Kintigh Generating Station - Somerset, New York
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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HOUSTON -- As the development of new coal-fired power plants is slowing amid growing opposition, utility executives say development of carbon capture-and-storage technologies will play a major role in the industry's long-term viability.
"We have to be able to advance that technology for future coal plants to be built," said Nick Akins, the executive vice president for generation at utility giant American Electric Power Co. Inc., which relies heavily on coal. "We have to answer the carbon capture and storage equation to keep coal in the picture."
Coal accounts for half of U.S. electricity production and roughly 85 percent of the power sector's greenhouse gas emissions. And while no one knows when large-scale underground carbon storage will be available, policymakers who want to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are ascendant in Washington -- most notably President Obama, who has called for a cap-and-trade plan to reduce U.S. emissions.
Getting a handle on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is one of the great energy challenges, said Ernest Moniz, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy Initiative.
"We need to develop, in my view, an understanding about the real capability for carbon sequestration," Moniz told the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference here last night. "We have no serious projects going on today, and it will take some time to develop the scientific understanding of long-term cumulative injections and certainty to develop the regulatory structures to permit the private sector to go forward."
The economic stimulus package that Congress hopes to send to the White House this week is expected to include billions for research and development of CCS, but details on the $790 billion measure hashed out yesterday by House and Senate negotiators are still not available.
Dan Reicher, Google's director of climate and energy initiatives and an adviser to Obama's campaign on energy issues, said gaining clarity on CCS is vital. "The role of carbon capture and storage is a big question mark right now. How quickly it can become commercially viable?" he said in a short interview yesterday. "It is important that we get some greater sense -- yes or no -- whether ... CCS is really going to work."
Robert LaCount Jr., CERA's senior director for climate change and clean energy, said that even under the best-case scenario, it is difficult to see commercial carbon-storage deployment getting rolling before 2020. "That's to get a green light for the industry to say, 'Let's take this and begin investing in a big way,'" he said.
An "aggressive" case would show CCS applied to 55 gigawatts' worth of U.S. coal-fired generation in 2030, he said. Current U.S. coal capacity is 320 gigawatts.
Carbon capture and storage's role in a future climate regime will depend on the price of carbon, LaCount said. CERA's analysis shows that a CO2 price of $60 per ton would spur a 22 percent reduction in power-sector emissions in 2030, while a $100 per ton price generates a 60 percent reduction.
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13 Comments
Add CommentCarbon Capture and Storage is a losing propositon as it is estimated to require an additional 30% to 40% of the plant's electrical output to accomplish this task. The fact that coal fired plants are only 40 to 50% efficient (coal to steam to electricity)in energy conversion in the first place when compared to hydroelectric power plants, which have an 85% conversion efficiency (potential power of the water to electricity), or wind generators which are 50% efficient, makes them a very inefficient generation process.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn addition, coal plants already utilize 12 to 15% of their produced energy to clean their emissions (precipitators for ash, SO2 & NOX removal for the bad GHG gasses); and they still produce volumes of GHG gasses. This fact, in my opinion, makes them a losing proposition.
Hydro (Pumped storage, reservoir, run of river), wind, solar, & geothermal must be emphasized; and where these renewables cannot fill the bill, nuclear power must be considered as a part of the package until the aforementioned renewables can supply the necessary electricity.
So, why don't we capture the Power in the Smoke Stack to produce the energy need. Such as Leonardo Di Vinci Screw Concept.. Except water weight we are harnessing the air Lift in the stack to make the coal burning Technology to Produce Additional energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf some one makes it. A simple Thank you and some involvement in the project would be AWESOME
Coal is sequestered carbon. Nature took a long time and energy to create coal. It is natures way of storing excessive CO2 from our atmosphere. Man can undo the process for energy but will pay the ultimate price extinction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWonder why the coal lobby spends more money on advertising and lobbying than on research? They know the energy obtained from sequestered carbon is less than the energy needed to sequester it. Cannot be done.
The energy generated by stack pull will not provide a reasonable return on investment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we were required to calculate the energy difference between creating coal and burning it, we would find ourselves similarly deep in the red. Coal takes millions of years to create and minutes to revert to CO2. A responsible society would restrict its use to reducing iron oxides to iron and similar reduction processes.
Coal miners are not required to pay a price equivalent to its creation costs to society - its theirs for free.
The best thing would be not to dig up the coal of course. Beyond that I don't understand the prices on CCS that are quoted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBurying type of CCS is like mining and that seem about the right price.
Growing algea from the flue gas removes 40% CO2 (assuming solar non-photobioreactor) and cost $10/ton. It's not a perfect solution but it's alot cheaper and quicker and produces an additional domestic product than waiting for $100/ton.
Would the CO2 from the algea oil get released when it is burnt? Yes. But you have to assume that fossil oil would be burnt anyway. Those super kewl EVs just are everywhere yet.
Why the hell are we wasting time and money on capuring CO2 when it will not have any effect on global warming. NASA has evidence that the 95% atmophere of Venus has no effect in controlling heat lose from that planet. There is no proof that the greenhouse gas effect exists. There are test that can be performed that show that it does not exist. The fact that IR thermography works and that IR spectography works is proof the the greenhouse gas effect is a hoax. The Greenhouse gas effect violates the Second Law of thermodynamic. The explaination of the greenhous effect is bull. and the greenhouse gas effect is a total lie. It is a theory that has never be proven by test data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTime is an important factor in the CO2 debate. Our planet has been acting as a sponge regulating and tempering all change. When we reverse the long term natural activities of our planet, our intervention imposes a catastrophic load of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. Our planet cannot cope. On an annual basis the amount of CO2 entering and leaving the atmosphere is huge, but it is all short term carbon, the raging forest fires of Victoria convert huge amounts of short term carbon to CO2, but the balance will be restored in a short time mainly through regrowth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBurning coal and oil is adding CO2 from millions of years ago, it will take millions of years to reverse this process.
