Remember when everyone was talking about the “October Surprise” — the big thing that was going to come out in the news in October 2008 and distract everyone from the real issues in the election? Well, ok, not to be a conspiracy theorist, but if you didn’t notice, it’s been a very surprising week.
One result is that some studies that are, in my opinion, pretty hot news, aren’t getting much coverage. Today my fave West Virginia Energy Issues report Ken Ward published an article in the Charleston Gazette talking about a new Government Accountability study that reveals dozens of issues with Carbon Capture and Sequestration, including the info that because “CCS requires huge amounts of energy itself, meaning that the process sucks electricity away from any power plant where it is installed…[it could] nearly double the retail cost of electricity.”
Yikes! So far, a whopping 2 or 3 news agencies have covered the report. Enjoy highlights from the article below the fold.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Federal policy-makers have taken few of the steps necessary if greenhouse emissions from coal-fired power plants are to be captured and stored underground, according to a new government report.
Coal industry backers are banking that “carbon capture and storage” will allow the industry to survive efforts to control global climate change.
But the U.S. Government Accountability Project report, released this week, adds to growing concerns that the technology isn’t ready now – and might not be for a long time.
GAO investigators cited underdeveloped and costly emissions-capture technology and legal uncertainties about the permitting and liability for carbon dioxide that would be stored underground. National studies, industry leaders and top scientists have all pointed to key problems with CCS becoming a reality, the GAO noted.
“Federal agencies have begun to address some CCS barriers but have yet to comprehensively address the full range of issues that would require resolution for commercial-scale CCS deployment,” the GAO said in a 69-page study made public Tuesday.
GAO officials also concluded that widespread deployment of CCS is unlikely to happen unless Congress passes binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions.
“The absence of a national strategy to control CO2 emissions not only leaves the regulated community with little incentive to reduce their emissions, it also leaves regulators with little reason to devise the practical arrangements necessary to implement the reductions,” the GAO report said.
Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about finding a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while dealing with increasing worldwide demand for energy. Despite this concern, atmospheric concentrations carbon dioxide and emissions of the heat-trapping gas continue to increase.
Coal-fired power plants are among the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. In the United States, coal plants account for about one-third of total CO2 emissions.
In the U.S., coal provides about half of the nation’s electricity. And because it is abundant and cheap – when environmental factors are not considered – coal is growing as an energy source in China, India and other parts of the developing world.
Both the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have cited CCS as a promising route for continued coal use, while mitigating carbon dioxide emissions.
But the GAO outlined a variety of major hurdles that U.S. government agencies are doing little to overcome:
Department of Energy research has focused on capturing emissions from coal gasification plants, instead of using CCS on existing, traditional coal plants that are likely to remain in service for years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not issued guidance for how federal waste disposal laws would apply to CCS, or how the Clean Air Act applies to power plants that install the technology. Other agencies, including the Transportation and Interior departments, have not addressed other important issues, such as a regulatory regimen for CO2 transportation pipelines and other infrastructure, and liability for any storage under public lands. GAO officials also found significant barriers in terms of cost and the lack of any large-scale demonstrations that CCS works.
In addition, CCS requires huge amounts of energy itself, meaning that the process sucks electricity away from any power plant where it is installed. One DOE study estimated that CCS could nearly double the retail cost of electricity.
Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged their support for improving government “clean coal” programs.
Obama says he would instruct DOE to start partnerships with private industry to build five commercial-scale CCS projects. McCain says he would pump $2 billion a year into “clean coal” research.
But the candidates have not spelled out how they would deal with the myriad CCS problems outlined by the GAO. Neither campaign has responded to detailed questions on the topic.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw…@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.
I came across this recent article in Scientific American. An interesting and un-biased look at the plausibility of CCS. Notice the caption to one picture in the article, “Burning the future.”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=future-of-clean-coal-tied-to-success-of-carbon-capture-and-storage
Future of ‘Clean Coal’ Power Tied to (Uncertain) Success of Carbon Capture and Storage
A new report confirms that coal has a large role to play in meeting the world’s energy demands, but to avoid runaway climate change, technologies to sequester its carbon need to advance quickly
Excerpts:
Ultimately, it is such efforts to combat climate change that drive sequestration needs, and a 2006 M.I.T. poll of 1,200 Americans indicates that they are willing to pay an average of $21 a month for solutions to this global problem. The conundrum is that there is nothing to pay for as of yet when it comes to coal. No “clean coal” technology has been demonstrated with carbon capture and storage and no large-scale sequestration projects have been undertaken. It also remains unclear where and exactly how much storage capacity the U.S. has. “Pore volume that you can use to hold CO2 is a new natural resource,” Friedmann says of the underground reserves that might be suitable to contain liquid carbon dioxide. “What is the capacity? What does it look like? How fast can you inject?”
In short, the report finds that coal will remain the electricity-generation king and geologic sequestration is the solution best suited to minimize the attendant carbon dioxide pollution. This will require building a liquid CO2 infrastructure comparable to the national highway system as well as assessing which coal-burning technologies work best with which carbon capture technologies. In other words, the way such carbon capture and sequestration will work remains as hazy as the smog coal-fired power plants produce but it needs to become clear quickly if the world plans to continue burning such fossil sunlight. “How hard and how far can we push capacity in a safe, virtually riskless way?” Moniz asks. “There remains a scientific consensus on viability. Implementation is a different issue.”