“CLEAN” COAL, A TOO COSTLY NON-SOLUTION

A Bad Bet on Carbon
Robert Bryce, May 12, 2010 (NY Times)

"…[The long-awaited Kerry-Lieberman Senate energy bill] includes incentives of $2 billion per year for carbon capture and sequestration, the technology that removes carbon dioxide from the smokestack at power plants and forces it into underground storage. This significant allocation would come on top of the $2.4 billion for carbon capture projects that appeared in last year’s stimulus package.

"That’s a lot of money for a technology whose adoption faces three potentially insurmountable hurdles: it greatly reduces the output of power plants; pipeline capacity to move the newly captured carbon dioxide is woefully insufficient; and the volume of waste material is staggering. Lawmakers should stop perpetuating the hope that the technology can help make huge cuts in the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions."

The energy to do this compression makes CCS uneconomic. (click to enlarge)

"…Analysts estimate that capturing the carbon dioxide cuts the output of a typical plant by as much as 28 percent…[I]t’s hard to believe that the United States, or any other country that relies on coal-fired generation, will agree to reduce the output of its coal-fired plants by almost a third in order to attempt carbon capture and sequestration.

"Here’s the second problem. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has estimated that up to 23,000 miles of new pipeline will be needed to carry the captured carbon dioxide to the still-undesignated underground sequestration sites…[C]arbon dioxide is a worthless waste product, so taxpayers would likely end up shouldering most of the [pipeline] cost. Yes, some of that waste gas could be used for enhanced oil recovery projects…But the process would be useful in only a limited number of oilfields — probably less than 10 percent of the waste carbon dioxide captured from coal-fired power plants…"

Managing compressed gases in huge volumes is asking for trouble. Think Gulf oil spill. (click to enlarge)

"The third, and most vexing, problem has to do with scale…[A]bout 8.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per day…would have to be collected and compressed to about 1,000 pounds per square inch (that compressed volume of carbon dioxide would be roughly equivalent to the volume of daily global oil production)…[So] we would need to find an underground location (or locations) able to swallow a volume equal to the contents of 41 oil supertankers each day, 365 days a year…There will also be considerable public resistance…[F]ew people will to want to live near a pipeline or an underground storage cavern…

"For some, carbon capture and sequestration will remain the Holy Grail of carbon-reduction strategies. But before Congress throws yet more money at the procedure, lawmakers need to take a closer look at…[the] cost and scale…"