Power providers often defend those decisions by noting that the U.S. and most other countries with coal-intensive energy economies have not yet instituted policies for climate change mitigation that would make CCS cost-effective for uses not associated with enhanced oil recovery. Absent revenues from sales to oil field operators, applying CCS to new coal plants using current technology would be the least-cost path only if the cost of emitting CO2 were at least $25 to $30 per metric ton. Many current policy proposals for climate change mitigation in the U.S. envision significantly lower cost penalties to power providers for releasing CO2 (or similarly, payments for CO2 emissions-reduction credits).
Yet delaying CCS at coal power plants until economy-wide carbon dioxide control costs are greater than CCS costs is shortsighted. For several reasons, the coal and power industries and society would ultimately benefit if deployment of plants fitted with CCS equipment were begun now.
First, the fastest way to reduce CCS costs is via “learning by doing”—the accumulation of experience in building and running such plants. The faster the understanding is accumulated, the quicker the know-how with the new technology will grow, and the more rapidly the costs will drop.
Second, installing CCS equipment as soon as possible should save money in the long run. Most power stations currently under construction will still be operating decades from now, when it is likely that CCS efforts will be obligatory. Retrofitting generating facilities for CCS is inherently more expensive than deploying CCS in new plants. Moreover, in the absence of CO2 emission limits, familiar conventional coal steam-electric technologies will tend to be favored for most new plant construction over newer gasification technologies, for which CCS is more cost-effective.
Finally, rapid implementation would allow for continued use of fossil fuels in the near term (until more environmentally friendly sources become prevalent) without pushing atmospheric carbon dioxide beyond tolerable levels. Our studies indicate that it is feasible to stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels at 450 ppmv over the next half a century if coal-based energy is completely decarbonized and other measures described in the box at the left are implemented. This effort would involve decarbonizing 36 gigawatts of new coal generating capacity by 2020 (corresponding to 7 percent of the new coal capacity expected to be built worldwide during the decade beginning in 2011 under business-as-usual conditions). In the 35 years after 2020, CO2 capture would need to rise at an average rate of about 12 percent a year. Such a sustained pace is high compared with typical market growth rates for energy but is not unprecedented. It is much less than the expansion rate for nuclear generating capacity in its heyday—1956 to 1980—during which global capacity rose at an average rate of 40 percent annually. Further, the expansion rates for both wind and solar photovoltaic power capacities worldwide have hovered around 30 percent a year since the early 1990s. In all three cases, such growth would not have been practical without public policy measures to support them.
Our calculations indicate that the costs of CCS deployment would be manageable as well. Using conservative assumptions—such as that technology will not improve over time—we estimate that the present worth of the cost of capturing and storing all CO2 produced by coal-based electricity generation plants during the next 200 years will be $1.8 trillion (in 2002 dollars). That might seem like a high price tag, but it is equivalent to just 0.07 percent of the current value of gross world product over the same interval. Thus, it is plausible that a rapid decarbonization path for coal is both physically and economically feasible, although detailed regional analyses are needed to confirm this conclusion.
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Add CommentCCS is but one inconvenience of burning coal. A second and more important one is ressource depletion. We are apparently not going to leave the slightest scrap of fossil energy sources for our descendants. Coal, when developing countries start consuming it, will not last more than 150 years. This is the time foresters envisage before harvesting an oak tree! Whatever happened to foresight in economic planning. What has happened to the notion of strategic stocks set aside for the future. Just as our world economic system is collapsing, climate change and ressource depletion will cause havoc as of now, if only we will recognise the truth of our carbon gluttony.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet we do have a choice : Biochar technology parallel with energy efficiency laws based on a carbon tax of $30 per ton of CO2 emitted.
see www.EPRIDA.com Good coal burning is no coal burning...
