http://www.fronterasdesk.org/content/9645/texas-clean-coal-plant-may-be-environmental-game-changer
[Another coal industry disinformation piece. "CCS" still apparently
stands for Citizen's Cash Sink. Note $450,000,000 already sunk into
preliminary research from U.S. DOE. Also, this is not actually a CCS
project, but an EOR (enhanced oil recovery project), which means 60 to
80% of the CO2 injected will likely resurface in short order with oil or
methane produced. To see what happens when the taxpayer-funded grants,
subsidies and other incentives stop, see second article below.]
Texas Clean Coal Plant May Be Environmental Game Changer
By Lorne Matalon
May 28, 2014
PENWELL, Texas — New EPA rules aimed at cutting carbon emissions are
expected to be unveiled June 2. Coal generates nearly half of this
country’s electricity and is the largest source of air pollution.
The new rules are expected to spur the use of clean coal technology. At
least that’s the hope of both the coal industry and some environmental
groups.
Although the term “clean coal” seems like an oxymoron to some people,
the expression refers to the best way known currently to use a product
that’s plentiful in the United States and relatively cheap.
Some analysts believe the United States has coal reserves they say will
last for 250-300 years. The United States has often been cited as the
"the Saudi Arabia of coal" since the energy crisis, a theme that has
been trumpeted by both Democrats and Republicans, although that
description has been routinely challenged.
There are two planned coal plants in the U.S. that will sequester
harmful CO2 and generate electricity. One is in Kemper, Mississippi, and
the other is in West Texas.
The Texas project is slated for an 600-acre piece of empty land in
Penwell, a onetime oil town in the 1930s near the geographic center of
the Permian Basin of West Texas.
Today, Penwell is a deserted piece of flatland beside a major interstate
highway that didn't exist when the town was created to service the oil
industry.
Abandoned oil tanks lie in an empty field. Wind whistles through a fence
and the rumble of nearby Interstate 10 is constant.
The directors of a plan known as the Texas Clean Energy Project say a
coal-fired power plant will be built here over the next four years. It’s
a plant some people say can be an environmental game changer.
“I am in favor of building electric power plants that capture their
carbon,” says former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller.
As mayor, she was decidedly against expanding coal’s footprint in the
energy grid.
In 2007, Miller was one of the leaders of a coalition of Texas cities
that successfully derailed plans by the energy company TXU to build 11
coal-fired plants in Texas.
Fast forward to 2014. Miller now heads up the $3.5 billion Texas Clean
Energy Project, which despite the name is all about making electricity
from coal.
But not the old way, as Miller explained.
“Traditional coal plants take a lump of coal, put a match to it and it
burns up a smokestack,” Miller said. “And you desperately try to pull
off sulphur, mercury, grit off the coal emissions."
The new twist sounds simple enough but it’s expensive, turning coal into
gas.
“Twenty-first century coal takes coal and puts it in a large receptacle
called a gasifier and you add a little pure oxygen and you heat it up to
3000 degrees Fahrenheit and you make a gas out of the lump of coal,” she
said.
Miller says that’s what marks this technology.
“By putting it into a gaseous form,” Miller said, "you’re much more able
to pull out the bad stuff including carbon dioxide.”
The technology is called called Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS.
Eight U.S. plants use this technology right now, burying the carbon
dioxide or in the ground, theoretically permanently.
What’s new here is the plan to recycle the CO2.
A major Texas utility has agreed to buy captured CO2 to make
electricity. And CO2 will also used to extract oil here in the Permian
Basin, the country’s highest producing oilfield. The captured carbon
will be specifically used for enhanced oil recovery.
Carbon gas is injected into the ground, reducing the viscosity, or the
thickness or gooiness, of crude oil, which eases the crude’s flow to
recovery wells.
The operation also produces byproducts like fertilizer and even baking soda.
As hopeful as that might sound, critics charge that any use of CCS will
slow the country’s migration to renewables like wind and solar.
But several major environmental groups, historical foes of coal, support
the project.
Inside Energy spoke with Tim Profeta, Director of the Nicholas Institute
for Environmental Solutions at Duke University.
