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Abstract: Over the course of this coming century, global electricity use is expected to grow at least five fold and if stringent greenhouse gas emissions controls are in place the growth could be more than seven fold from current levels. Given that the electric power sector represents the second largest industrial use of water and given growing concerns about the nature and extent of future water scarcity driven by population growth and a changing climate, significant concern has been expressed about the electricity sector's use of water going forward. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that an often overlooked but absolutely critical issue that needs to be taken into account in discussions about the sustainability of the electric sector's water use going forward is the tremendous turn over in electricity capital stock that will occur over the course of this century; i.e., in the scenarios examined here more than 80% of global electricity production in the year 2050 is from facilities that have not yet been built. The authors show that because of the large scale changes in the global electricity system, the water withdrawal intensity of electricity production is likely to drop precipitously with the result being relatively constant water withdrawals over the course of the century even in the face of the large growth in electricity usage. The ability to cost effectively reduce the water intensity of power plants with carbon dioxide capture and storage systems in particular is key to constraining overall global water use. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Stakeholder involvement (SI) can include many activities, from providing information on a website to one-on-one conversations with people confronting an issue in their community. For carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), there are now quite a few surveys of public attitudes towards CCS that are being used to inform the design of SI efforts. These surveys, focused on the nascent commercial deployment of CCS technologies, have demonstrated that the general public has little knowledge about CCS—yet the surveys go on to collect what are known as “pseudo opinions” or “non-attitudes” of respondents who know little or nothing about CCS. Beyond establishing the lack of knowledge about CCS, the results of these surveys should not be relied upon by the larger CCS community and public and private decision makers to inform the critical task of implementing and executing SI activities. The paper discusses the issues involved in providing information as part of the survey, maintaining that such information is never unbiased and thus tends to produce pseudo opinions that reflect the pollster''s or researcher''s bias. Other content and methodological issues are discussed, leading to the conclusion that most of the survey results should be used neither as a gauge of public attitudes nor as an indication of public acceptance. Then the framing of SI in CCS is examined, including the assumptions that clear stakeholder acceptance is a realistic goal and that the public has a decisive say in choosing the energy technologies of the present and the future. Finally, a broader suite of SI activities is recommended as more suited to realistic and contextual goals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores how the widely held public policy view of the evolution of the risk profile associated with geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage profoundly influences the public policy dialogue about how to best address the long-term risk profile for geologic storage. Evidence emerging from research and pilot scale field demonstrations of CO2 storage demonstrates that, with proper site characterization and sound operating practices, retention of stored CO2 will increase with time thus invalidating the premise of an ever growing risk. The authors focus on key issues of fit, interplay, and scalability associated with the ability of a trust fund funded by a hypothetical $1 per tonCO2 tipping fee for each ton of CO2 stored in the United States under WRE450 and WRE550 climate policies to manage such risks in an economically efficient and environmentally effective manner. The authors conclude there is no intrinsic value – in terms of risk management or risk reduction – in creating a trust fund predicated solely on collecting a universally applied tipping fee that does not take into account site-specific risk profiles. If left to grow unchecked, a trust fund that is predicated on a constant stream of payments unrelated to each contributing site''s risk profile could result in the accumulation of hundreds of billions to more than a trillion dollars contributing to significant opportunity cost of capital. Further, rather than mitigating the financial consequences of long-term CCS risks, this analysis suggests a blanket $1 per tonCO2 tipping fee, if combined with a concomitant limitation of liability may increase the probability and frequency of long-term risk by eliminating financial incentives for sound operating behavior and site selection criteria—contribute to moral hazard. At a minimum, effective use of a trust fund requires: (1) strong oversight regarding site selection and fund management, and (2) a clear process by which the fund is periodically valued and funds collected are mapped to the risk profile of the pool of covered CCS sites. Without appropriate checks and balances, there is no a priori reason to believe that the amount of funds held in trust will map to the actual amount of funds needed to address long-term care expenses and delimited compensatory damages. For this reason, the authors conclude that financing a trust fund or other risk management instrument should be based on a site delimited estimate of potential future expected financial consequences rather than on the random adoption of a fixed funding stream, e.g., a blanket $1 per ton, because it “sounds” reasonable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have the potential to be an economic means of reducing direct (or tailpipe) carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the transportation sector. However, without a climate policy that places a limit on CO2 emissions from the electric generation sector, the net impact of widespread deployment of PHEVs on overall U.S. CO2 emissions is not as clear. A comprehensive analysis must consider jointly the transportation and electricity sectors, along with feedbacks to the rest of the energy system. In this paper, we use the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory''s MiniCAM model to perform an integrated economic analysis of the penetration of PHEVs and the resulting impact on total U.S. CO2 emissions. In MiniCAM, the deployment of PHEVs (or any technology) is determined based on its relative economics compared to all other methods of providing fuels and energy carriers to serve passenger