I do firmly believe that politics are getting in the way of sound science. (Science is not immune to politics–esp. when it comes to decisions about where to invest research dollars.)

If you look at scientific recommendations that take into account negative externalities, coal + CCS is just about the worst possible option. Here’s an article (summarizing an article from the Energy & Environmental Science journal) that goes into more detail about what I mean: http://www.grist.org/article/the-top-10-sources-for-energy/

Clem, I think this statement you made is simply incorrect:

The *only* reason CCS is even in the mix is because of political considerations, not scientific ones.

If you believe the IPCC is the standard for science on climate change, then you have to believe there is a scientific basis for CCS research. The IPCC is an advocate of these things … and believes that CCS is a “key mitigation strategy.” http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-spm.pdf

So, there is indeed a major scientific basis for arguing for more research into CCS.

I think the real issue is first, if it turns out not to work, what then?

And that ties in with the second thing — we’re obviously not spending $10 billion in each possible area of R and D that could help. And given that we’re spending limited amounts of money, how much sense does it make to put so much emphasis on one of these technologies?

That seems like a debate that reasonable people can have and hopefully try to resolve. Will our Congress do that in a reasonable way? Hmmmm….

Go back and look at the Congressional testimony (Ken’s “Honest talk about CCS” or similar) from the AEP guy a couple weeks ago. He said the one prototype technology that they have tested used 33% of a plant’s output which requires a staggering 50% more coal [(1.0-.33) x 1.5 = 1.0] to get back to the same amount of usable electricity generation. He does the calc the same way I did: 1.5 is the reciprocal of 0.67 just as 1.25 is the reciprocal of 0.8. Multiplying a fraction by its reciprocal gets you back to 1.0 or, in this case, 100% of original output.

The AEP guy said they wanted to test another system–ammonia something–that might use only 20% of a plant’s output but there was no guarantee it would work.

“The Alstom approach sucks up about 15 percent of the power plant’s energy output; other processes use as much as 30 percent. That means the utility must purchase other energy sources to cover the shortfall. (The energy lost is part of the $700 million cost, AEP executives said.)”

I’m working on a longer write-up summarizing the many concerns about CCS and this project… hope to have it done in next 12-48 hrs.

Secondly, nice posts.

You can have funding for CCS research. Ample funding. Serious research makes sense for the many good reasons Thomas Rodd writes about. Even if it doesn’t pay off. But CCS is very unproven and the scale of the problem is enormous. For CCS to be effective, we probably have to make other changes too: reducing demand, switching to cleaner fuels, making power plants more efficient. And also the aggressive development of alternatives that A-mouse writes about. By doing all this, we reduce the scale CCS needed. It becomes more realistic. For every dollar spent on CCS research, we should spend $2 researching improved power plant performance, improved power plant efficiency.

I admit to a desire not to see the industrialization of the entire planet. That accounts for part of my bias against CCS. Another bias: I know we can be doing things today to improve our energy (including coal) portfolio–making it cleaner and more efficient. The utilities seem to resist acting today with a promise of clean coal tomorrow. I think this narrow emphasis on CCS in W-M is absolutely frightening–it commits us to one long, expensive and possibly lonely dead-end path.

have a good weekend.

The per ton cost of CCS in your last post is probably too low. I think your back-of-the-envelope calcs also underestimate the extra coal and sequestration required–but more on that below.

The MIT Study that Ken wrote about estimated commercial (nth plant) costs at $60 to $70 per ton. The Kennedy School of Government study (the “Harvard” study also featured on C Tattoo) estimated the costs at well over $100 per ton–more like $150 if I remember correctly.

The MIT study said CCS was practical (though costly) for half the nation’s existing fleet and for plants that come on line in the future. The Kennedy School study was only for future IGCC plants with some side estimates for CCS retrofit on existing super-critical pulverized coal plants.

CCS seems to be very expensive. My lay person’s guess is that utilities will prefer to purchase offsets–especially given that W-M bends over backwards to keep them cheap and available. However, I admit the very generous free allowances for CCS under W-M will be attractive for utilities. Indeed, they probably wrote those provisions.

I still can’t get around the enormous parasitic energy demand. In your calcs, you estimate a loss of efficiency of 20%. To make up for that, you need 25% more coal [(1-.2)x1.25 = 1.0], not 20% more coal. Don’t forget, you also need to sequester 25% more CO2 (since your burning 25% more coal) if your overall goal (in tons of CO2 removed) remains the same.

