2GreenEnergy super-supporter Gary Tulie sent me this piece on carbon capture and storage for my review. The basic story line is that CO2 can be taken out of the exhaust steam from fossil power plants, compressed to form a liquid, and used as the fluid medium (replacing water) to extract geothermal energy from beneath the surface of the Earth. As it turns out, liquid CO2 has several distinct advantages over water in terms of efficiencies in collecting and distributing heat.
So far so good. In fact, this whole idea may be nothing but good–though I doubt it. Obviously, the whole idea turns on the notion that our 500 existing coal and natural gas power plants are geographically near geothermal energy reserves. If this turns out to be true, it will be a happy accident, but there’s no reason to believe that this will be the case. In fact, power plants are built near oceans and rivers, as they need water for cooling. But most geothermal reserves in the U.S. are in California and Nevada, where rivers are virtually nonexistent.
We also need to keep in mind that what we need is not just clean energy; it’s cheap clean energy. It’s impossible for me to estimate the additional cost associated with the capital equipment, installation, well-drilling, and maintenance associated with this idea, but I can’t imagine that it will be cost-effective.
Perhaps my go-to guy on ideas like this, senior energy analyst Glenn Doty (pictured above), will weigh in on this.