transportation demands. Under the assumptions used in this analysis where PHEVs obtain 50–60% of the market for passenger automobiles and light-duty trucks, the ability to deploy PHEVs under the two climate policies modelled here results in over 400 million tons (MT) CO2 per year of additional cost-effective emissions reductions from the U.S. economy by 2050. In addition to investments in nuclear and renewables, one of the key technology options for mitigating emissions in the electric sector is CO2 capture and storage (CCS). The additional demand for geologic CO2 storage created by the introduction of the PHEVs is relatively modest: approximately equal to the cumulative geologic CO2 storage demanded by two to three large 1000megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plants using CCS over a 50-year period. The introduction of PHEVs into the U.S. transportation sector, coupled with climate policies such as those examined here, could also reduce U.S. demand for oil by 20–30% by 2050 compared to today''s levels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Desires to enhance the energy security of the United States have spurred renewed interest in the development of abundant domestic heavy hydrocarbon resources including oil shale and coal to produce unconventional liquid fuels to supplement conventional oil supplies. However, the production processes for these unconventional fossil fuels create large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) and this remains one of the key arguments against such development. Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies could reduce these emissions and preliminary analysis of regional CO2 storage capacity in locations where such facilities might be sited within the U.S. indicates that there appears to be sufficient storage capacity, primarily in deep saline formations, to accommodate the CO2 from these industries. Nevertheless, even assuming wide-scale availability of cost-effective CO2 capture and geologic storage resources, the emergence of a domestic U.S. oil shale or coal-to-liquids (CTL) industry would be responsible for significant increases in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The authors present modeling results of two future hypothetical climate policy scenarios that indicate that the oil shale production facilities required to produce 3MMB/d from the Eocene Green River Formation of the western U.S. using an in situ retorting process would result in net emissions to the atmosphere of between 3000 and 7000MtCO2, in addition to storing potentially 900–5000MtCO2 in regional deep geologic formations via CCS in the period up to 2050. A similarly sized, but geographically more dispersed domestic CTL industry could result in 4000–5000MtCO2 emitted to the atmosphere in addition to potentially 21,000–22,000MtCO2 stored in regional deep geologic formations over the same period. While this analysis shows that there is likely adequate CO2 storage capacity in the regions where these technologies are likely to deploy, the reliance by these industries on large-scale CCS could result in an accelerated rate of utilization of the nation''s CO2 storage resource, leaving less high-quality storage capacity for other carbon-producing industries including electric power generation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the mismatch between the widely held public policy view of the long-term risk profile for carbon dioxide (CO2) storage with the emerging science and engineering of CO2 storage. We review the key issues of fit, interplay, and scalability associated with a trust fund funded by a hypothetical $ 1/ton CO2 tipping fee for each ton of CO2 stored in the United States under WRE450 and WRE550 climate policies. Left to grow unchecked, this hypothetical tipping fee fund would accumulate hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars before it would be expected to pay out claims caused by potential damage arising from CO2 storage. The authors conclude there is no intrinsic value in creating a trust fund predicated solely on collecting a tipping fee. Rather than mitigating the financial consequences of long-term CCS risks, this analysis suggests a blanket $ 1/ton CO2 tipping fee may increase the probability and frequency of long-term risk by eliminating financial incentives for sound operating behavior and site selection criteria–contribute to moral hazard. At a minimum, effective use of a trust fund requires: (1) strong oversight regarding site selection and fund management, and (2) a clear process by which the fund is periodically valued and funds collected are mapped to the risk profile of the pool of covered CCS sites. Without appropriate checks and balances, there is no a priori reason to believe that the amount of funds held in trust will map to the actual amount of funds needed to address long-term care expenses and delimited compensatory damages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the potential impact that future demand for groundwater might have on the commercial deployment of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies within the United States. A number of regions within the U.S. have populations, agriculture and industries that are particularly dependent upon groundwater. Moreover, some key freshwater aquifers are already over-utilized or depleted, and others are likely to be moving toward depletion as demand grows. The need to meet future water demands may lead some parts of the nation to consider supplementing existing supplies with lower quality groundwater resources, including brackish waters that are currently not considered sources of drinking water but which could provide supplemental water via desalination. In some areas, these same deep saline-filled geologic formations also represent possible candidate carbon dioxide (CO2) storage reservoirs. The analysis presented here suggests that future constraints on CCS deployment–due to potential needs to supplement conventional water supplies by desalinating deeper and more brackish waters–are likely to be necessary only in limited regions across the country, particularly in areas that are already experiencing water stress. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: By their very nature, early national and basin scale assessments of geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage capacity must rely on simplifying assumptions and generalizations across a broad range of deep geologic structures. Key aspects of the technical literature and much of the public policy dialogue surrounding these assessments tend to emphasize the lack of detailed data and uncertainties at these scales. However, looking beyond the imperfections of data and methodology, the results of such assessments offer significant value in helping us to understand the potential for carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies to deploy across various regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]