Gazette photo by Lawrence Pierce
In case any Coal Tattoo readers missed it, we had a major piece in Sunday’s Gazette-Mail called “Coal vs. Climate: Will greenhouse controls come before it’s too late.
The story takes a look at American Electric Power’s CCS test over at the Mountaineer Plant in Mason County, and tries to put it in perspective of the huge challenge facing the coal industry in trying to deal with climate change. The summary:
But coal is in a race with the climate.
The planet is heating up faster than scientists thought it would just a few years ago. Experts say greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced soon, before it’s too late.
At the same time, the coal industry says it needs more time to perfect and deploy technology to capture and store carbon dioxide from power plants.
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is expensive. It sucks up a lot of a power plant’s energy and takes up tremendous space.
Power companies haven’t figured out exactly how to do CCS on the monumental scale needed. And experts aren’t sure if pumping such huge amounts of compressed CO2 underground is really safe.
Nobody knows if coal or climate is going to win this important race, but the world is watching, and even some of the strongest advocates of CCS have started to make it clear that the path ahead for coal is far from easy.
The nature of this crisis for coal was best summed up by this passage from the story:
In a recent special edition of the journal Science, Scottish CCS expert R. Stuart Haszeldine warned that carbon capture projects might be falling behind the pace that is needed.
Haszeldine cited a “lamentable lack of financial commitment to real construction.” If more pilot projects aren’t up and running by 2014, “learning from these to provide commercial credibility will drift beyond 2020.”
“The worldwide construction of many tens of hundreds of large CCS plants — necessary for a substantial impact on climate mitigation — will then be delayed beyond the deadline set by climate change predictions,” Haszeldine wrote.
I’d be interested in reader thoughts about the story, and I wanted to pass on the links before, which take you to some of the source documents I found very helpful in reporting this story:
– Special issue of Science about carbon capture and storage (subscription required).
– Coal Power in a Warming World, a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
– How to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change, a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
– Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
– Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, from the IPCC.
– Understanding and Responding to Climate Change, Highlights of the National Academies Reports, 2008 Edition.
– Capturing CO2 from Coal-fired Power Plants: Challenges for a Comprehensive Strategy, by the Congressional Research Service.
– Energy at the Crossroads, by Vaclav Smil
– Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, Synthesis Report, by the Copenhagen Climate Congress.
My reporting on these issues has also been greatly educated by Joseph Romm’s blog, Climate Progress, and by Andrew Revkin’s reporting on his Dot Earth blog. Coal Tattoo readers have also been very helpful, and I’ve enjoyed the online discussions we’ve had the last few months about CCS.
We’ll be hearing more later this week about the Mountaineer project, as AEP has a big ceremony planned on Friday at the plant in Mason County. In the meantime, I’d be interested to hear from Coal Tattoo readers about Sunday’s article …
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Ken, when you post links, is it possible to make them pop up in new windows, so that the reader doesn’t get taken off your blog site? I believe this is just a simple HTML thing.
Ross, if you right-click on the link, you should get a pop-up menu that would let you select opening the link in a new window (or new tab if you prefer it that way). But I agree, it would be nice if the links didn’t take us away from this page.
I liked the article.
I’ve been very impressed by the quality of information and disccussion on the blog over the past few months on this issue. A lot of people are visiting this blog and are getting both a great education — and an opportunity to express their concerns and views about things that matter a lot — to us, and to future generations.
One point as to the article’s specifics — perhaps the role of natural gas in this “race” — at least here in the US — might have warranted more discussion. That is to say, it might be the case that if we in the US did not have a lot of a readily-available baseload lower-carbon alternative fuel like gas, for the short- and medium-term — then perhaps the investors who appear to be dragging their feet/unenthusiastic on CCS would be more active. (Maybe I missed this issue in the article, and if I did, apologies.)
What do you think about that, Mr. Ward? Have you heard that explanation?
Photographer Mitch Epstein has just completed a project “American Power”, looking at the pervasive presence of energy infrastructure on our landscape. The work documents (probably not quite the right word) how America’s relentless search for energy and voracious consumption of energy has become an essential part of our culture, our identity and our lives.
