Carbon Capture and Storage A False Solution

Too late to be of use, much too expensive, ineffective, and unsafe Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is intended to reduce the impact of burning fossil fuels by capturing CO₂ from concentrated sources such as power stations and storing it underground (see Box). CCS has wide support among governments as world oil supply is failing to meet demand while many countries still have large coal reserves.

Coal-fired power plants account for half of America’s electricity, and coal produces more carbon dioxide than any other commonly used fuel [1]. The coal-mining industry has been promoting CCS as “clean coal”, and even some environmental groups see it as a way of bridging the energy gap until renewable energies can be more widely deployed.

The Bush administration was the first to commit to a large scale coal-fired power plant to be fitted with CCS, and intended as a flagship project for the world.

But on 30 January 2008, the US Department of Energy (DOE) withdrew support from the project, citing soaring cost and advances in electricity-generating technology in recent years [2, 3].

The non-profit public-private partnership FutureGen Alliance, which included industry giants such as Rio Tinto, American Electric Power Service Corp, Anglo American, BHP Billington, and China’s largest coal-based power company, China Huaneng Group, was launched in 2005 in response to Bush’s February 2003 call for a programme to demonstrate “the world’s first near-zero-emissions coal-fired power plant.”.

DOE described FutureGen in 2005 as a $950-million initiative for integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology to produce hydrogen and electricity while providing capture and storage of CO₂. At the time there were few IGCC projects. “Now, more than 33 IGCC projects have begun the permitting process,” said Clay Sell, deputy energy secretary.

DOE first became aware that FutureGen’s estimated budget for the plant to be built in Mattoon Illinois had almost doubled to $1.8 billion in March 2007; of which 74 percent would have to be paid by the DOE and the rest by industry. The consensus was that costs would only increase.

DOE intends to concentrate research on CCS, leaving IGCC to power developers. On the same day that it announced withdrawal from FutureGen, DOE issued a Request for Information from industry by 3 March 2008 on the costs and feasibility of building “clean coal” facilities that achieve FutureGen’s intended goals. By the end of the year, this should lead to a competitive tender for federal funding to equip clean coal plants of at least 300 MW with CCS technology.

FutureGen was not the only project to be abandoned. By the end of 2007, at least 11 CCS projects were scrapped in the UK, Canada and Norway [3]. Plans for new projects had stagnated, and the pace of development for existing projects slowed considerably.

In May 2008, Rio Tinto and UK oil producer BP dropped plans (through a subsidiary called Hydrogen Energy) to construct an Australian CCS coal-fired power generation plant Kwinana, admitting there was no guarantee that the rock formations at the intended site for carbon storage would seal it in [4]. The project would have cost AUS$1.5 billion to AUS$2 billion and capture around 4 million tonnes of CO₂ a year.

To put these CCS projects in perspective the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions is 28 Gt CO₂ equivalents a year and rising [5].

But these failures appeared to have done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of governments or proponents for CCS. By May 2008, the US Senate Appropriation Committee unanimously approved a resolution to force the DOE to continue financing FutureGen out of the “war supplemental package” that includes funding for Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as domestic spending on hurricane recovery, veterans education, food aid and federal highways [6].

In June 2008, UK’s Royal Society joined with science academies from other industrialised nations and five other countries including China and India to call on government to set an agreed timetable for fitting power stations with CCS by next year to avoid “dangerous and irreversible” climate change [7].

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