Can you imagine that 600 million cars floating on the air around the earth every year? It has the same weight as the amount of carbon dioxide emitted on earth every year. It is unbelievable. Referring to the data collected in 2007 by Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC) for United Nations, 8.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide gases have been emitted through the burning of fossil fuels annually and it is believed to be increasing continuously in the following years. Regarding to this issue, Stephens (2006) concluded that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a feasible way to reduce pollution caused by coal-fired power generation in the world today. However, I do not agree with her that CCS is applicable to all countries, especially developing countries.
CCS is mainly about capturing carbon dioxide in a large quantity from power plants and storing it in order not to release it to the air. Basically, the technology comprises three parts: capture, transport and storage. However, these three parts require a large amount of capital and investments to operate separately and it certainly will become a great economic burden to a country, especially those in developing countries. “A new power plant costs 1.5 billion dollars to build, it will cost an extra 700,000 dollars to fit the capture equipment on the first experimental plants,” said Professor Haszeldine (Hilary & Ilana, 2008). The expenses of operating a CCS power plant can be increased by using chemical absorption and energy. Furthermore, transferring the gas by container or pipe to storage will add to a country’s financial burden as well. Rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars to pump tons of gases into the ground by using current CCS technology, why not research a better power generation method by using renewable energy?
Everything in this world has pros and cons; so does this technology. CCS gives rise to other environmental problems other than global warming. In fact, the most serious risk faced is the potential leakage of the pumped gas back into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide may be emitted to the air through abandoned wells and underground cracks or even released by natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanoes. In 1986, 1700 people died after a disaster where 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide were released from the lake into the ground in Cameroon (Alister, 2006). The gases can cause asphyxia as carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen in the air. Besides that, storing tons of carbon dioxide underground and in oceans may increase the acidification of soil and sea water, and as a result, the equilibrium of the ecosystem in soil and water will be affected.
In addition, even though the concept of CCS is gradually spread among all the countries, it has not been demonstrated on a large scale power plant today. The main reason is the overall operating costs are significantly high and thus developing countries are not able to support it in long term. Even if the United States government has planned the first large scale CCS project--FutureGen--it does not have a regulatory framework and clear incentives to invest (Stephens, 2006). The public seem likely to reject the idea of CCS based on the high costs instead of the critical leakage since the technology is not yet popular.
In conclusion, CCS can bring negative impact on people. It requires the cooperation and rapport between developing and developed countries in order to maximize its efficiency in the future. Also, it may not be realistic to invest a large amount of capital on CSS since there are a lot of other social problems to deal with, especially in a developing country. Thus, I believe that CCS is not the best way to solve the problem of global warming today.
References
Alister, D. (2006, July). Concerns rise about CO2 burial. Retrieved October 2,
2008, from http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1683532.htm
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre. (2008,October). Trends-emissions
Retrieved October 2, 2008, from ftp://cdiac.ornl.gov/pub/trends/co2_emis/Preliminary_CO2_Emisions_2006_2007.xls
Hilary, W., & Ilana, H. (2008, August). Carbon capture and storage: How does it
work? Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/29/carbon.capture/index.html
Stephens, J.C. (2006). CCS: Research is not enough. In The world energy book. London: World Energy Council.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
...
I'll just suggest how the first para should look like:
"Can you imagine the weight 600 million cars floating in the earth's atmosphere every year? The annual global CO2 emissions has the weight equivalent of that. According to the data collected in 2007 by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC) for the United Nations, 8.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide gases have been emitted through the burning of fossil fuels annually and it is expected to increase continuously in the future. Regarding this issue, Stephens (2006) concluded that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a feasible way to reduce pollution caused by coal-fired power generators in the world today. However, I do not agree that CCS is applicable to all countries, especially developing nations. "
But then again, i don't know exactly what your assignment title or requirement is, so please use your wise discretion while applying any changes.
And usually in reports or scientific writing, we do not use rhetorical questions. But i think your essay looks more like a personal response, right?
You'd better look for someone to go through it, No kidding!
Good luck with the assignment!
YunKit :)
Although it might be inappropriate, I would say it is nicely inserted as the opening and people can start imagining what the whole essay will touch about. But you must check if you can do that like what Yunkit said. Anyway, the essay is mainly informative and well done!!
Post a Comment