In conjunction with the international release of a report by Greenpeace today – that identifies the ridiculous risk, uncertainty and cost associated with industry-driven plans for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS),
Public interest groups (from across the country) sent the following letter to Congress, demanding that taxpayer subsidies be disallowed CCS, and that safe, affordable and market-ready energy technologies such as wind and solar be funded instead.
Dear Members of Congress
On behalf of our members and supporters we are writing to express our opposition to any policies that promote or provide taxpayer subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS), the practice of trapping carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion and storing it below the sea or beneath the surface of the earth.
As you know, global warming is one of the greatest challenges facing the planet today. To avoid the worst impacts of global warming scientists have warned that we need to reduce global warming pollution by at least 80 percent by 2050. Climate stabilization, national security and economic prosperity depend on substantially reducing our use of fossil fuels. That means no new investments in major infrastructure that increases fossil fuel dependence. Every dollar invested in CCS is a dollar unavailable for investment in renewable energy, efficient vehicles and energy efficiency.
CCS raises a number of serious financial, environmental and safety concerns:
· CCS cannot deliver in time. The best-case scenario is that the technology would be ready by 2030. Every decision made about new power plants today influences the energy mix for the next 30-40 years. We need to make the smartest choices to address the global warming crisis and invest in proven solutions as soon as possible.
· CCS is cost intensive. It increases the cost of power generation by 40 to 80 percent compared with conventional coal plants. Current research shows electricity generated from coal equipped with CCS will be more expensive than other less polluting sources, such as, wind power.
· CCS technology reduces the efficiency of power plants. Up to 30 percent more fossil fuel must be burned when CCS is used to achieve the same power output.
· CCS poses a risk of carbon dioxide leakage. Continuous leakage, even at very low rates, could undermine the climate benefit of CCS and large releases of carbon can also pose significant risk to human health.
As evidenced by mountain-top removal and dangerous emissions, CCS cannot make coal clean. Renewable energy sources are already available without the negative environmental impacts that are associated with fossil fuel exploitation, transport and processing. It is renewable energy together with energy efficiency and energy conservation that has to increase so that the primary cause of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas – is stopped.
We strongly urge you to oppose any policies that provide mandates or taxpayer funded incentives for CCS. We should instead fund clean, renewable, domestic sources of energy, energy efficiency and conservation. Congress must prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants that are inconsistent with an energy future that is good for the economy, the environment, national security, and safe for communities.
Sincerely,
ActionPA • Alliance for Appalachia • Appalachian Voices • Black Mesa Water Coalition • California Communities Against Toxics • Canary Coalition • Cape & Islands Self-Reliance Corporation • Center for Coalfield Justice • Co-op America • Chesapeake Climate Action Network • Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana • Clean Power Now • Coal River Mountain Watch • Cook Inletkeeper • Energy Justice Network • Environmental Alliance of North Florida • Environmental Research Foundation • Friends of the Earth • Global Exchange • The Grand Canyon Trust • Green Delaware • Greenpeace • Heartwood • Help Our Polluted Environment • Indigenous Environmental Network • Jefferson Action Group • Kentuckians for the Commonwealth • Meigs Citizen Action Now • Mountain Watershed Association • North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network • Nuclear Information and Resource Service • Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition • Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition • Protect Biodiversity in Public Forests • Rainforest Action Network • Residents Against the Power Plant • Rising Tide North America • Save It Now, Glades! • Save Our Cumberland Mountains • Southern Energy Network • Valley Watch
UPDATE- Two actions against Carbon Capture and Storage today;
- Anti-CCS action in Pittsburgh at the CCS conference;
- Anti-CCS action in Knoxville, TN, organized by Save Our Cumberland Mountains.
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Yes! CCS is so far off it doesn’t stand a chance of helping with global warming. I think this is starting to catch on. But we might have to increase the pressure once we get a national cap and trade policy established as coal might see a resurgence with a more concrete plan for controlling GHG emissions. We can win this one. Keep it up.
What about natural gas or LNG with CCS? The fastest recent pwoer infrastructure build were the 200 GW of gas turbines built in the 90’s. To replace fossil plants with renewables would require building ~500 GW [*] of capacity plus a large amount of energy storage in about 20 years (actually less since the regulators will require some kind of testing of all those devices on a grid). LNG with CCS may be an option to buy some much needed time.
Has the Youth Climate Movement been talking at all with NARUC on how to approach the regulatory side of this issue? I recall Xcel talking about a smartgrid test in Boulder CO with renewables and storage (V2G?), but have not heard what the schedule is.
* [The value drops to ~300 GW if the US can go to the per capita electric use of Switzerland, but that is a tall order in our larger and more diverse economy.]
LNG is not and can never be sustainable and is one of the greatest environmental threats to the Northwest right now. No false solutions.
What are you talking about LNG with CCS? How would you “trap” carbon emissions from a process that releases greenhouse gases through a global system including extraction, processing, transportation, re-gasification, etc.
By investing in huge infrastructure around the world for a new shift to LNG dependency, we are being locked into a dependency on a global energy source with the exact same social and environmental problems as coal and oil.
The fossil fuel industry is proposing LNG as a “bridge fuel” because they can sell the idea that natural gas burns cleaner than oil. However, the life-cycle emissions of LNG are often as bad as coal (Heade 2007; Carnegie-Melon 2007). And natural gas reserves are rich in Iran, Peru, Nigeria, Algeria and other places where US resource wars are already happening or soon will be.
My climate movement is about RESTRUCTURING our supply and consumption process to locally-based, decentralized energy infrastructure, which does not rely on the exportation of social and environmental injustice, for the importation of cheap resources.
R Margolis - Stop pushing LNG (increasing consumption of a fossil fuel to “buy us time”), its just plain embarrassing. Who do you work for anyway?
CCS by minerals such as olivine is occurring now, with no risk of leakage.
proponents of CCS should take note of the groups that signed this letter. a large number of them are in areas directly impacted by coal extraction and it’s combustion. no matter how hard the industry tries, coal can never be clean. not so long as the extraction processes are destroying people’s homes and ravaging mountains, water and air. proponents of CCS should take note of how these groups opposing strip mining, mountaintop removal and coal plants are coming out against them.
there’s going to be a lot more of this in the future- http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/may/06/capturing-awareness/
also, maybe the proponents of CCS could explain why none of the 150 new coal fired power plants proposed are CCS. perhaps because it’s a pipe dream being used by the coal industry to delay and distract from the real solution of phasing out coal fired power (along with other fossil fuels like oil and LNG) for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Monica -
As I have stated on other posts, I am an engineer in the power industry. My opinions are my own and certainly do not reflect any employer. I am not a carbon denier, but it sounds to me like the numbers simply don’t add up.
Changing over the entire US grid (even if you drop it to 300 GW with efficiency) to renewables and energy storage in 10 - 15 years is a VERY tall order. You need to test it and prove to the regulators and the public that such a combination will be reliable compared to the current system of baseload and peaking units AND more economical than other low carbon options. My experience tells me that you will need transition fuels of some kind to get from here to there. I brought up LNG because historically it is quicker to build gas turbines than reactors (the low carbon technology everyone loves to hate).
As for existing CCS, there are a few coal plants that have been fitted with ammonia chillers to capture carbon to test the process. However, that technology would mean a 10% power loss to the plant.