The only argument for I see for CCS–unless there are some very significant technological advances– is that it allows humanity to keep burning coal.

Actually, now that I think about it, I am pretty wrong, so let’s redo that.

If you’re comfortable with a 10-year time frame, then the base cost per ton would be $33.40. That only includes development costs. None of the calculations from here on will include operations and maintenance, so keep that in mind if you would.

Add in the fuel costs. Say they use half high-sulfur and half low-sulfur coal. Average price per ton of coal with that mix, right now, $49.40. To make it easy lets say $50/ton, as we can also expect the price of coal to continue rising on average over ten years, so we’re being conservative here.

By my quick estimate, AEP burns 3 million tons of coal each year at their Mountaineer plant. The IPCC says CCS plants use 10-40% more energy (coal in WV) than conventional plants. Using a 20% inefficiency rate for the calculations, which I think is fair in this case, especially for a pilot project, that means that the plant would require 600,000 tons of extra coal each year, at a price of $30 million.

For 2 million tons of CO2 per year, that’s an extra $15/ton on top of the $33.4 from the development cost. Of course, I admit that the development cost could be spread over 20 years and thus cut in half for its CO2 price, but for an unproven technology with unproven storage capacity, I’m sticking with 10 years. Total price tag now, $48.40 per ton of CO2 sequestered. We’ll even do a range using a 20 year time frame. So $33.20 to $48.40 per ton of CO2.

Lets take that national. Say we want to sequester 50% of the nation’s current CO2 emissions from electricity generation resulting from burning coal. The total in 2007 (under a strong economy) was just under 2.2 billion short tons (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html#emissions). I converted the metric ton number there to short tons (2.2 short tons per metric ton).

So we want to sequester 1 billion tons of CO2 nation-wide from coal-fired electricity generation. At $33.20 per ton, that’s $33.2 billion, annually. Over 20 years, $664 billion, for 20 billion tons of CO2.

Using the wind example again, that $664 billion could be used to develop 332 Gigawatts of wind power at $2 million per MW (which is a slightly higher price than the current national average according to NREL).

At a 30% capacity factor, that 332 Gigawatts could prevent 436.3 million tons of coal from being burned each year, or about 40% of our current national coal consumption for electricity generation, and thus approximately 40% of our current CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants.

If I’m anywhere close to being right, this has huge implications. First of all we fall short of our CO2 prevention goal of 50%, by 10%. However, on balance, the positives are that:

1) We stop mining 40% of the coal we’re currently mining, at least for national purposes. This would prevent major disturbances to our land (think about the CO2 released from clear-cut and burned forests), communities, water resources, etc. It would prevent that much injection of coal slurry, or creation of coal sludge impoundments, or coal ash ponds. It would prevent another 40% of the mercury, sulfur, nitrogen oxide, etc, emissions and/or storage. This could go on and on, but remember that these things cost money to restore or maintain, money that isn’t considered but that has a real economic impact. For example, $2 million to bring clean water to Prenter could have been used to train 400 new clean energy workers under the federal Workforce Investment Act. Or to reforest 2,500 acres of surface-mined land under the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative.

2) The price of electricity would become more stable, as the wind resource is free, whereas the price of coal will continue to rise.

3) We wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining vast underground CO2-storage reservoirs.

4) A good portion of the 25,000 people that currently die prematurely due to respiratory diseases caused by coal-fired power plants, as estimated by the EPA, would be able to breathe easier and live longer.

5) Thousands of kids would be able to grow up with normal brain function because they weren’t affected by mercury-tainted breast milk.

This list could go on for a long time, but I think the point is clear.

Now, my challenge is for anyone reading this to go out there and find me an honest publication promoting CCS. “Honest” being defined as one that takes into account all of the true costs of coal in their determination that we should support CCS. If they fail to do so, they lose their credibility, no matter how long their resume or how established their reputation.

If you can find me one single report by a respected researcher that says, “These are the true costs of relying on CCS, and I still support its development,” or one that says “Of course we could prevent those CO2 emissions by putting the money into renewables, but I still support CCS,” or actually, a report that does both, then I’ll accept your arguments in favor of CCS, or at least, I’ll respect them.

If not, then perhaps you should reconsider your own acceptance of their research and assertions. Because without a full accounting of the impact of developing CCS, or without a full consideration of the alternatives, that research is not credible, no matter how many letters come in front of the author’s name.