Many powerful images from W Va. Some of of the Amos plant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/arts/design/10epstein.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=mitch%20epstein&st=cse
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/showcase-mitch-epsteins-power/
The enormous world-wide CCS infrastruture required to keep burning coal the way we do today would be yet another–as yet undocumented–set of images in “American Power”
There is a lot in Ken’s post to cover. Before I get to the links, let me make one observation: Nature has already done a very nice job sequestering all that carbon underground. Let’s leave it there.
Tom,
That’s a good point, but one I simply didn’t have space to get into in that print story … Ken.
Tom,
I would suggest that investors are dragging their feet on CCS because it’s a bad investment.
In fact, the coal industry has been lobbying Congress heavily for carbon credits while pushing for the full brunt of carbon legislation to fall on the natural gas industry. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/business/07gas.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Natural gas is a perfect “transition” fuel for electrical generation because gas fired plants can be cycled up and down quickly to even out more sporadic generation from wind and solar sources. Large coal plants do not have this flexibility. Denmark and Germany now have this multi-source base load capacity while the US clings to the past.
The coal industry has been pushing for taxpayers to pay for their CCS investments, while investors are moving ahead in the marketplace, investing in new gas fired power plants.
How far can gas increase generation? There’s plenty of gas right how with the recession, recent dense shale discoveries and mild weather. Can gas economically produce 25%, 30% of electrical generation or what? Why isn’t nuclear touted?
The Gazette photo showing a power plant’s cooling towers & stack, an American flag and a cemetery, looks to be an attempt at symbolism and smells of bias.
From US Dept. of Energy EIA — 2009 year to date: natural gas currently generating 22.3% of all electrical power in US. A year ago, as was generating a little over 20%.
As new plants now in the works come on line, it will be 25% easy in a few years.
Bill,
A bit unclear about how support for CCS in legislation puts the brunt of carbon legislation on the natural gas industry. Do you mean that it may provide a longer term solution that interferes with natural gas gaining more market share? Remember also, natural gas will need CCS as an enabling technology when carbon limits are put in place. When it comes to subsidies, the renewables you mention have been getting subsidies from day 1 in the form of tax credits and state renewable standards mandating that a certiain percentage of electricity be purchased from wind and solar–those are the subsidies necessary for those forms of electricity to make it on the grid. You are correct in terms of natural gas plants capability to support wind and solar–but that is bascially redundancy being built into the system since we need 70-90% backup of some form of baseload power (gas, coal or nuclear) for renewables. Think about all of the extra energy being used just to be ready for the inevitable lack of availability of wind or solar–at least 70% of the time. Is this energy conservation at its worse? In terms of cycling up and down–that is also an accurate description of natural gas prices. Of interest is the natural gas industry’s recent call for a “bridge fuel credit”–yes a subsidy–to displace more affordable sources of electricity such as coal. Last year the difference between the cost of coal and natural gas delivered to utilitieis was about $8–coal being $2/mmbtu and gas $10/mmbtu. Increase of electricity from natural gas over the past 8 years increased electricity prices and natural gas prices. During the same period, we lost a good part of our manufacturing base that depends on both competitive electricity prices and natural gas as a feedstock for their production proceses—more than 3 million manufactruing jobs gone all prior to the recent economic downturn.
Casey, good question. There may be more gas, but it won’t be produced at current prices. Even Aubrey McClendon says they need prices above $7-8. Right now Canada provides the US with 13% of its natural gas needs and projections are that Canadian gas to the US will decrease by 30% over the next 10 years. So it looks like we’ll barely keep up with that decline. Despite record drilling levels in 2008, natural gas industry was only able to increase production by about 5 billion cubic feet a day–less than what is needed to incremental power demand. Nuclear is an option and should be given due attention. But US policies have deterred its expansion. Bottom line, we will need a balanced portfolio.
Facts,
My reference, and the NYT article, was not about subsidies for CCS. My reference was to the fact that the coal industry is being given hundreds of millions of dollars in credits in current cap and trade legislation, while the natural gas industry basically gets no credits.
Any talk about what industries get or don’t get subsidies is beside the point. Subsidies are, and should be, used to set priorities for future development. The problem comes when subsidies are allowed to strengthen the position of powerful obsolete technologies. That is what killed the economy of the former Soviet Union.
My only point about CCS above was that no private investors will support it. It is one thing to subsidize an industry to supplement private investment. It is quite another for the government to provide all or most of the investment.
