Chapter 18, Problem 79P

One scheme for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired power plants calls for capturing carbon dioxide and pumping it into the deep ocean, where the pressure is at least 350 atm. You’re called to assess the energy cost of such a scheme for a power plant that produces electrical energy at the rate of 1.0 GW while at the same time emitting CO₂ at the rate of 1100 tonnes/hour. If CO₂ is extracted from the plant’s smokestack at 320 K and 1 atm pressure and then compressed adiabatically to 350 atm, what fraction of the plant’s power output would be needed for the compression? Take γ = 1.3 for CO₂. (Your answer is a rough estimate because CO₂ doesn’t behave like an ideal gas at very high pressures; also, it doesn’t include the energy cost of separating the CO₂ from other stack gases or of transporting it to the compression site.)