Tim Profeta heads the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Solutions at
Duke University. He says climate change cannot be addressed "if we do
not capture carbon from fossil sources" as CCS is designed to do.
“It’s very difficult to perceive a future where we are not using fossil
fuels for energy for decades into the future,” said Profeta. “It’s also
difficult to foresee that we can address our problem of climate change
if we do not capture the carbon from those fossil sources.”
He said that CCS technology represents a timely, calculated — albeit
expensive — roll of the dice.
“Any new technology brings along risks of, will it perform and how much
exactly will it cost?” he said.
Profeta put CCS in general and the Texas project in particular in context.
“By putting this capture technology on the ground we’re narrowing the
risks around its future deployment. And it’s very important to do the
first one," he said.
The EPA won’t force existing plants to adopt CCS. But by mandating
emission reductions, the agency hopes to create a regulatory landscape
where the technology is adopted as new plants are built, making CCS cost
effective over time.
The Environmental Defense Fund’s Jim Marston, who helped shape
California's carbon cap-and-trade program, says CCS is also critical for
emerging energy-hungry economies.
“The real opportunity for growth is actually in India and China where
they’re continuing to build new coal plants,” he said. “We could clean
up their plants. And we need to do that very quickly because China is
now surpassing the U.S. as the number one emitter of carbon dioxide.”
In fact, China’s already in this game. China’s Export-Import Bank has
agreed to lend the Texas project $2.5 billion, marking its largest
foreign investment in the technology.
Changing the U.S. power infrastructure is like stopping a guided-missile
cruiser. It can’t be done quickly.
That’s why supporters of the Texas project say the technology is
important right now even if it implies the long-term continued use of coal.
===============================================================
http://www.bunburymail.com.au/story/2315885/south-west-carbon-capture-project-doomed/?cs=278
South West carbon capture project doomed
By ROSS VERNE
May 29, 2014, 11:41 a.m.
The South West’s carbon capture project appears unlikely to ever move
beyond the research phase, with federal funding for the project cut and
the expected abolition of the carbon tax meaning industry will have no
economic incentive to pursue the technology.
$459.3 million over three years has been cut from the Carbon Capture and
Storage (CCS) Flagships program, part of which would have funded the
South West Hub project in Harvey beyond the research phase.
Conservation Council of Western Australia spokesman Piers Verstegen said
the funding cut was a watershed moment for the South West and Collie’s
coal industry.
“The last potential lifeline for coal is being terminated and there can
no longer be any doubt that coal burning industries must play a
declining role in meeting our energy needs,” Mr Verstegen said.
The project was to involve initial research on carbon capture and
storage followed by government-supported commercial ventures in
partnership with local companies, including Griffin and Premier Coal.
Without the carbon tax acting as an economic incentive for private
enterprise to limit their emissions, there is little chance commercial
ventures will go ahead without government support.
“Given the very poor financial position of Collie’s coal mines and power
stations and the lack regulatory of financial incentive, it is not
realistic to think that these industries will fund the development of
CCS without significant government assistance," he said.
“This decision to cut funding to the Collie CCS program must trigger a
community-led conversation about the future of the Collie region.”
Federal member for Forrest Nola Marino said carbon capture was among the
most expensive forms of pollution mitigation and it would now be
expected to compete for funding on an economic basis.
“Our policy to minimise emissions involves an Emissions Reduction Fund
of $2.55 billion which will be used to fund the most cost effective
carbon emissions reductions,” Mrs Marino said.
“It will be up to the industry and private sector to make it work if it
is feasible.”
Mrs Marino denied that the money already spent on research, and that to
be spent in coming years, would be wasted.
“The research phase involves test bores and seismic testing, and the
knowledge gained will let us better understand the geology of the area,”
she said.
“Such research is never wasted. However it will not involve the
commercial injection of carbon dioxide.”
South West Hub general manager Brendan Gaynor said a decision on whether
to commercialise the project would be made at the completion of the
research phase.
“This decision is several years away and the joint venturers are
committed to pursuing the investigation of the project’s feasibility,”
Mr Gaynor said.
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