CARBON CAPTURE AT DRAX POWER STATION

we need fossil fuels forever

Well I hope we don't, because it is very much a one shot energy source. Once the stored sunshine of many millenia that is locked in  the coal, oil and gas we are burning now over a few decades has gone, that is that. Short of then waiting a few million years for new coal oil and gas to form.

Obviously to revert it to carbon lumps we can bury will take more energy than was released on first burning, so that is a non-starter, so all sequestration methods for post processing oil and coal residue, will be CO2 (not true of wood however, where it would be possible to half burn it, make charcoal, and bury that). 

In any case, the long term response will have to be to use far less of the stuff. Which may well mean less energy available overall, if not then as you observe, energy that is not always available on demand on the manner to which we have become accustomed.

Equally, as I keep pointing out to my friends, the earth will be just fine, it does not need saving,  it is the homo sapiens scrabbling about the surface that should be planning their tactics for possible resource wars and a dramatic reduction in population. I am not convinced that CCS is an especially  big part of that longer term view, it may delay the day we cannot burn stuff for fuel, but it will not stop it arriving.

Personally I'd be happier if we were now building  a tidal lagoon off the welsh coast, even if it is a long shot, and the first one may not be profitable. We need disruptive progress, not incremental development.

we need fossil fuels forever

Well I hope we don't, because it is very much a one shot energy source. Once the stored sunshine of many millenia that is locked in  the coal, oil and gas we are burning now over a few decades has gone, that is that. Short of then waiting a few million years for new coal oil and gas to form.

Obviously to revert it to carbon lumps we can bury will take more energy than was released on first burning, so that is a non-starter, so all sequestration methods for post processing oil and coal residue, will be CO2 (not true of wood however, where it would be possible to half burn it, make charcoal, and bury that). 

In any case, the long term response will have to be to use far less of the stuff. Which may well mean less energy available overall, if not then as you observe, energy that is not always available on demand on the manner to which we have become accustomed.

Equally, as I keep pointing out to my friends, the earth will be just fine, it does not need saving,  it is the homo sapiens scrabbling about the surface that should be planning their tactics for possible resource wars and a dramatic reduction in population. I am not convinced that CCS is an especially  big part of that longer term view, it may delay the day we cannot burn stuff for fuel, but it will not stop it arriving.

Personally I'd be happier if we were now building  a tidal lagoon off the welsh coast, even if it is a long shot, and the first one may not be profitable. We need disruptive progress, not incremental development.