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82 comments on The State of the (Energy) Union (and a SOTU open thread)
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Or rather, require all new coal plants to have the provision to put carbon capture technology in place when that is available .
Since we don't know which coal capture technology will prove dominant (1), this could boil down to leaving an empty space next to the plant, designated for future carbon capture.
(1) leading candidates include:
IGCC - coal gasification
amine scrub of the exhaust flu
oxy-hydrogen combustion
My own guess is IGCC is the technological best lead. By concentrating the CO2 (a nearly pure stream from the gasification stage) you are making the capture so easy for yourself.
However the utility industry deeply distrusts IGCC due to reliability issues (new technology). This is a very conservative industry, with a low rate of R&D (1% of sales, v. 8% in the pharmaceutical industry).
Other than supercritical steam, there hasn't been a major innovation in coal fired technology since the 1960s that I know of (except aforesaid IGCC ie gasification, which is more of a chemical industry technology than a power utility one).
CO2 sequestration is an imaginary technology.
Even if you capture the CO2 effectively, there is currently no known reliable way of storing it for geophysical time, which is the requirement.
Not only that, any potential solution would depend intimately on local geology which may not
be compatible where the coal plants otherwise need to be.
Unfortunately, I see this as a total loser.
The mentions of 'sequestration' are a greenwashing of black coal, sort of like the "hydrogen car of the future" is a distraction to preclude having to increase efficiency standards now.
Let's compare this to a nuclear fission. If you write a cheque you will get a working plant with technology well-evolved through many decades, and you know that its operation will result in almost no greenhouse emissions versus coal.
The waste instead of being gaseous is small in volume and compact solid, and easily monitored.
And in future actinide-burning reactors that waste may be fuel of its own and be transmuted to a much lower half-life.
Mineral carbonation works forever.
I doubt fossil + CO2 capture will be price competitive with nuclear power though.
If it comes out slowly over a few thousand years it will be enough. Once we finsh burning the carbon in the coal and oil, makind's CO2 emmision will plumet.
1. you can certainly ship CO2 by pipeline over hundreds of miles it is already done. And you can move it by tanker.
2. you can certainly put CO2 back underground -- Weyburn in Saskatoon does so, as does Sleipnir in Norway (under the North Sea)
3. 'geologic' sequestration really means post 2200. After 2200, we don't have any more fossil fuels to burn (in significant quantities)-- just some biomass
4. building power plants at the mouths of coal plants, and moving the power very long distances is something we already do. Happens all the time in the UK. And we don't even us DC transmission to do it, which we could do.
So the questions of where to generate the power are not insuperable.
5. a bigger problem is safety, and more specifically, local concerns about safety. That disaster in Cameroon looms large.
Oddly, 5 is exactly the issue of the nuclear industry (fear of long term geologic waste).
My problem with nuclear is that, as a technology, it has never met its cost forecasts. Not by a country mile: 300-400% more expensive than forecast. Nor is its safety record entirely clean. It is a complex technology, and all the moving parts have to work, potentially for centuries, to keep it safe.
A lot of people have looked at CSS in great detail. There is real potential there, and the costs are not out of line with electricity provided by wind or nuclear (roughly a range of 5-10 cents/ kwhr for all of these technologies). And since coal is the cheapest energy we have, we are going to keep using coal.
There's no way, for example, that China could replace all its electricity demand with nuclear. So the challenge is to clean up the fuel it is using, coal.
Actually only IGCC is currently a serious candidate for carbon capture. Conventional CPPs emit a mixture of 18-19% CO2 and 75% N2 plus other stuff. To separate CO2 from this you need to liquify it - which will bring the costs to the sky and is even likely to be an energy loser.
If you are suggesting is to ban conventional CPPs and permit only IGCCs at sites suitable for carbon capture I would support you. But the fact it that you may as well ban the whole coal industry... it is pretty much the same.
Hello LevinK,
Now here is an excellent idea which I can affirm. We should ban the entire coal industry from the horrendous mines to the horrendous power plants to all of the horrendous electronic gadgets which are powered by the electricity generated by this dirty, world-polluting, world-destroying substance.
Americans should learn to live with less electricity. This will serve to break one of America's addictions as we retreat from the hellish planet that technology is creating through its pollution of the Earth.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
Let's entertain this a bit.
What will happen if we just stopped burning coal and (obviously) nuclear starting from tommorow? I have lived during a permanent 3 to 1 rationing... not that bad, just quite inconvenient. But what about 1 to 3 or 1 to 11 (as they do in Baghdad and Tirana)? Forget cooling in the summers, how will people heat in the winters, since NG will be also gone? Tell you what - I think they will start burning wood... 300 mln.north americans by several cubic meters of wood = US deforestation in a decade or so. Is this what you want?
I told you once - our civilisation is just like a 1 mln.barrel tanker headed for an iceberg - and if your idea is to sink it then you need to know that all that cr*p is still going to get in the water. So, please stop wasting bandwidth with such suggestions and try to help those, trying to find a way to change the course - this is the only chance not only for humans but for the Mother Nature you are so much concerned of.
If the 300 million Americans cut down the forests they will murder their own children. If Americans were wise they would end the coal industry and then adapt to their environment.
Homo sapiens are headed to certain, inevitable extinction. Mother Nature has endured much greater global catastrophes in the past. Mother Nature will survive and prosper for another billion years after humankind is gone.
Too bad for humankind. Our species is quickly running out of time. Extinction is looming ahead.
Hi David,
**Too bad for humankind. Our species is quickly running out of time. Extinction is looming ahead.
Be careful David.
1)You can think yourself into depression and end up throwing yourself in front of a coal train (joke, OK).
2) Since you feel all is hopeless, almost everyone will ignore you.
Paul
Hello Paul,
I have an entire Universe and an entire planet and fifteen billion years to keep me happy in spite of the unfolding tragedy which is humankind. There is no cause for depression when the Universe is filled with so many beautiful things.
If I lied to you and you all listened to me that wouldn't exactly help the situation here on Earth that much, would it?
I will speak the truth and those who listen will hear.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
Its like them religeous folks who go on about impending divine retribution. Doomsday cults are allways popular it seems, and we never run out of new sins to invent.
In the short run it is not possible.
In the long run, it is necessary and essential.
We move CO2 hundreds of miles, we move coal thousands of miles, we move electricity thousands of miles. The obstacles are not insuperable.
What we have to avoid now is 'locking in' an inappropriate technology.