Rotterdam offers burial at sea for greenhouse gases

[Mark]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-enviro ... KKCN0ZZ1K4

A scheme to collect millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases and bury them under the North Sea off the coast of Rotterdam is Europe's best hope of showing it can make carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology work. Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, is the home to the sole survivor of a dozen European Union pilot plans to test CCS technology that has been thwarted by years of false starts. Fossil fuel and mining firms need to make CCS work if they are to avoid being left with "stranded assets", or energy resources whose value has to be written off because they fail to meet regulatory rules. Scientists say the technology is essential if the world is to meet targets to curb global warming because fossil fuels cannot be phased out quickly enough.

However, industry has so far been reluctant to pay upfront costs to get the technology running. But that mood is changing as industry concedes that CCS is cheaper than abandoning assets and as political pressure grows following December's Paris Agreement on climate change. Political backing is particularly strong in the Netherlands following a court ruling that it must act faster to cut greenhouse gases. "We are extremely positive it will materialize," Allard Castelein, chief executive of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, told Reuters, adding he expected a final investment decision on the 500 million euro ($555 million) project this year. "If there's one port anywhere where this should be achieved, it should be Rotterdam."

Continues....

[emordnilap]

And the fuel used to pump the CO2 back into the oilfields?

And the oil thus extracted by pumping the CO2 in?

There's an easier way. Stop producing CO2.

[Mark]

There's an easier way. Stop producing CO2.

Like many of your 'solutions', this isn't at all practical in today's world....
The best we can hope for is to reduce GHGs, but even that will be very difficult....

A better solution would be to find other uses for CO2....
For example: http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/201 ... lyol-plant

[woodburner]

I agree. Technological solutions are often backed by a vested interest that has little concern for the secondary problems they cause.

[Mark]

I agree. Technological solutions are often backed by a vested interest that has little concern for the secondary problems they cause.

So we just stop producing CO2 tomorrow....?
All 7.4 billion people and counting....??
The majority of whom aspire to eat meat, drive a car, buy a fridge/TV/computer,....... ???
Like the meat we eat, the car we drive, the fridge/TV/computer we have....????

[woodburner]

Being silly about it does not stop technology having problems that sometimes are as large, or larger than the problem they purport to solve. Everyone wants to carry on doing what they do and expect "technology" to provide a fix. Well, all technology has ever done has made whatever problem worse.

Loads of people used to die young from all manner of maladies. Bring in technological solutions, more people live, and the problem gets bigger. Food gets short, and 50 years ago there looked to be a probablity of world starvation, enter a new breed of wheat with a much higher yeild, and so people got fed, the problem got bigger.

Meanwhile while humans are increasing to plague proportions, all the other species are squeezed out of their spaces. This means the life systems which existed, and are just as necessary for humans in the long term, are broken, so the problem gets bigger.

We are at the point that antibiotics are no longer effective against some diseases. This may be the thing that drastically reduces the population.

As an aside, glyphosate is used by every non thinking grower, little do they understand it is yet another antibiotic. It was designed to block the nutrient pathway in plants, and was said to be safe for animals because they don't have the same pathway. Maybe not, but their gut bacteria and soil bacteria do, and they are killed just as the plants are, hence the antibiotic action.

[Little John]

Agree with all of that WB.

The only "solution" is if something stops us in a our track. Because we are quite clearly incapable, as a species, of doing it of our own accord. Collapse is coming and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop it. So, bring it on. The sooner the better because that way, we will do less damage than if we keep putting it off till tomorrow with one form of techno-fix or another

[Mark]

Well, all technology has ever done has made whatever problem worse.

Worse for whom ?
I would argue that technology has, over the centuries (very generally) made the life of the ordinary person much easier/longer/happier...
However, the loser has been the eco-system and other species....

As you say, we've now increased to plague proportions...
So, do we need a drastic reduction in population to save the remaining eco-system ?
Or, do we need a drastic reduction in population to make life sustainable for the remaining humans, who would then increase again ?

Technology could easily provide solutions for drastic population reduction.....
But would society sanction their use.....??

[snow hope]

Technology could easily provide solutions for drastic population reduction.....
But would society sanction their use.....??

I suspect some world leaders or more appropriately TPTB are seriously considering this....

[woodburner]

Well, all technology has ever done has made whatever problem worse.

Worse for whom ?
I would argue that technology has, over the centuries (very generally) made the life of the ordinary person much easier/longer/happier...
However, the loser has been the eco-system and other species....

As you say, we've now increased to plague proportions...
So, do we need a drastic reduction in population to save the remaining eco-system ?
Or, do we need a drastic reduction in population to make life sustainable for the remaining humans, who would then increase again ?

Technology could easily provide solutions for drastic population reduction.....
But would society sanction their use.....??

Worse for all earthlings.

We will get a catastrophic reduction sooner or later. Every species who outstrips its resources suffers the same fate eventually.

