Clean Coal: A Promising Path to Zero Emissions Energy?
A May 31st report from Yale Environment 360 discusses the proposed construction of a commercial, clean coal-fired power plant in Penwell, Texas by Seattle-based Summit Power. As part of the Texas Clean Energy Project, the new plant would eliminate 90% of CO2 emissions and nearly all other conventional pollutants.
Outfitting a coal-fired power plant with gasification and carbon capture technology is more capital intensive than a conventional plant. But, as Summit Power’s Texas Projects director Laura Miller believes, the plant “will raise the bar on all the other coal plants being built. It’s just a matter of spending the extra money to make something that was once dirty become clean.”
In fact, Daniel Schrag of Harvard University estimates that capturing carbon from a coal plant may increase the cost of power generation by up to 50%. However, there are some economic incentives that would make carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology more attractive to energy companies. For instance, Summit Power plans to sell captured CO2 to Whiting Petroleum and other oil companies that will inject the gas into existing wells as a means to extract otherwise inaccessible deposits. Moreover, Summit is also considering selling carbon credits to companies based in California where a regulated carbon market is set to emerge next year. Establishing a price on carbon, whether through a tax on emissions or cap and trade system, would extend CCS incentives to other coal companies and plants.
As developing nations, such as China and India, continue to rely on coal to fuel their rapidly growing economies, the domestic development of carbon capture technology could provide the U.S. an export opportunity according to Jim Marston of the Environmental Defense Fund. Indeed, that export market could prove enormous as China, the world’s second largest energy consumer, receives roughly 70% of its energy from coal.
Even environmentalists have posed few objections to the construction of the West Texas coal plant. After all, the United States possesses vast coal reserves, and is likely to continue tapping into those reserves especially as energy independence becomes a popular and pressing issue. Climate Change activists like environmental lawyer David Frederick, therefore, believe clean coal projects to be a favorable alternative to conventional plants as coal will remain an important energy source for the U.S. Further, expansion of clean coal provides the U.S. a low-emission, domestic alternative to imported fossil fuels, and could reduce its vulnerability to unstable exporting nations as well as the detrimental impacts of climate change.
CCS currently faces costly challenges, though. While sequestration technologies exist, it is not evident whether CO2 stored underground in geologic basins or in deep ocean sediments is too buoyant to stay trapped beneath the earth’s surface. Also, the transportation of captured carbon to sequestration areas would require massive infrastructure overhauls- an undoubtedly costly endeavor. And, to top off these uncertainties, a McKinsey study estimates that carbon abatement costs through CCS will remain high through the year 2030 even as emissions may decline.
Coal accounts for nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions, and emits more carbon per unit of energy than any other fossil fuel; therefore, domestic and foreign investment in clean coal technology could play an important role in climate change mitigation. That being said, mining coal is energy intensive and poses other negative environmental and safety threats. Hence, clean coal offers a promising “bridge” to a cleaner, more secure energy future until entirely renewable energy sources become more economically attractive.
