goverment kills yet another good idea

[bob golding]

heard about this on the radio today. seems the uk goverment cant decide what to support. this is on the same day as they say we need more nuclear power stations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/6686823.stm

seems they dont want to  give BP a monopoly. why not? they seem to  be at least trying to do the right thing.

cheers

bob golding

[Jon Miller]

The Government are duty bound apparently to look at other projects.  Im not really to sure why the government well Mr Darling has decided to not back this project, seems like they are doing everything to justify building more nuclear power stations.  

The Government in the UK as you say Bob have done a u turn, the energy review only in July 2006 has one of its prime targets of reducing Carbon Dioxide by 60% by 2050 and they have just dropped support for the only project in the country.  No private investor is going to invest in carbon capture if the likes of BP can't even make it.

The Severn barrage scheme has been looked at and suggested again and that would take 11 years to build, nut supply 5% of the UK's energy.  But ecologist are moaning about birds and fish and bugs again, why they don't see that if we have power cuts venerable people will die.

Whish they would make up there mind and stick with it, two reviews in under a year and the stern report and they all promote different technologies.

Im watching this space.

[finnsawyer]

Right now BP has egg on its corporate face in the U.S.  They had been negligent in the maintenance of pipelines on Alaska's North Slope, which resulted in a shut down of production.  I would currently take anything they propose with some skepticism.  Why can't they do their job properly now?

[bob golding]

yep i agree BP are no better than exxon mobile shell or any of the other big oil companies. they also have the texas city explosion as well as the north ridge problem. its just that this scheme seems to be the only serious attempt by any of them to try and do  anything at all about carbon capture on anything but a pilot scale. i am no fan of big oil just pointing out that they have at least given the  project some thought so goverments should at least give them a chance to try it. otherwise everything politicians say is just more green wash,as if we didnt know that already. if  politicians are duty bound to put everything out to tender the whole thing will grind to a halt as no one will see any reason to even put in a tender. nuclear is only a short term solultion as the world supply of uranium will only last another 60 years or so. 10 years to build the plants at least, more like 15 i expect so 40/50 years output then a whole lot of  radio active waste to nurse for god knows how long. And i am not a treehugging anti nuke person. just  cant see it being a good use of resources or technology. in a nutshell its expensive short term and leaves a lot of mess for some else to clean up afterwards. all that expertise and money could be put to much better uses in my opinion.

cheers

bob golding

[finnsawyer]

It seems to me this is actually being done here in the U.S.  The CO2 is taken from a coal fired plant and pumped into an old oil field to increase production of oil.  Of course, I may just be hallucinating.

[jimjjnn]

Geo M. You are correct. I believe the Rangely Oilfield in western Colorado is using CO2 in their wells and have been for a number of years

[bob golding]

maybe someone should point this out to mr darling as he doesnt seem to be too sure it will work by the looks of it. i suspect the nuclear option is more to do with keeping sellafield open but i have no evidence of that. BNFL or whatever thay are called nowadays have had a lot of goverment investment over the years so they must try and justify it. plus 10000 jobs. they cant just close it down due to all that radio-active waste sitting there cooking. not that oak ridge is any better out from what i read in new scientist a few weeks ago. when they come up with a good answer to the waste problem i might listen to the auguments for  nuclear power stations. yes they are better than they used to be but the waste problem is still there. will shut up about it now honest:-))

bob golding

[radiantboy]

BP now stands for "Beyond Pipes"; not "Beyond Petroleum"

[stop4stuff]

Where would the hydrogen have come from?

Natural gas!!!

Why BP are pulling out!

Because they wanted to use the CO2 given off when extracting hydrogen from natural gas to enrich their north sea oil fields... & time ran out for them!

Would BP have been using fuel cells (90%+ eff)?

No hydrogen would have be burned in a gas fired power plant (co-gen-ish system 50%ish eff)

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=97&contentId=7006978

I'm glad this hydrogen scheme has failed!