To lobby for continued coal combustion is in my opinion a criminal offence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy ?
Just consider the area that is today occupied on the earths' surface by open pit coal mines. That area (but not location) is larger than the desert area required to produce electricity by solar heating, steam turbines and generators - a really risk-free technology available at known, low cost.
To produce all electricity on earth the area required is about 300x300 miles -or ca 1 % of the earths' desert area.
USA needs an upgrade of its electricity grid anyway (the grid in use is from time to time dangerously near overload and failure), so run upgrade grid line(s) east-west throught some of the vast USA deserts and use a small percentage there for electricity production.
An alternative where the ca 1000 fossil-fuel fired electricity producing boilers in USA would all sequester CO2, would from a pure energy requirement point require a conservative minimum of ca 250 new fossil-fuel bfired boilers just to offset the electricity consumed by the CO2 sequestering. Crazy ? YES.
To lobby for continued coal combustion is in my opinion a criminal offence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy ?
Just consider the area that is today occupied on the earths' surface by open pit coal mines. That area (but not location) is larger than the desert area required to produce electricity by solar heating, steam turbines and generators - a really risk-free technology available at known, low cost.
To produce all electricity on earth the area required is about 300x300 miles -or ca 1 % of the earths' desert area.
USA needs an upgrade of its electricity grid anyway (the grid in use is from time to time dangerously near overload and failure), so run upgrade grid line(s) east-west throught some of the vast USA deserts and use a small percentage there for electricity production.
An alternative where the ca 1000 fossil-fuel fired electricity producing boilers in USA would all sequester CO2, would from a pure energy requirement point require a conservative minimum of ca 250 new fossil-fuel bfired boilers just to offset the electricity consumed by the CO2 sequestering. Crazy ? YES.
The greenhouse gas effect is a hypothes that has never been proven!!!! I will never be proven that the greenhouse gas effect exist because it violates the second law of thermodynamic. The best paper that demonstrates this is "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effevts within the Frame of Physics." By Gerlich and Tscheuschner. (131 page) Another very good paper is Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics by Dipl.-lNg. Heinz Thieme(7 pages)--- cleanwater
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscleanwater,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have just read Gerlich & Tracheuschner's article on the falsification of the greenhouse effect. In my career starting in 1970 I have attended dozens of scientific presentations, one thing I realised, presenters who gave us tons of mathematical equations but do not explain their implications, dismiss those who request these explanations as being stupid are hiding ignorance.
I also learned to look behind the scenes to determine motive. (look at smoking, asbestos - till today India says asbestos is no problem) We have had a lot of scientists who falsify or deliberately ignore data to confirm their pre-existing ideas.
All the second law says is that the entropy of a system not in equilibrium will increase till it reaches equilibrium.
Also look up the internet there is a mass of research refuting this claim. Unless you understand the maths don't believe it! Maths must be explained (other than 2 + 2 = 4 we accept, but 200ml water + 200ml ethanol = 400 ml not true). Empirical data is often refuted by science, but unless we observe we cannot come up with theories that we then prove or refute.
Read - Back from the Brink by a non scientist Peter Andrews, his biodiversity and land management theory is a slap to science, but wherever he has gone and implemented his methods he has revived salt infested agricultural land and from a helicopter we see a green forested land surrounded by desolation except downstream from his property.
Read about the 5 extinctions, use maths to determine the rate at which species were eliminated, compare the number to what has happened in the past 200 years. You will realise we are in the early stages of the sixth extinction.
Our Population J curve and elimination of species we can not exploit will bring about our extinction, remember there is a micro orgasmic universe as well as us living on this planet. As we deprive many species their host species some will try to cross the species barrier.
CO2 may be measured in parts per million but it as well as other trace gasses like the various nitrogen oxides and halides (fluorine, chlorine, bromine compounds) have a big impact at low concentrations.
You would not want even small quantities of ricin, sarin or any cyanide to become part of your body.
CO2 is an opaque gas that solidifies to form an ice. Nature has controlled its concentration for millions of years, every time nature lost control we got an extinction.
Build yourself a green house plant some trees and see how warm it gets in there.
I have run the numbers on coal and it is easy to see why sequestration is just a dream. Wikipedia says the world uses 6 billion tons of coal per year. This generates 34 trillion pounds of CO2 per year. For every train load of coal going to a power plant, four train loads have to come out and be buried. This much Carbon Dioxide would make a mountain of solid dry ice a mile high and about 4 miles across at the base. There is no place in the ocean or on land to put that much stuff every year. Besides that, capturing that much CO2 from a hot chimney while mixed with 4 parts Nitrogen would be no small task. By the way we burn 9 billion gallons of diesel a year hauling coal. Coal must go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisACCCE recently attended the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) conference on carbon capture where we listened to researchers, academics and government agencies talk about their projects and findings, including the DOE's goal to deploy commercial CO2 capture that grabs 90 percent of CO2; has 90 percent storage permanence; and has less than a 10 percent increase on the cost of electricity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe also interviewed a professor from Notre Dame about his breakthrough absorption technology for post-combustion carbon dioxide capture and heard about new developments in oxy-combustion. (You can read more about these topics and see the interviews on our blog:
http://sn.im/bplug)
Historically, clean coal technologies have reduced emissions from coal-based plants. In fact, today's coal-based generating fleet is 77 percent cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced. Today, the challenge is carbon dioxide.
Judging from the advances in carbon capture research and by the president's support of carbon capture (including $3.4 billion for its development in the latest stimulus bill), we believe the next generation of clean coal technologies will help us meet our environmental goals while providing affordable, reliable energy for Americans.