Progress Made On Carbon Capture, Despite Conservative Sniping

May 14, 2010

Companies developing carbon capture technologies to sweep the CO2 out of coal and natural gas power plant emissions reported Friday progress with the complex technology.

Alstom reports clean 90 percent of the CO2 out of the emissions from a West Virginia coal plant

Cost efficiencies need to improve. But the ability of capture technologies to clean escaping plumes has risen considerably. This achievement comes as carbon-capture is gaining support among lawmakers but drawing snipes from conservatives opposed to government spending and regulation.

According to Patrick Fragman, vice president at power-plant equipment maker Alstom, the technologies are now proving themselves and moving toward “large-scale demonstration projects that allow us to focus on improving the efficiencies and economics.”

The company, which has 11 early-stage projects underway, reported the results of several, including one at a Wisconsin plant run by We Energies. The plant is using a chilled-ammonia system Alstom developed jointly with Dow Chemical.

According to independently confirmed results, the system captured 90 percent of CO2 and delivered that CO2 with a high, 99.5 percent purity for reuse. Only 10 parts per million of ammonia were released in 7,000 hours of testing, Alstom said.

The results paralleled those at a larger coal-fired plant in West Virginia – a pilot project that has been closely watched since it was announced last year. The pilot is testing an amine technology, also developed with Dow Chemical, and according to a preliminary report, sifted out 90 percent of CO2 emissions and generated CO2 of equal purity. The amine system has operated for 4,500 hours.

While carbon capture is improving, it is clear the technologies are at an early stage and costs are still high. One National Energy Technology Laboratory study projected operating a carbon capture system at a large refinery will cost $100 million a year – adding considerably to the cost of power.

In an op-ed published this week in The New York Times, the conservative Manhattan Institute jumped on the issue of cost by arguing energy-hungry carbon capture soaks up 28 percent of the power a plant produces.

So far, the Department of Energy has allocated $3.4 billion of stimulus funds for capture and storage projects. Another $2 billion is included in the Senate climate bill introduced earlier this week.

Obviously further technological progress is needed. But it is good to see progress being made since about 40 percent of U.S. electricity still comes from coal plants.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

New York Times Op-Ed Blasts Carbon Capture

May 13, 2010

Carbon capture technologies are expensive, wasteful and woefully unprepared for the large volume of carbon that will need to buried, reused or otherwise discarded.

Carbon capture is energy intensive and the volume of the waste stream is equal to the world's daily oil production, says Robert Bryce

This according to a Op-Ed piece in The New York Times urging Senators to excise $2 billion in carbon capture research funding from John Kerry’s and Joseph Lieberman’s newly introduced climate bill.

The spending would come on top of $2.4 billion in Recovery Act money already being spent on capture and sequestration technologies. The theory, of course, is that these projects will remove carbon, a greenhouse gas, from the exhaust plumes of coal-fired power plants and reuse it, perhaps to enhance oil extraction at depleting wells.

But Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, argues the effort may be a fool’s errand. For one, he writes carbon capture is an energy intensive process that could siphon away 28 percent of a plant’s output, cutting into fuel efficiency.

In addition, as much as 23,000 miles of new pipeline will need to be laid to transport the large carbon stream. That stream could amount to 8.2 million tons a day – or roughly the equivalent of the world’s daily oil production.

Capture and sequestration is not the Holy Grail of climate change fixes, he writes.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Novomer Reports Progress Turning CO2 Into Plastics And Coating

March 30, 2010

Massachusetts start-up Novomer says it has made significant technical process recently turning unwanted CO2 into plastics and coatings for industrial use.

The company, which is on the front lines of the emerging carbon sequestration industry, claims the yield from its laboratory process jumped per pound of cobalt-based catalyst it adds to production. The efficiency improvement should offer a potential boast to profitability as its technology moves from the lab to commercial application.

Novomer will announce Tuesday it won a $2.1 million DOE grant to design a pilot plant. Company will compete for plant construction funding later this year

The gain is an important step for an industry with a gargantuan task. Carbon capture is one of a handful of techniques  – along with wind energy and solar – shouldering a critical burden in the battle against global warming. Instead of finding a new way to produce electricity, such as from the rays of the sun, like solar, carbon capture is intended to coral the trillions of pounds of carbon produced each year from traditional energy generation before it is released into the atmosphere.

Some sequestration techniques hope to bury the carbon. Novomer plans to turn it into useful products, such as the coating on a soda can.

The company said Tuesday it won an important vote of confidence in the form of a $2.1 million grant from the Department of Energy to design a pilot plant. Novomer was one of 12 companies to receive $100 million in funding. Each of the companies will compete later this year for a second, larger round of funding to build the plants. Only about six are expected to win.

Novomer Vice President of Business Development Peter Shepard says the efficiency improvements are critical to the company’s efforts. But he points out that challenges remain. One important hurdle involves turning a reaction conducted in isolation the lab into a continuous process appropriate for commercial development. Then too, Novomer must figure out which product will be the most lucrative to produce.

There is no doubt, however, about the significance of the effort. Shepard estimates Novomer’s production should be able to sequester 30 to 50 billion pounds of CO2 each year, or the emissions of four to six coal fired power plants.

No one single solution is going to solve global warming, he says. Each will help.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

US Leadership Not Guaranteed With Carbon Capture Technologies

December 18, 2009

Carbon capture and storage (or reuse) is likely to be major component of the world’s  response to climate change.