BORON
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoron, boron, boron.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisForget sequestering CO2 from the coal fired power plants. They generate over 35 tillion pounds of CO2 every year worldwide. This is enough to build a mountain of solid dry ice a mile high. There is nowhere on earth to bury this much, even if you could transport it to the holes. The CO2 that coal generates weighs over 3 times as much as the coal itself. Think of the coal trains you see going across America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is really obvious this story was written in the dark ages of knowledge concerning the realities of carbon capture and storage. In the intervening two years, we have seen rapid escalation of costs in every conceivable way from construction costs of the power plants themselves to severe escalation of projected costs to build and operate CCS facilities. In fact, the University of Kentucky' Center for Applied Energy Research made a presentation last December that showed CCS will result in a 25-40% "parasitic" energy cost in a new power plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is really obvious this story was written in the dark ages of knowledge concerning the realities of carbon capture and storage. In the intervening two years, we have seen rapid escalation of costs in every conceivable way from construction costs of the power plants themselves to severe escalation of projected costs to build and operate CCS facilities. In fact, the University of Kentucky' Center for Applied Energy Research made a presentation last December that showed CCS will result in a 25-40% "parasitic" energy cost in a new power plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo on the bottom of the page, new coal is extremely expensive when compared to alternatives for generation but with new regulations coming for disposal of coal combustion waste and some form of increased fees for releasing carbon, either through Cap and Trade or the more easily understood carbon tax, coal is rapidly becoming a pariah instead of a panacea of our energy future.
Finding ways to use a lot less electricity should be just as high on our priority list. I just reduced my heating bill 60%. If I used electricity for heat that would have been a huge reduction in electric load. The real question is how to motivate a few hundred million Americans to weatherize?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/03/weatherization-nation-how-i-reduced-my.html
Finding ways to use much less electricity should be just as high on the priority list. I just did an experiment on my house to see how much I could lower my heating bill with weatherization (60%). If I heated with electricity I would have made a serious dent in energy use. I documented how I did it below:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/03/weatherization-nation-how-i-reduced-my.html
Although I am not a subscriber, or even a regular reader of SciAm, I find it appalling that they would even consider publishing an article of this nature considering there is very little science contained and is mostly the opinions of a select few. Science deals in FACTS. Items of discussion that can be proven experimentation, either in a lab or in the real world. Although science and history have proven that climate change is real, there has been NO real data that human activity is the cause. Also, as reputable scientists are beginning to discover, increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not the cause, but rather the effect, of increased average global temperatures. I refer you to a recent testimony by a Princeton physics professor, William Happer, to the US Senate Environment & Public Works Committee concerning global warming and the "scare" that the media is presenting to the public.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCCS poses many other threats to the public aside from those noted here. How many millions or trillions of tons of natural resources (i.e. coal, gold, other MINED products) are we going to risk sterilizing if we pump the ground they are contained in full of high pressure CO2?
England is proving that cap and trade does not work. It was implemented there several years ago and all that has occurred is the skyrocketing of power bills. There has been NO significant reduction in CO2 emissions since the implementation. Although we as homeowners may be able to reduce our personal power consumption to a certain degree, industry typically has a fixed baseload that they can do very little to reduce significantly. All of these costs will be passed on to the consumer. From a rise in utility bills to an increase in goods sold.
While I do agree that we as a country need to be exploring alternative forms of energy, we do NOT need to shut the door on coal. "Green" energy such as wind and solar can barely meet the baseload demand in some areas and will never be able to meet peak demand since their generation capacities are so very limited and variable. As I can see it, only nuclear, and possibly hydrogen, have the potential to meet those needs and replace coal as a form of energy.
And by the way, just in case you're wondering, yes, I live in WV, halfway between 2 of the largest mountain top removal jobs in the state. I am a coal miner and dang proud of it!
With the aticipated improvement in CCS as we build coat fired power plants, the United States will become the world's largest energy producer and at the same time, lower our carbon footprint. We will get back our manufacturing capabilities and regain our proper position as an economic giant. The anti-coal green hysterical movement will bankrupt us if we let them. Our government and our coal and power companies should wise up and get to work by using our tremendous coal reserves where we are the leaders in the world. Coal should be the new green giant, and those who say no deserve two black eyes for their blind stupidity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have more coal than any other country in the world. We can figure out clean, carbon-dioxide free, non-poluting methods of utilizing this asset or we don't deserve to be the economic giant we should be. Germany utilized coal to power their war machine during the latter part of World War II even while we were bombing the hell out of them. What are we, a bunch of quitters?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have more coal than any other nation in the world. If we can't figure out clean, pollution-free, carbon-dioxide free methods to extract, transport and utilize this great asset, then we don't deserve to recapture our role as an economic giant. Germany used coal to power their war effort during the latter years of World War II even as we were bombing the hell out of them. What are we, a nation of quitters?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy David G. Hawkins, Daniel A. Lashof and Robert H. Williams as can, heat hands on a fire.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody extinguishes it(him) is going to.
