecile (and worse, an asshole of gargantuan dimensions at that). He ought to be so incredibly ashamed of his behaviour. I am kind of lost for words at how much of an asshole this twat is.
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Love how the other guy took the Insulate Britain representative’s comment of “unfortunately” and basically interpreted it so as to direct his own insult at Mike Graham… “stupid, ridiculous face” 
Both idiots.
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I couldn’t watch anymore after about 30 seconds. This is horrible to watch. Concrete / cement production accounts for over 2% of all CO2 emissions worldwide. It’s continued use in its current form is a real problem and as a material it has some real issues in the way we’ve specified and used it in the past. These will come back and bite over the next few years / decades.
Talkradio is an abomination.
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I’d never heard of this Mike Graham before yesterday. What a cockhole.
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Talksport / Talkradio host for years. Entertaining like Goldbridge only without the charm.
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