#Blue planet carbon capture how to#

With any new technology, there is a lot of risk and Blue Planet’s technology is no different. There are simply a lot ways which projects fail - especially large, complex projects like the one in Pittsburg - which are difficult to imagine at the time of inception and many things have to go right in order for a project like this one to succeed. The planning fallacy especially comes to mind, meaning the combination of excessive and overconfidence, on the part of corporate executives. In this regard, Constantz contends that Blue Planet’s technology is scalable within a short time frame, by which he means five years, from start of permitting to having an operating plant which is fully operational.īeing a behavioral economist, I recognize that there are a lot of behavioral issues upon which to focus. Relative to potential, and the need to address the magnitude of climate change, this is a small amount. The power plant in Pittsburg produces 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

Success entails doing all of these things while being carbon negative, meaning taking into account the emissions associated with all of the energy required to conduct its business, Blue Planet prevents significantly more carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere than it adds from its activities.

Success entails doing all of this profitably, as a regular business where the activity of carbon capture and sequestration pays for itself. Success entails using the deep water port facility to transport finished aggregate to end use customers, mostly by water which reduces transportation costs. Success entails transporting the carbon dioxide from the power plant to Blue Planet’s pilot plant, so that the carbon dioxide can be mixed with water and calcium to produce synthetic limestone aggregate. Success entails being located at a deep water port, where large amounts of raw material, mostly old concrete, can be economically brought into the Blue Planet plant and treated to extract calcium. Success entails successfully capturing carbon dioxide from a Calpine natural gas fired power plant which provides electricity to San Francisco. Think about what happens if the Blue Planet pilot plant in Pittsburg succeeds. Limestone is calcium carbonate, which can be produced as a chemical combination of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and calcium.Ĭonstantz likes to point out that over 99.9% of all carbon on Earth resides in the limestone making up coral reefs, with the residual 0.1% residing in the atmosphere, non-reef component of the oceans, and biosphere. Thus far, corals do it successfully, and humans do not.

#Blue planet carbon capture how to#

Cement and coral reefs are both limestone, and therefore the issue involves how to make limestone in a way that does not produce large emissions of carbon dioxide. If successful, the firm claims that the end result is a double win: first, carbon dioxide from the production of energy is diverted from being emitted into the atmosphere, and is instead sequestered and second, the synthetic aggregate results in reduced emissions that would have been associated with the production of cement and concrete by conventional means.Īs for the cement, Brent Constantz has pioneered a way to manufacture cement which mimics the way that corals build reefs. Remember: 20Gt is about half of current annual emissions of CO 2.īlue Planet System’s idea is to capture carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other sources, and use the CO 2 to manufacture the aggregate which goes into making concrete. Instead of being emitted into the atmosphere, plausibly, this 20 Gt of carbon dioxide can be sequestered at the Earth’s surface. Globally, asphalt has about the same carbon dioxide content as concrete, and so the two together contain just over 20Gt of carbon dioxide.