If there was even a chance that CCS might work, you'd think that coal-mining companies would have an interest in CCS R&D succeeding. You might then expect that the aforementioned companies might invest in the only technology that can possibly ensure the long-term future of their businesses.

Have they invested a cent in CCS R&D? If not, then surely that tells us that the hard-nosed assessment is that CCS is a boondoggle - at best.

There has been a fair amount of study into CCS, and it can work.
The problem is, it's so energy intensive to do it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
"Capturing and compressing CO2 may increase the fuel needs of a coal-fired CCS plant by 25%-40%."

We don't have the excess power to make up that sort of short-fall, and probably don't even have plans to build enough extra capacity to make it up. And these things aren't built over night.

And that's all assuming that we want to stick with coal for the long term. If we spend any money building new capacity, you'd want to be sure we're going to still be using it in 40-50 years time.

It is considerably worse than that. In addition to the energy required to capture the CO2, the capital cost of the plant is humungous. It is even worse if an existing plant is retrofitted. In fact the only CCS on a working coal generator (Mountaineer in US) cost about $100M but captures a mere 1.5% of its output. Then there is the "burial" of the CO2 which will involve transport. A 20MW pilot plant in Germany (Schwarze Pumpe) built as a demonstration CCS ended up releasing the captured gas back into the atmosphere because the local community successfully fought against the local burial. The UK first demonstration plant stalled late last year due to estimated massive cost over-runs.

But the UK experience only confirms what has been obvious for a long time. I wrote a detailed analysis:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/10/30/ccs-institute-comes-clean-on-clean-coal/
Friday, 30 October 2009
CCS Institute comes clean on clean coal
by Michael James

Sean, though the rationale you give is oversimplified (it's more a dynamic equilibrium on geological time scales, rather than the single event you imply), you're essentially correct, and the article isn't, strictly speaking. There are periods in the geological record that indicate atmospheric CO2 to have been in the thousands of ppm range (as opposed to ~400 now). What does seem to be unprecedented even on geological time scales is the RATE at which CO2 is increasing, and that's what causes the problems, because it doesn't allow time for adaptation.

Sean Parker: "I'm assuming, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that CO2 levels in the atmosphere if we burnt all fossil fuels would be the same (all things being equal) as the CO2 levels before plants first formed carboniferous deposits."
Consider yourself corrected. Volcanoes release carbon dioxide. If all fossil carbon was released into the atmosphere then, added to that contributed by volcanoes, atmospheric carbon dioxide would indeed reach unprecedented levels.

I should have added that many of those periods of thousands of ppm CO2 (such as large parts of the Cretaceous) were contemporaneous with large amounts of biomass, to emphasise that it's not as simple as 'burn all fossil fuel = pre-plant CO2 levels'.

Thanks Mark,
I understand that my argument is very simplistic and there are other confounding factors at play. I see that the rate of return of carbon to the atmosphere is an issue, especially where continued habitation and vertebrate adaptation is concerned (including humans of course).
My musing really relates to how habitable the earth will actually be if we burn all accessible fossil fuels. My guess would be slightly better than the conditions in the pre-carboniferous period (as existing plant life now will still store some carbon that was free in the pre-botanical period). Would these conditions still sustain vertebrates... or would ocean acidity and temperature rise effectively remove higher order phyla.

No. CO2 emission from volcanoes is largely, at least in the long term, balanced by CO2 going down subduction zones and other natural geological sequestration.

http://www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/carbon.htm for a primer on this stuff

Thanks Mark...I've probably answered my own question. I am looking at a graph on: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
I see that in the Jurassic and cretaceous periods CO2 was elevated to around 2000 ppm and the average global temperature was above 20 degrees (as distinct from 12 degrees now and at the end of the carboniferous period).
What process would have caused the CO2 to drop from the Jurassic period to today. I understand how CO2 levels can rise in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels, volcanic activity etc. But what accounts for the drop in CO2 by quite an amount for the jurassic/cretaceous to today. Is it a case of more land area and more plants... or is it not that simple.

Sean, what all your interlocutors here knows but refuse to reveal to you that release and uptake of CO2 in the oceans are probably the bigger driver than sequestering into fossil carbon

Look at this graph
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
Before the Jurassic period CO2 levels were low. comparable to today, and temperatures were also low.
Now assuming there were no race of aliens digging up coal and burning it on the cusp of Jurassic period there is only one realistic source for this jump in CO2 - release from the oceans.

So temperature rise, release of CO2 from the oceans and then a disputed level but rapidly dampening positive feedback from greenhouse action of CO2. But the reason that CO2 was so high is because temperatures, driven by the sun, were high. Not the other way round. Yes, there will also be some carbon sequestering into fossil fuels, but the jump upwards of CO2 into the Jurassic is driven by temperature driven release from the oceans.

Everybody here knows this, it is testament to the culture of dishonesty that has invaded climate science proponents on-line that they refuse to help you understand this basic mechanism.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with someone who doesn't have a background in this subject not being aware of it. Would that climate scientists had more faith in their own science to present it honestly to people like yourself who asks genuine questions in good faith.

That's right Sean (the woolly one) ... all these liars... making stuff up ... blaming CO2 when obviously it's just the sun isn't it? And the hotter sun gives us more CO2 not the other way round. Why don't they tell us this Sean? Why do they try and trick us into believing that CO2 is bad for us?

It's obvious isn't it? ... they are being paid to tell us lies ... paid by the communists at the UN the World Bank and the IPCC who want to redistribute the world's wealth, make us stop our economy dead in its tracks and establish World Guvvermint.

And so it is left to you - Sean Lamb from New Zealand - to tell the world about this scam - this plot - how all these climate scientists are being so dishonest and lying to us all.

Or you could read a bit more ... check out some actual science rather than the quacks, cranks and crackpots you see as "kindred skeptics" and get a few actual facts.

Start here:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

Sean Parker - this is actually worth a bit of a read - posits a few explanations other than the one posited by Sean Lamb as the only possibility. Also discusses coal formation etc...

Blah Blah Blah.

The fact is the UN, the World Bank and IPCC all agree that the big leap in CO2 levels in Jurassic period was the result of CO2 release from the ocean caused by temperature rise. It is just basic inescapable science.

The only dispute is the extent of positive feedbacks: temperature rise causing CO2 release causing further temperature rises.

Dunno why you guys wanted to conceal this from Sean. Why the constant dishonesty in debate?

Come on Tim, try not to be so un-Australian! The brown coal mining industry clearly only have the societal greater good at heart.

I for one will give them my full in-kind, social media usage, emissions reduction support by pledging to only use san serif fonts from this day hence.