Carbon Capture, Carbon Sequestration, and Carbon Tax

“And the planet is certainly warming. Humans releasing trapping gases into the atmosphere are almost certainly responsible for much, if not all, of that warming; the particular patterns of warming, comparison to the historical record, and the basic precepts of physics all indicate this.” (Op-ed, Washington Post, July 18, 2012) How can one argue with such non-scientific liberal thinking, backed up by “basic precepts of physics?” Science is not “almost certainly,” science has to be factual and exact. If you search, “basic precepts of physics,” you realize that the above statement is shameless and worthless propaganda. How do environmentalists explain that on June 27, 2012, 116 cities from Montana to Florida measured record low temperatures? Orlando measured 64 degrees overnight, the lowest since 1920. June 1933 was much hotter than June 2012 although atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration was less than it is today. U.S. has 2 percent of the Earth’s surface (3.8 million square miles) and it “does not indicate temperature patterns elsewhere.”(The Washington Times, July 16, 2012)

What are Americans to do when they suffer the next heat wave? Should they pay a tax to the United Nations and its third world dictatorships for breathing and economically existing? Would that fix the heat wave in the northeastern U.S. and prevent others? Washington Post advises, in a typical narcissistic liberal view (humans are gods who can control and affect the weather and planetary moves in the universe), that the heat wave should “spur Americans to demand action from their leaders.” The article does not suggest what action we should demand from our leaders, but I am interpreting this to be CCS, carbon taxes, UN Agenda 21, and a return to a primitive lifestyle devoid of industry, electricity, modern conveniences, A/C, cars, and mobility, a world in which only the elites can pollute with their jets and lavish lifestyles. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) traps and stores underground CO2, preventing it from reaching the atmosphere. Electricity-generating plants are the first candidates for CCS. According to the Congressional Research Service report on carbon capture, “Electricity generation contributes over 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Currently, U.S. power plants do not capture large volumes of CO2 for CCS.” (Peter Folger, Carbon Capture and Sequestration: A Primer, May 14, 2012) CCS has three steps:

1. Capture and separate CO2 from other gases
2. Purifying, compressing, and transporting the captured CO2 to the sequestration site
3. Injecting the CO2 in subsurface geological reservoirs or storing it in the oceans