Yours Obama is surrounded with the fools, from the point of view of interests of the citizens, because do not react to the useful letters to address the president.
I personally informed to your president, that in Russia the way of transformation of a thermal energy of an environment in mechanical job and electric power is open.
Informed, that this invention is not necessary for Russia and has received from administration of the country the sanction to interaction with the foreign investor.
To the officials, which surround Obama - to spit on all declared Obama of the initiative on preservation of an environment! The answer no from your wise men.
How to concern to yours Obama, which holds in the environment of the fools - the assistants!?
By David G. Hawkins, Daniel A. Lashof and Robert H. Williams as can, heat hands on a fire.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody extinguishes it(him) is going to.
Yours Obama is surrounded with the fools, from the point of view of interests of the citizens, because do not react to the useful letters to address the president.
I personally informed to your president, that in Russia the way of transformation of a thermal energy of an environment in mechanical job and electric power is open.
Informed, that this invention is not necessary for Russia and has received from administration of the country the sanction to interaction with the foreign investor.
To the officials, which surround Obama - to spit on all declared Obama of the initiative on preservation of an environment! The answer no from your wise men.
How to concern to yours Obama, which holds in the environment of the fools - the assistants!?
VTMINER, you are an idiot. I know you must have children. People with your mentality usually have a lot of children. You work hard everyday in destroying the very environment they will have to live in tomorrow and you can care less if they have clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, or non toxic land to live on. You do not see the destruction you leave in your wake or the deadly chemicals that is invading your children's body everyday. Coal is a destructive force and it is killing the land and the people who live around it. Wake up and smell the death you create around your family every day. Yes, I know you are proud to be a coal miner and I believe you must also be proud in being an idiot, after all -- The Hills Of West Virginia Have Eyes --.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider the technology outlined in this article before going too far down the path of burying this potential feedstock:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18582/
Spreading innuendo and not substance that's what spreading. You don't tell the whole story of using coal as a fuel source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany large industries and generating companies have not been vigilant and using modern stack emissions or what is best called pollution control equipment. Most coal fired plants use antiquated very old technology emissions controls. So pollution and stack emissions is passed along to some other location many, many miles down wind of the plant. You know the old addage, the solution to pollution is dilution.
But, coal is cheap, and the difference in profitablity and going into the red is using coal firing to balance the books. Coal gets the least amount of funds to clean it up, nuclear gets the most funding.
Coal is affordable to all consumers, and other than hydraulic generation coal gets the shaft. Nuclear will bankrupt industries with ever increasing pricing. Subsidizing nuclear and so called Green energies is a pie in the sky liberal plan. In time that liberal plan "has" to be fully paid, and that is people, you will pay huge amounts of monthly billing to be "Green". Industries have to plan years in advance to forecast "if" they are going to be viable. Most heavy industries are forecasting doom, they know that if the Green Plans get further promoted they will not be viable in the North American market, so closing down plants is there only option.
All you Green people who want to follow this stupidity, there are NO green jobs, only unemployment. You've priced energy for bulk users, combined with excessive laws and regulations on fossil fuels by forging ahead on "carbon taxation or carbon trading" to kill North American heavy industry.
I say invest in coal fired plants smartly, install emission reduction equipment, promote clean coal technology, and make less restrictions on heavy industry.
Environmentalists who support the Green industry stuff don't even work in the industry, all they are is a bunch of whiners, and doomsayers.
I say invest in your neighbors job, keep energy affordable, and promote North American heavy industry.
We have too, we're going broke.
CLEAN COAL.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL
)*( cooling tower or an ass your choice.
Dukebaker-3 times the weight?You don't get something from nothing.Where is all this extra mass coming from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjack.123
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf C stands for the carbon in coal and O2 stands for the oxygen in the air then 3 times is approximately right. C+O2 weighs a lot more than C by itself.
C has an atomic weight of 12 and O has an atomic weight of 16. Hence O2 has an atomic weight of 32.
CO2, the result of combining the carbon in coal with oxygen, will weigh 44 in atomic weight. 44 divided by 12 will give about 3.8 that is to say CO2 weighs 3.8 times more than C all by itself .