CARBON CAPTURE: In order to burn coal without the carbon dioxide emissions warming the climate, Australia and other countries need to develop carbon capture and storage technologies.
Image: Image of Collie Coal Mine, Western Australia by Calistemon, courtesy Wikimedia Commons
BRISBANE, Australia -- Environmental groups sounded the alarm when the government of the northeastern state of Queensland announced it would stop funding a zero-emissions power plant.
In those circles, rumors had been floating for weeks before the Dec. 19 decision that Queensland's budget deficit-conscious premier and the coal companies were ready to pull the plug on the $4 billion ZeroGen plant.
"Unless you commercialize it, it's not going to contribute," Kellie Caught of the World Wildlife Fund-Australia said about carbon capture technology needed to reduce coal plant emissions.
Cutting power plant emissions that contribute to climate change is an uphill climb unless carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology can be made cheap enough for electric utilities to buy and use. The technology traps carbon dioxide produced from burning coal, before it's released into the atmosphere, and buries it or uses it for industrial purposes.
About one-fifth of the emissions reductions needed to cut the global output of greenhouse gases 50 percent by 2050 would have to come from CCS technology at coal-fired power plants, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In Australia, high carbon-emitting coal is the primary source of electricity.
"Without CCS, the IEA projects that the cost of reducing global emissions will be around 70 percent higher," said a November report by Australia's National Low Emissions Coal Council.
Australia's experience with CCS mirrors technical, financial and political hurdles experienced in the United States. Public-private partnerships in both countries have struggled to secure financing for zero-emissions power plant demonstration projects, but energy agencies in both nations are mapping out and testing sites for storing carbon emissions.
In the past two years, Australia has erected several layers of programs meant to jump-start carbon capture technology, and the focus is turning toward identifying storage sites. Still, Queensland's decision to scrap ZeroGen reinforces the sense by some industry and environmental advocates for the technology that Australia's commitment to cleaning up coal-fired power plants remains tenuous.
New politics puts CCS on shaky ground
Australian states are operating on tight budgets, and state political control is switching from the Labor Party to more conservative coalition governments. That could put CCS on fragile footing. And, advocates say, power plant operators and electricity regulators simply don't have the economic incentive to increase the capacity to squelch carbon emissions unless the federal government places a high price on carbon pollution.
Further, commercial-scale CCS cost estimates are getting pricier as they approach the $4 billion mark.
"The aspirational 2015 target for an integrated commercial-scale project now proves unrealistic," Ralph Hillman, president of the Australian Coal Association, told researchers and CCS program directors meeting in Melbourne in late November.
"This will increase the political and funding challenge," Hillman said.
Hillman, a former Australian diplomat, represents coal producers that know their long-term future could turn on whether clean coal technology can be widely deployed. If it is not, coal at power plants could be replaced by natural gas, nuclear power and large-scale renewable energy projects.
Coal producers operating in Australia have pledged to contribute $1 billion by 2016 to a fund for CCS technology development.
Australia's CCS adherents press ahead on the belief that the government will eventually impose a cost on carbon emissions through a tax or emissions trading scheme. If the price on carbon is high enough to penalize coal consumption, the theory is it creates economic incentives to retrofit coal plants or use gas or wind power to generate electricity.
The 'realism' of fossil fuels
In time, successful demonstrations will drive down the cost and energy use now stifling full development.
"In order to get the CCS deployed, ultimately you're going to need a carbon price," said Nick Otter, chief executive of the Global CCS Institute, based in Canberra. "In the end, the big driver will be a good, strong carbon price."
Since Sunday, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has taken some heat, answering critics by reiterating that the ZeroGen project isn't necessarily dead. She said it could be revived if carbon storage sites are identified and costs can be brought down more quickly.
It's in the "best interest and prosperity of future generations" to deploy clean coal technology by 2015, she said, but she added that "early research has shown us this is not viable at this time on a commercial scale."
The project envisions an integrated coal gasification plant with the capacity to capture 90 percent of its emissions. About $190 million has been invested so far, about $90 million of which comes from coal companies contributing to a CCS fund. Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. has offered to help fund the project if it can get an ownership stake.
ZeroGen and the Callide Oxyfuel Project, which is a $200 million project to convert an existing 30-megawatt unit into a carbon capture plant, are in the heart of Australia's coal country. In every direction, in the coal fields northwest of Brisbane, the world's largest producers are preparing to expand their mines, rails and ports so they can ship billions of tons of coal to East Asia and India.
If coal industry projections are right, Queensland will help supply Asia's churning steel mills and power plants for decades, as hundreds of millions of people migrate from the countryside to the cities of China and India.
"In the end, you have to have some realism in there," CCS Institute's Otter said. "Fossil fuels will continue to be used, we know that. So how do you use it in a low-carbon market?"