The above process is expensive and uses more energy. Who will decide where compressed and purified CO2 is stored and is it safe? What Pandora’s Box might be opened? The oil and gas industry in the U.S. already injects 50 million tons of CO2 underground yearly for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, doing it on the mammoth proposed scale to the tune of billions of tons yearly and keeping the CO2 trapped there indefinitely, may be a problem, expensive, and not such a good idea. CCS would require significant investments of capital (network of pipeline). Peter Folger said, “Time would be required to assess the potential CO2 storage reservoir, inject the captured CO2, and monitor the injected plume to ensure against leaks to the atmosphere or to underground sources of drinking water, potentially for years or decades until injection activities cease and the injected plume stabilizes.” (CRS, May 14, 2012) The proposed sites for storage are oil and gas reservoirs, deep saline reservoirs, and un-mineable coal seams. Deep ocean injection of CO2 is controversial because of mineral carbonation, reacting minerals with a stream of concentrated CO2, which form a solid carbonate. Peter Folger admits, “Acceptance by the general public of large-scale deployment of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) may be a significant challenge.” I hope the public will become aware of this new experimentation on their environment and the possible adverse effects of concentrated CO2 injection tests in their local communities. Lucky for us, “To date, there are no commercial ventures in the U.S. to capture, transport, and inject industrial-scale quantities of CO2 solely for the purposes of carbon sequestration.” However, Congress has appropriated $6 billion since 2008 for CCS research and development at the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy, $2.3 billion through annual appropriations and $3.4 billion through President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (Congressional Report Service, April 23, 2012) The research and development of CCS may speed up since EPA proposed a new rule on March 27, 2012 to limit emissions to no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt-hour of production from new fossil-fuel power plants with a capacity of 25 megawatts or larger under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. The air would be clean but the underground, water tables, and the ocean would be infused with massive quantities of compressed and purified CO2. (CRS, April 23, 2012) The proponents of global warming/climate change are quite powerful, political or politically connected, and overflowing with cash. Rachel Swaffer wrote about the left’s environmental extremists as political goliaths.”The constant careening from environment disaster to environmental disaster allows these very prophets of global doom to raise even more funds to promote their latest scare.” (NetRightDaily.com, July 2012) Corporate oil interests have spent on the average $12.5 million a year on political activism while environmentalists and other greenies have received mammoth donations from Hewlett Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, Tides, and Sierra Club. The top 30 environmentalist groups donated close to $287 million in 2010 alone to promote climate change education, UN Agenda 21, sustainable growth, and renewable energy. (Rachel Swaffer, writer for Americans for Limited Government, in NetRightDaily.com, July 2012) The US Air Force is going to spend $59 per gallon of green biofuel and the Navy will spend $56 per gallon. The justification is that “alternatives” to traditional fuel will be needed in the future if United States would be unable to produce or import petroleum. Such worry is not unjustified since our President has promised, early in his campaign, that he will bankrupt the coal industry and cause electricity prices to skyrocket by directing the EPA to reduce drastically or rescind permits for drilling, shale oil and shale gas exploration, and requiring onerous new regulatory guidelines for both coal and oil industries. The moratorium on domestic drilling in the Gulf of Mexico under the guise of saving humans from potential oil spills such as the BP disaster was the “piece de resistance.” Meanwhile foreign companies were allowed to drill even deeper than BP had. A House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing in Abingdon, VA on July 16, 2012. Dozens of coal miners who packed the room complained about President Obama’s “war on coal.” Excessive regulations on energy plants will raise energy costs for all sectors of the economy. The loss of so many jobs and private household bankruptcies will destroy the U.S. President Obama supports an “all of the above” energy policy as stated in January this year, yet the policy does not include fossil fuels. (Joe Gary Street, Vice President of Sales for West River Conveyors and Machinery Co.) President Obama’s administration proposed a de facto ban on the construction of new coal-fired power plants. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 2401 (Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN Act) that “would put a stop to the new rule and require a study of the cumulative impacts of several Obama administration regulations on jobs, energy prices, and electric reliability.” (Katie Boyd, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, July 17, 2012) “Citing mercury and air pollution, the EPA ordered businesses to install the MACT (Maximum Achievable Control Technology) to control emissions from their plants.” EPA estimates the rule to cost $9.6 billion annually, to be paid by utilities and customers alike for new equipment, monitoring and reporting, loss of generating capacity, and higher electricity rates. Energy insiders say that it is a low estimate of the cost.” (Amy Payne, Heritage Insider, June 20, 2012) According to Matthew L. Wald of the New York Times, EPA required oil companies to pay $6.8 billion in fines and even higher fines in 2012 to the Treasury for failing to “mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel.” This synthetic ingredient called “cellulosic biofuel” only exists in a few laboratories around the country. In 2011, refineries were required to blend 6.6 million gallons of “cellulosic biofuel” into gasoline and diesel and 8.65 million gallons in 2012. (Becket Adams, Fire Blaze, January 11, 2012) North Dakota is currently thriving, with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, thanks to oil shale exploration (fracking), unless the EPA will step in to stop them with possible new regulations. A Washington Post headline was boldly declaring in July 2012, “Scientists link monster fires in Colorado to climate change.” Somewhere in the middle of the article the author says, “Scientists do not have the data to link climate change to Colorado’s decreased snow and rain. Why then claim that they are linked, for deception and to sell newspapers? “But climate change has been linked [Where? By whom?] to warmer temperatures that cause snow to melt earlier and rain to evaporate faster, parching the land, contributing to drought and drying out the vegetation that can fuel fires, said John Nielson-Gammon.” (Darryl Fears, Washington Post, July 2012) Dr. Robert Zubrin, author of “Merchants of Despair,” attributed the recent Colorado fires to the western pine beetle that decimated 6 million acres of forest. The fact that environmentalists forbade logging and thinning of forests facilitated the burning of millions of dead trees and the rapid fire spread over large areas. According to Dr. Zubrin, the western pine beetle has destroyed twice as much forest surface as the 3 million acres logged in the Amazon forest. He calls the environmentalist disinformation agenda, the “antihumanism” movement. (Interview on Savage Nation in July 2012) Carbon tax or a “national energy tax,” the replacement of the failed cap-and-trade tax system defeated in 2009-2010, was discussed in a left and right wing coalition meeting last week at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in D.C. Marlo Lewis called the coalition the “carbon tax cabal.” Daniel Wiser made several points in the Washington Times why a carbon tax is a bad idea.

• It cannot be revenue neutral since it can be raised any time
• Poor people spend a higher percentage of their incomes on energy, thus are taxed more
• A carbon tax would not reduce fuel consumption unless it is high like Europe, $5 per gallon; coal would then cost $500 per ton instead of the current $65 per ton

The carbon tax as an alternative to onerous regulations is still a tax we do not need to pay. Using the hot weather to promote faux manmade global warming agenda in order to empower elites to collect more undeserved taxes is a farce. The government must learn to live within its means and stop spending so much money we do not have. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in March 2012 that long-term weather trends “have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change.”