Snow hope, I doubt world leaders thoughts are worth much. They had the chance to control population in the 1960s, and they cocked that up when the "do gooders" stuck their finger in the pie. All world leaders are interested in is money and power, and the quick way to get it is to have an increasing population. They can't contemplate living any other way.

Society certainly wouldn't sanction the technology solution use, most people don't accept there is a problem as it is.

[Little John]

.....I would argue that technology has, over the centuries (very generally) made the life of the ordinary person much easier/longer/happier...

Has it?

Do you know how many people were starving in the world, say, 10,000 years ago as compared to today? I think the almost certain answer to that is it would have been far fewer. Ditto for "happier" whatever that actually means. As for longer, this is also largely numerically untrue or is, at least, very misleading. As before, I would suggest that there are far more people living short miserable lives now than 10,000 years ago. Secondly, even where lives (in the West) have been shown to be "extended", this is not as simple a statement as it seems. In medieval England, the mean average life expectancy was much lower than today. However, this was arguably due to high infant mortality. There are studies that show that when this infant mortality is factored out, the average lifespan of someone from medieval times and now are not so different. and, where there is a difference, it is made up of a final few years of senility and general ill health.

[vtsnowedin]

.....I would argue that technology has, over the centuries (very generally) made the life of the ordinary person much easier/longer/happier...

Has it?

Do you know how many people were starving in the world, say, 10,000 years ago as compared to today? I think the almost certain answer to that is it would have been far fewer. Ditto for "happier" whatever that actually means. As for longer, this is also largely numerically untrue or is, at least, very misleading. As before, I would suggest that there are far more people living short miserable lives now than 10,000 years ago. Secondly, even where lives (in the West) have been shown to be "extended", this is not as simple a statement as it seems. In medieval England, the mean average life expectancy was much lower than today. However, this was arguably due to high infant mortality. There are studies that show that when this infant mortality is factored out, the average lifespan of someone from medieval times and now are not so different. and, where there is a difference, it is made up of a final few years of senility and general ill health.

I can't agree with you there. Just modern dentistry has made our middle age and final years much healthier and access to modern health care and drugs means we fully recover from injuries and disease and move on. In the middle ages and before an abscessed tooth or a broken arm were life changing events and sometimes fatal. I believe one of the ancient Egyptian mummies of a queen has been diagnosed as having died from an abscessed tooth somewhere in her forties.

[Mark]

Well, all technology has ever done has made whatever problem worse.

Worse for whom ?

Worse for all earthlings.

We're worse off with modern healthcare, transport, communication, labour saving appliances, etc. etc. ???
I agree that everyone doesn't have equal access to these things, but those without them are certainly striving to get them......
Makes you think that they must be worth having.., no ?

[woodburner]

.....I would argue that technology has, over the centuries (very generally) made the life of the ordinary person much easier/longer/happier...

Has it?

Do you know how many people were starving in the world, say, 10,000 years ago as compared to today? I think the almost certain answer to that is it would have been far fewer. Ditto for "happier" whatever that actually means. As for longer, this is also largely numerically untrue or is, at least, very misleading. As before, I would suggest that there are far more people living short miserable lives now than 10,000 years ago. Secondly, even where lives (in the West) have been shown to be "extended", this is not as simple a statement as it seems. In medieval England, the mean average life expectancy was much lower than today. However, this was arguably due to high infant mortality. There are studies that show that when this infant mortality is factored out, the average lifespan of someone from medieval times and now are not so different. and, where there is a difference, it is made up of a final few years of senility and general ill health.

I can't agree with you there. Just modern dentistry has made our middle age and final years much healthier and access to modern health care and drugs means we fully recover from injuries and disease and move on. In the middle ages and before an abscessed tooth or a broken arm were life changing events and sometimes fatal. I believe one of the ancient Egyptian mummies of a queen has been diagnosed as having died from an abscessed tooth somewhere in her forties.

You should read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price. I have referred to this book recently on PS, on several occasions. Weston Price was a dentist from the US who travelled the world in the 1930s looking at peoples who had not been influenced (much) by modern refined carbohydrates. He found by and large that dental caries occurred at a rate of arount 0.4%. When the "white man's food" was introduced this went to 40% and more. One of the first places he wrote about was the Loeshental valley in Switzerland. It had a population of about 2000 and didn't have a doctor or a dentist, there was no work for them. The people were healthy and fit and ate cheese, rye bread, a few vegetables, and meat once a week. There are other peoples that were remote at the time of writing who were healthy, but this all changed when the "western" merchants and do gooder idiots turned up with their modern diet.

The point is, if people ate proper nutritious food then we wouldn't need all the profit mongers that provide treatments, but never a cure.

Read the book, it is a real eye opener and a joy to read.

[woodburner]

Worse for whom ?

Worse for all earthlings.

We're worse off with modern healthcare, transport, communication, labour saving appliances, etc. etc. ???
I agree that everyone doesn't have equal access to these things, but those without them are certainly striving to get them......
Makes you think that they must be worth having.., no ?

My reply above applies to to this one too. Modern "healthcare", it's there to make money, not to help people. What would you rather have, good health or lots of treatments?