CCS advocates say large demos critical to building confidence
With the highest emissions per person in the industrialized world, Australia has elbowed its way on the world stage of CCS development.
The Global CCS Institute, a public-private partnership that started a little over a year ago, has about 250 global organizations participating in information sharing, including China. It's joined the nation's science agency, CSIRO, and the Cooperative Research Center for Greenhouse Gas Technologies in a full-steam-ahead approach to getting at a couple of CCS demonstration projects up and running.
About 15 carbon capture or carbon storage projects are up and going. The $50 million Otway Project northwest of Melbourne is a carbon sequestration demonstration project the government hopes will open the door to others around the country.
Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp. are also in the final planning stages for the Gorgon Liquefied Natural Gas Project, an LNG export project off the coast of Western Australia. The LNG terminal would inject 3.3 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the ground.
The fact that there's only one onshore storage project in Australia is seen as a significant hurdle for deploying carbon capture technology at the nation's power plants.
Directors of clean coal projects at Australia's power plants boil their future down to confidence: "We have to address urgently the need for large demonstrations to get that confidence," said one during Australia's first national CCS conference in Melbourne. "Without them, we will never have the confidence to go forward."
An expensive political football
Critics of throwing billions of dollars at the technology, including Australia's Green Party and some conservative coalition members, argue it will be developed too late to address climate change and is too expensive. Still, advocates said cleaner coal is the only way to other forms of electricity.
"We don't believe CCS should do the job alone," Paal Frisvold, chairman of the European environmental interest group Bellona Europa, said at the conference. "But when the goal is to decarbonize, we'll need a lot of energy to produce aluminum for the solar cells, cast iron for the windmills, and the fertilizers for biomass. Those things require energy. If we go straight to renewables, we'll shoot ourselves in the foot and delay the transition."
Policy promises made during Australia's August elections were stark with regard to CCS. A party either intended to protect the nation's growing stake in deploying the technology or intended to kill it because it's too expensive and success is too uncertain.
In the latest round of federal elections, the governing Labor Party promised to implement power plant emissions standards and carbon capture requirements for new coal-burning generators.
The National Low Emissions Coal Council, which advises Australia's ministries, in its recent progress report said the cost of climate measures "is increasingly being built into companies' investment planning decisions."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
See what we're tweeting about
15 Comments
Add CommentIt has been proven in a peer reviewed publication in a reputable journal with a real genuine professional electrical power engineer as one of the authors, that even with a zero carbon cost nuclear power is the same price as current filthy deadly polluting coal plant, half the price of any carbon capture technology and a quarter the price of the least cost renewable tech.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/47728/nuclear-least-cost-low-carbon-baseload-power-source
Australia needs to go nuclear now.
And just in from Australia the labour government may be putting nuclear back on the table.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/anna-bligh-opens-door-to-nuclear-power/story-fn59niix-1225975663810
How long has the "clean coal" propaganda been around and there is still little to no carbon capture going on anywhere in the world? We need to leave the coal in the ground. Nuclear is fine, and likely is cheaper than carbon capture. But even nuclear is not going to provide enough energy. We need to tax carbon and get big time into solar voltaic and wind. Yes it will take money, but the alternative will cost more (like moving millions away from the rising seas).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClean coal is a furphy. You can not store a gas in a plastic mantle. When it comes to reacting the gas to a stable carbonate or other chemical compound the energetics just don't add up. Do the maths. It takes a lot more energy to re-sequester the carbon, it will slowly happen over several million years, all else being equal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes--nuclear power. Excuse me, but WHAT is that glowing blue pool at your local power plant (the one where Homer Simpson works)? That high-level waste with a half-life of 50,000 years? The same stuff there is no place to dispose of it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, yes, and please ask the rent-seeking toads at Exelon to stop discharging radioactive tritium into drinking water in Will County, Illinois from their nuke plants! The cost of CCS is less than that of DECOMMISSIONING a nuclear power plant, not to mention building and operating one.
No such thing as nuclear waste. It's used nuclear fuel waiting for recycle.Unlike deadly forever mercury and arsenic coal ash from CCS plants it will all be burned up in new gen 4 nukes. All the worlds nuclear waste would cover a football 40 feet deep or would fill 1 percent of the volume of the great pyramid of Giza which has so far lasted 5000 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy contrast if all of America's coal plant was CCS, the industry would fill Lake Erie every year to the depth of 50 feet with deadly forever ash.
The cost of a ccs plant is far greater than the cost per gwh of decomming a nuke. Since a nuke plant should always be a nuke plant subject to upgrades the only reason to decom a nuke site would be blatant corruption.