Power companies don’t want CCS investment included in their electric rate structure, because that would drive electric rates for coal fired power sky high, accelerating the drive for alternative sources of power. The coal industry would much prefer that rates remain superficially “cheap” while the same people, as taxpayers, pay for coal fired power and CCS.
We clearly disagree on whether coal is “cheap.” You seem to think that “competitive electricity prices” are worth the destruction of southern West Virginia. I do not.
Casey, I didn’t think the photo was meant to show any sort of bias. It just appeared to me to have been a good vantage point of to photograph the power plant.
To me biased symbolism is wearing the American flag all the while talking about how great coal is and ranting against the leaders of our country. I don’t believe the American Flag should be worn as a garment or incorporated into a garment at all. I believe that it is disrespectful of the American flag and all that it represents.
Nanette,
You might be correct but..
“Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly”.
Great comments, everyone. Here are a few more remarks about subsidizing carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”).
I don’t think I am actually going to need my seatbelt or airbag when I drive home to the farm this weekend. But I also think it’s a very worthwhile investment to have them working — in case I do need them, and in order to make my trip less legally risky. I think I have the same sort of feelings about subsidizing CCS.
By this, I mean that most experts agree that there’s at least a real possibility that without the ability to do something like CCS, the planet will be on a certain trajectory to disaster — just like I would be, flying out the windshield on I-79.
And, there’s a very practical issue. Investing a lot of money in CCS subsidies is quite apparently necessary to “get to 60″ in the US Senate — just like having that seatbelt fastened is necessary to get me by a vigilant state policeman.
I’m with Joe Romm on this one — even if it is likely that we won’t need CCS or that it won’t save our lives (like any seatbelt or airbag, which may not do the trick), I have come to believe (where do I vote on this?) that humankind and we in the US should invest in at the least “proving out” CCS — rapidly and big time.
Let’s “buckle up” — because “the stakes are that high.”
Thom–
First, I confess I have not had time to open up all the links.
The political argument for CCS is not the scientific argument. It is easy to conflate things like this. It is very important that we maintain the distinction. (This is where I have some of my problems with the horse-trading Romm)
Dollars we spend on CCS for traditional coal fired plants are dollars we won’t have available to spend on better ways of making energy, including better ways of using coal. (Repeat that sentence for emphasis.) CCS may not be the insurance or measure of safety you suggest, it could actually be quite the opposite–postponement of important changes in our energy economy vital to solving the climate issue. CCS does absolutely nothing to address all of the other major problems with coal and fossil fuels–extraction and water pollution, transportation, and post combustion waste. In fact, CCS considerably amplifies those problems. I imagine CCS a stake through the heart of many people who love the West Virginia landscape.
Your other question about the gas shales. They are surely not unique to the US. They are widespread here. They will occur elsewhere. Remember, it’s not that the shales were recently discovered, it’s that the extraction technologies have been recently developed. Another major source of methane may also come available in the near future: methane hydrates, undersea or in permafrost. These are by far the largest source of hydrocarbons on the planet.
FactsFirst is right. We may well need CCS to burn natural gas. Gas emits less than half the carbon for the same amount of usable energy. It’s crazy to waste CCS on coal. It’s insane to waste in on old, inefficient coal plants.
Despite my pitch for gas, I agree with those–FactsFirst probably included–who say we need to be cautious and sober about these new gas discoveries. The fields may not be as productive as boosters think and there are many environmental and political issues with extraction. You might say that puts me in a bind. I say it means we move forward with the most efficient ways of producing, transmitting and using energy along with considerable investment in renewables. Hasn’t Joe Romm has illustrated how we can meet W-M goals in 2020 without even building new natural gas power plants?
Back to that photograph. I agree with Casey that it can be read in many ways, that there is a suggestion of ambiguity about it. That may be why it’s a provocative image–it’s a metaphor about our ambiguous relationship with energy and the land. In the photo, we are temporal–the cemetery. The power plant, by contrast, appears much more permanent–our society’s cathedral. Does the presence grace or desecrate the lovely landscape? The flag a weak assurance that everything is OK. And yes, it’s a beautiful day.
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Thanks, Red Desert, for the link to those amazing pictures. I was just in Pca the other day.
Also, Red Desert, following your suggestion, I think it’s the case that the reduction in atmospheric CO2 caused by Nature’s carbon capture and sequestration programs — over hundreds of millions of years — is a big reason why we humans are here today.
It was HOT back in those high-CO2 times!