Keep in mind, even if the US got all of its coal generated power from gas instead, we’d still have a long way to go to get to an 80% reduction by 2050.

I’m all for serious research, but don’t put all the eggs in one basket:

CCS: Your Utilitiy Company’s Promise for Tomorrow, The Pollution of Today!

CCS is incredibly resource intensive–it requires resources that we will inevitably run out of. It is a short-sighted solution compared to renewable technologies that can power humanity not just for a decade or two, but for centuries (if not millennium).

I think some environmental groups have made that argument … Greenpeace, for example, calls CCS a “dangerous distraction,” in a report posted here:

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/new-greenpeace-report-exposes

I’ve noted before that the IPCC does not agree with that. They support research on CCS, but have all sorts of concerns about it.

The Union of Concerned Scientists supports more research and development of CCS, especially if this is joined with a ban on NEW coal plants that don’t have CCS (which means no new coal plants for now, really) and if the research is in cooperation with developing nations like China and India.

However, in this report:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/Coal-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf

The Union of Concerned Scientists does make this interesting point (see page 34):

One of the greatest risks associated with pursuing CCS is that it will prevent the nation giving appropriate attention to truly clean and sustainable energy options (wind, concentrated solar, photovoltaic solar, geothermal, tidal power, biomass, and biofuels) and the myriad emerging technologies that can make us more efficient in our use of energy.

I would argue that UCS is a group with resumes, track records and credentials.

This isn’t exactly the point Anonymouse was making — but it is a very strong caution that should be considered, don’t you think?

The UCS, by the way, adds that:

Given the fact that global warming is one of the greatest threats humanity has ever faces, investing about $10 BILLION in R and D and demonstration of EACH technology that shows promise for reducing CO2 (including CCS) would not be an unreasonable response.

The stakes are that high.

Ken.

“As many as 21 new opencast coalmines are threatening to transform Chandrapur city and district into one big coal quarry and overburden dumping ground. Four of these, argue conservationists, would cut the crucial tiger corridors that link the north and south Chandrapur forest divisions. Three of the four captive mines – Lohara-Lohara Extension, Lohara (west) and Agarzari – are in buffer zone of the TATR. ”

http://kisanbachao.blogspot.com/2009/07/vidarbha-mps-join-hands-write-to-pm-on.html

I’d made a comment on an earlier post to the effect of “Do we really think India and China need our help in developing CCS?” China is, from what I understand, way ahead of us in regards to CCS research and development, and I expect that it will be easier for China to market it’s technology in India than it will be for us. Further, as I’ve asked before, why not further develop renewable technologies instead of CCS in order to quell the Indian “tsunami” that you expect is on its way? Put money into making wind and solar tech’s more efficient and cost-effective. Also, there is a huge environmental and community impact of a continued reliance on coal in India.

Coal India is the government-run coal producer and produces most of their coal with open-cast coal mining. See their website, which has production data, here: http://www.coalindia.nic.in/

They produce around 400 million tons of coal a year, which generates over 1.2 billion tons of CO2 each year. With a rough estimate, the AEP plant wants to now sequester about 2 ‘million’ tons each year to get to their 20% sequestration rate? And that will cost a total of about $668 Million? (original plan was for about 100,000 tons, http://www.aep.com/environmental/climatechange/carboncapture/)

So say our goal is to sequester half of the CO2 coming from Indian coal, or about 600 million tons of CO2 per year. Based on the price-per-ton to develop CCS for AEP (about $334/ton), to develop enough CCS to sequester half of the CO2 output from India would cost $200.4 Billion. And then of course, you have the extra fuel costs related to the inefficiency of the technology.

That’s enough money to develop over 1oo Gigawatts of wind power, which is enough to prevent the annual burning of 132 million tons of coal, which would prevent the annual emission of nearly 400 million tons of CO2. That’s 200 million tons less than developing the CCS, but then again, you can always develop more wind each year with the savings you get from not having to buy the coal to burn. What would that annual savings be? At say $50/ton US, and about 130 million tons of coal left unmined and unburned each year, thats another $6.5 billion saved, or another 3,250 MW of wind developed, or another 12 million tons of CO2 left out of the atmosphere each year.

And, you forego the other social and environmental costs related to the mining, processing, and burning of the coal.

Thoughts? Which deal sounds better? Which technologies should we be developing and exporting to India? CCS? or Wind and Solar?