Nuclear is the only power source capable of meeting the world's energy needs. The resources required to build solar and wind per kwh are far greater than just building more nuclear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFossil fuels combustion just moves around elements that already exist in nature. Coal is just an old swamp--there's nothing in the coal that wasn't in the swamp. All of these can be economically captured from the flue gas stream. 90% of the fossil fuels that ever existed escaped into the environment and burned up by themselves--and so will the rest if we don't use it for our benefit. We haven't died from global warming yet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, nuclear fission creates elements that don't exist in nature: plutonium 239, strontium 90, cesium 137, and polonium 210 are some of the nastier ones. Nuclear power plants have always, and will always, require government subsidies, because they can't compete with fossil fuels on their own merit. Of course, recycling is better, but it just reduces the inefficiencies, and is politically impossible in most places. How about we store the waste in YOUR backyard while waiting for the millennium?
Whom do you believe, sheeple, a claque of insipid pharisees, or yer own lyin' eyes?
Getting rid of Carbon Dioxide at the source of production is like trying to grow all the rice you need out back behind the Chinese restaurant. Why do you need to get rid of those particular CO2 atoms, wouldn't getting rid of any CO2 atoms anywhere else in the atmosphere do just as well? It's the total volume of combustion byproducts diffused in the atmosphere that matters. That being said, why not deal with it somewhere more convenient? Most of CO2 absorption does not occur in the rain forests as some would have you believe- it occurs at sea. Much of the Carbon Dioxide we and our machines produce winds up in the food chain or on the sea floor as a result of plankton using it in their respiration. There are huge areas of the ocean that produce no plankton because of poor mineral content in the water. Poor attempts have been made to seed areas of the ocean (near Antarctica) with iron filings to give plankton a better chance to grow. The method is very cheap. Wouldn't it make more sense to give this method a good go before we spend a fortune pumping CO2 into the ground? We really don't know for sure if either method is effective so why don't we try the cheaper, easier one first?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs usual the zero/junk science denier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurrent unsubsidized new nuclear power is a bit cheaper than the current dirty coal plant and per kwh cost is 20% less. Per kwh it is cheaper than gas for a public power operator. As a result the TVA is replacing coal with new nuclear.
Most deniers will allow that it would be a good idea to eliminate air pollution but this bloodthirsty savage here it seems to love the ongoing murder.
His filthy coal plants kill millions worldwide and sicken hundreds of millions more with air pollution. Natural gas with its deadly fine particulate emission is almost as bad worse.
All the worlds nuclear waste now perfectly contained would fill 1% the volume of the Great Pyramid at Giza which has lasted 5000 years. Better we let a billion people die in an Global warming/Peak oil holocaust than lose a football field forever? And the stuff is not waste it is fuel waiting for recycle enough to power the world for hundreds of years. What's left is such low level it could be stuffed back in an uranium mine shaft.
By contrast deadly toxic forever coal ash produced in the US dumped in open fields all over the US laden with mercury and arsenic is enough fill Lake Erie 40 feet deep every year.
Please, no ad hominem attacks! Distinguish yourselves through the logic of your words.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do ALL nuclear utilities request, AND RECEIVE, subsidies? For that matter, why do wind and solar need subsidies? If they're so great, none of them should require subsidies to sell us all the power we want, when we want it, at a nice, affordable price. Can we agree, then that no power sources should receive subsidies for any reason?
A modern coal plant is virtually emission-free, except for carbon dioxide. Are you alleging that CO2 kills people? The original atmosphere of the earth was carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia. How did we evolve without strong natural equilibrium-seeking, carbon-fixing mechanisms?
Scientific observations clearly show that changes in ambient CO2 are the RESULT of changes in temperature, not the CAUSE. Why didn't we all perish from all the fossil fuels that escaped and burned from natural causes, and continue to do so?
Some insipid pharisees and rent-seeking toads would use the police power of the state to compel those of us who lack their unique insight to act in ways we would not otherwise choose. There must be many million fatalities and untold misery from lack of affordable power, clean water and good jobs.
Once a grocery clerk lamented his unimportance. He couldn't get a girlfriend. Then solons imposed price controls and rationed canned peas. The grocery clerk became a big shot. He had girlfriends. All because he could help folks get canned peas. Then the pea canners quit canning peas, because they lost money. Farmers converted their peas to ethanol, where they made lots of money. But cars didn't run well on ethanol, and it didn't travel well, because it absorbed water from the air. It corroded engines & fuel systems. Farmers quit raising livestock (except for themselves), because they converted all their corn, peas and beans to ethanol.
Those who couldn't get peas or meat drank surplus ethanol. They were drunk all the time and forgot how to work. But there were no jobs because the factories could only run when the wind was blowing, and the wind-turbines were operating, which was seldom.
People came from the places that had abundant coal power. They were strong, healthy, and rich. They took the country from the impoverished savages, who became the underclass in their own state. But there were no civil rights, so they stayed that way a long time. The grocery clerk was unimportant again.