Coal and natural gas will fuel power plants well into the future. So filtering the carbon from natural gas deposits and coal plant emissions is a necessity.

A year ago, leaders for the G8 economies set out a target: 20 large-scale demonstration projects by 2010 with broad deployment beginning in 2020.

A coal gasification plant in North Dakota is one of four sites where large scale carbon capture is being demonstrated. It is the only in the U.S.

The technology is difficult, expensive and still unproven for the scale that will be necessary. So there is lots of work ahead. Unfortunately, it is another area where inaction has put expected United States leadership in jeopardy.

Four projects are presently underway: two in Europe, one in the United States and one in Algeria, where BP is working with the state oil and gas company. Many more are on the drawing board, with most major countries showing initiative.

In Australia, the country has set aside $1.8 billion for large-scale demonstrations, and Canada has earmarked $3.2 billion. Brazil is investing in as many as four projects.

Italy meanwhile is developing a pilot project and France is spending $1.5 billion going for R&D. The United Arab Emirates is even in the game with three projects in its sights.

The U.S., of course, is participating, announcing in May $3.4 billion in funding for carbon capture projects. But instead of the obvious leader in the world, it is one of many forging ahead.  Inaction during the Bush Administration, which ignored the science behind global warming, has taken away any national head start.

Among the projects already underway, three are designed to bury the carbon found in natural gas deposits. In a North Dakota pilot project, carbon is being diverted from a coal gasification plant to a depleting oil field in Canada.

The information being gathered will be valuable for future demonstrations. It is too bad the U.S. doesn’t have five to 10 years head start.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

The Case For Selling Cap And Trade Credits For Carbon Rich Rangelands

December 14, 2009

Mention carbon capture and visions of large scale projects aimed at skimming CO2 from coal plant plumes and burying it deep underground come to mind.

Rangeland makes up 31% of the nation's land and soils holds three times more carbon as the atmosphere

But there are simpler and potentially more effective ways to sequester carbon and help restore the earth’s natural, pre-industrial atmospheric balance. One getting more attention these days can best be described as soil sequestration.

Cropland and rangeland in the United States are a net carbon sink that annually filter about 18 percent of fossil fuel carbon emissions and store it in leaves, roots, wood and soil.  Much of this benefit has come as the nation has re-grown its forests.

So what about expanding the effort to the 31 percent of the U.S. that is rangeland? (Rangeland make up about half the planet’s surface worldwide.) Doing so would offset 3.3 percent of the country’s CO2 fossil fuel emissions, according to a report by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The big gain comes because soil holds three times as much carbon as the atmosphere. Looked at differently, one ton of carbon stored in the soil removes 3.67 tons from the atmosphere.

If rangelands were re-forested or simply seeded with shrubs and brush, the nation would get a boost in the fight against global warming.  But since about half the rangeland in the U.S. is owned by the government and most is used for grazing by ranchers, the politics are likely beyond reach.

That’s unless financial incentives are used. What if the re-vegetated lands were offered emissions reduction credits that could be bought and sold under a cap-and-trade bill, the defense fund asks?

Such a scheme might work. Dollars talk and ranchers might consider re-growth a simple way to make money. It also might shrink the nation’s beef industry, also a plus in a climate change fight.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Intergovernmental Panel To Recommend Higher Renewable Energy Use

December 2, 2009

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is ready to raise its target for renewable energy use.

At the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next week, the panel will recommend states and municipalities shoot for what it calls a “zero carbon” energy mix. The goal will require renewables to account for 85 percent of energy use by 2050 and fossil fuels the remainder.

There is not question the new targets can be met, says Berkeley professor Daniel Kammen

The new formula is an acceleration of the targets progressive states and cities have in place today, where decade-long initiatives will bring renewables to 15 percent, 20 percent or perhaps 33 percent levels. Many laggard states haven’t yet put plans in place.

Daniel Kammen, a Berkeley professor and a coordinating lead author for the panel, says climate scientists haven’t sent strong enough signals of the gathering dangers of climate change. But he describes himself as a optimist as to the new target.

“There is no question in my view it can be accomplished,” he said this week at a Google sponsored green-tech event in San Francisco.

The 85 percent renewables and zero carbon target can be met with solar providing up to 25 percent of a state’s energy; wind, 20 percent; nuclear, 20 percent; hydroelectric, 10 percent; and carbon capture and sequestration, 20 percent.

Energy efficiency measures could make up for any shortfalls in the mix.

Ready, set, the new renewables race is on.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Energy Department Sees Carbon Capture Adding 35% To Electricity Costs

October 16, 2009

Carbon-capture technologies being earmarked for coal-fired electric plants could increase costs to consumers by 35 percent.

At least that is the target set by the Department of Energy as it prepares to disburse $55 million in technology funding.

Carbon capture holds the promise of clean coal

Carbon capture holds the promise of clean coal

Despite efforts already underway with carbon capture in places such as Canada and Norway, the department is setting a long-term 8 to 10 years target of widespread deployment of the technology.

The goal is to “support the development of technologies that can remove 90 percent of the CO2 in a (coal plant) flue gas stream at no more than a 35 percent increase in the cost of electricity,” said Energy Secretary Steve Chu.

Carbon capture is a key part of the recipe to reduce global warming. About 50 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from coal and about 20 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions. Coal reserves are plentiful and plants are expected to stay on line for decades to come.

Coal also is a key ingredient in China’s economic expansion with new plants going in every week.

Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency projected the world will need thousands of carbon capture projects by 2050.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

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