This letter to the editor originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

October 30, 2008

Carbon capture riddled with problems, report says

Read the report here 

By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Equipment to control power plant greenhouse gas emissions is "emerging technology" that is saddled with many unanswered questions about scale, safety and cost, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Carbon dioxide "capture and storage" has never been deployed on a commercial scale, but is urgently needed if the world is to both deal with climate change and keep coal a major part of the energy supply, the report concluded.

"Given the critical importance of combating climate change, all coal-related investments and policies should be judged by the ultimate standard of whether they will reduce global warming pollution at the pace and on the scale needed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change," said the report, released earlier this month.

Experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists urged a halt to construction of new coal-fired power plants, as well as tougher regulations to limit other adverse environmental impacts of coal.

The science-based nonprofit group noted that the U.S. has significant coal reserves and will likely continue to burn coal to generate power for many years to come. Climate projections, however, indicated that the nation must swiftly cut carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately reduce them by at least 80 percent below 2000 levels by mid-century to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Coal is the nation's largest source of global warming pollution, representing approximately a third of U.S. emissions, equal to the combined output of all cars, trucks, buses, trains and boats.

"We're on a collision course with a much hotter planet unless we drastically cut coal power plant emissions," said Barbara Freese, co-author of the report and of the book, "Coal: A Human History."

"Carbon capture and storage holds promise but we can't assume it will play a big role in cutting global warming pollution until we know whether it works at a commercial scale and what it will cost," Freese said. "In the meantime, we need to ramp up our reliance on energy efficiency and wind, solar and other renewable energy sources."

The UCS report, "Coal Power in a Warming World," proposes that the federal government fund five to 10 full-scale projects to demonstrate carbon-capture-and-storage technology's ability to cut coal plant emissions.

UCS experts cautioned that, while promising, this technology has many hurdles to overcome:
# Scale - For carbon capture and storage to make a "meaningful contribution" to reducing global warming pollution would require processing and transportation infrastructure that could handle a volume of liquid carbon dioxide rivaling that of the oil consumed in the U.S. today. Put another way, the Department of Energy estimates the annual storage space needed for a typical 600-megawatt power plant's emissions would be about four times the volume of the Empire State Building.
# Safety - Demonstration projects are needed to determine if carbon dioxide can be stored indefinitely and in what type of underground geologic formations. Slow carbon leaks could undermine the technology's effectiveness as a global warming solution and contaminate groundwater. Fast leaks from a storage site or a pipeline could threaten local residents.
# Cost - Current plant designs cannot cost-effectively capture carbon dioxide. Studies estimate that adding the technology to a conventional coal plant would dramatically increase cost and reduce energy output. Although there are advanced coal plant designs that are better suited for carbon capture, it still would be very expensive to add the technology, particularly as a retrofit.

UCS officials emphasized the other steps, such as a ban on mountaintop removal, stronger safety laws, and more oversight of slurry impoundments, are also needed to reduce coal's impacts and place it on a more level playing field with other fuels.

"Even if [carbon] capture and storage works on a commercial scale, coal will still be dirty," said Steve Clemmer, UCS clean energy program research director. "The technology doesn't address the environmental threat posed by mining, transporting and disposing of coal."

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or at 348-1702.