So, the folks that tout wind, solar & nuclear should put their money where their mouth is.
Where can I find more about these elements being created by Nuclear Fusion ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have not heard of this before.
Sethdayal: Every single process in our existing world produces waste. Our planet has evolved over more than three Giga-years and the waste of one group of life-forms becomes the source of life for another. Resulting in a self sustaining, self regulating environment stable for Mega-years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCoal and nuclear energy sources violate the fundamental aspects of one groups waste another's treasure. The volume of coal ash, environmental Hg contamination etc. destroy our environment, but the same is true of nuclear.
When you talk of no such thing as nuclear waste you are referring only to the fuel that can be reprocessed, the rest of the radioactive waste is here to stay for Mega years. There is also the problem associated with low level radiation exposure within the manufacturing environment and the resulting long term disease and genetic abnormalities that result from accelerated mutations in this environment, genetic mutations are passed on from generation to generation.
I have already pointed out my reasons for opposing nuclear in response to your comment in "Will Australia Chose Coal or Climate".
These forums are not a space for abuse either. I believe you need to apologise to Miner49er. Every single human has a right to think and express his/her opinion, no matter how stupid or irrational others may consider it. If you believe in a god, I think that is totally irrational, but I allow you to have your opinion and don't abuse you for it.
Miner49er: The original atmosphere of the earth contained no oxygen, you need close to 21% to live, if it drops to 19% you feel it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe live on this planet now, our current bio-form is a result of slow evolution, we have subject ourselves to rapid (by rapid I mean 2Kyrs)change which are bodies are struggling of dealing with, exhibited by allergic and similar disorders.
Abstract intangible money has become our principal want. No one who understands money will invest in new technology, it is unproven. Why would any sane person risk his/her money on an unknown when he/she can easily buy into shares of well performing companies returning 30 on equity every year?
That is why we have governments. They provide society with services like transport, electricity, water, justice, education - I could go on, that do not return 30% on equity employed. Governments manage the commons, or we hope they do. Governments have also realised they do things poorly, primarily because of corruption. so the subsidise private businesses to do their job with a great deal more efficiency. Governments based on this definition of function should not ever invest in business. Governments that become investors perform very poorly in all aspects of their role including as investors, because their money comes easy - tax.
Hence we need governments to encourage investment in non-polluting sources for human needs, as well as regulating our explosive population growth.
When it comes to your claim CO2 does not increase temperature a simple experiment done in schools will prove you are wrong. Get a fish tank, paint its bottom black, cover the tank and heat it with a light bulb till its temperature is stable. Now generate some CO2 (Baking soda + vinegar) in the tank. Watch the temperature rise above the previous stable point.
I understand that Miner, as a zero information denier who loves the junk science, has trouble understanding that his foul technology kills millions of people every year. When it is pointed out to him rather than research and abject apologies to those murdered by his foul philosophy he tries to defend this horrid evil. Such folks deserve to be sent to some penal colony rather than extended pity because they are so morally and intellectually challenged.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA modern coal plant emission REDUCED, coal plant costs much more than the current first of kind cost of a nuclear plant. Like a gas plant new coal operations produce less in total amount but far more deadly finer particle emissions than old style coal plants. Operating costs are more than double nuclear as well. The earth came with enormous quantities of mercury and arsenic. So we concentrate them up a hundred thousand times in coal ash and dump them in Miner's drinking water and the fields that the feed him and his family. So how long he lasts!!!
Nuclear costs are dropping rapidly due to massive zero subsidy builds in Asia. Modern nuclear plants receive no current subsidies while the enormous subsidies extended to fossil fuels and renewables are well documented.
"The volume of coal ash, environmental Hg contamination etc. destroy our environment, but the same is true of nuclear."
NOT!! Nuclear's tiny amount of waste is perfectly contained not released to the environment
Let me repeat for you.
" All the worlds nuclear waste would cover a football 40 feet deep or would fill 1 percent of the volume of the great pyramid of Giza which has so far lasted 5000 years"
That waste is perfectly contained. I'm not sure what you are missing.
"ALL be burned up in new GEN 4 nukes"
Gen 4 nukes burn ALL that waste. The tiny amount left after powering the world for a thousand years from that completely contained football field wouldn't fill a stadium locker room and is safe after 300 years. Contrast that to the cubic miles of deadly forever toxic waste dumps left by mining operations.
Your low level radiation nonsense is utter claptrap. Radiation levels in nuclear facilities is far less than that found as background radiation in many cities and towns worldwide.
As you state, governments do a far better providing utilities like electricity and communications. Unfortunately ultra inefficient Aussie utilities are piratized. Canadian utilities like Hydro Quebec and Sask Power/Tel and the TVA in the US are excellent examples of public run utilities.