04 Sep No Habla “Carbon Capture”

From a recent article in the Austin American Statesman, regarding the viability of CO2 emissions sequestration technology. My takeaway:

1. Doesn’t work
“Carbon capture and storage remains the elusive grail of the coal industry. It’s an idea that could contain the damage inflicted by coal-burning power plants — but it’s also a technology that remains expensive, energy-intensive and largely untested.”

2. Irresponsible Industry
“Viable CO2 storage space underneath the Earth’s surface is still being assessed, but the expense of maintaining a storage site for more than a century is a cost that energy companies have never faced. [Coal Companies] want the consumer to pay for storage fees and don’t want to be held liable for any accidental release of carbon.”

3. Increases costs per KW
“AEP executives estimate that the cost of carbon capture for a modest-size coal plant of about 235 megawatts would start at $700 million. That works out to about $100 per ton of CO2…”

4. And…
“Even optimists say it will not be commercially available for another six to ten years. Skeptics say is might take much longer and perhaps never be ready for widespread use without attaching a punshingly high price to carbon. “‘If carbon sequestration is to have an impact on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, we will need to inject billions of tons of CO2 underground over the next 40 to 50 years and store them for much longer…'”

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The article is great. I learned a lot about how these carbon capture plants are supposed to work… http://www.statesman.com/search/content/business/stories/other/2009/08/16/0816coal.html

*Original article ran in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002709_2.html?nav=emailpage&sid=ST2009081100203

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>> thanks for reading, have a great weekend, comment & share! – Chris