Bosses at world's most ambitious clean coal plant kept problems secret for years
Source: The Guardian
Disclosure regarding the $7.5bn Kemper plant in Mississippi throws further cloud over promise of clean coal energy
Last modified on Fri 2 Mar 2018 09.34 EST
Executives at the worlds most ambitious clean coal plant knew for years about serious design flaws and budget problems but sought to withhold key information from regulators before their plans collapsed, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.
The Kemper plant in Mississippi held up as the global model for a new generation of clean coal power plants was the most expensive fossil fuel power plant in US history, with a $7.5bn price tag. Its owners, Southern Company, boasted it was going to be the cleanest coal plant in the world, in the words of the CEO, Tom Fanning.
But thousands of internal documents reviewed by the Guardian and a series of interviews with Kemper staff uncovered evidence that the company had information showing that the project would blow through state-imposed budget limits five years before the company decided to reverse course and become an exclusively gas-fired energy plant.
Kempers failure could be a serious setback for global climate policy and plans to reach the Paris climate targets. International climate agreements rely heavily on developing practical carbon capture technologies that have so far largely proved elusive. Kemper was slated to be the largest coal carbon capture plant ever built, touted as potentially the first of many similar projects worldwide.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/02/clean-coal-kemper-plant-mississippi-problems
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)Demovictory9
(32,443 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Clean coal is a big fucking lie.
truthisfreedom
(23,141 posts)If trump waffles on it, its progressive.
Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)wasted on the research, development and construction of these 'clean coal' plants. it should be going into sustainable energy.
Squinch
(50,934 posts)Squinch
(50,934 posts)paleotn
(17,901 posts)It's theoretically possible to capture virtually all particulate, mercury, sulfur dioxide and CO2 emissions. But to do so is so costly it would produce the most expensive electricity ever generated. And that's not counting the cost of dealing with the nastiness left over...toxic ash and sequestered CO2. Or the nastiness generated by digging it up. It's insane. A dead end. The realm of perpetual motion machine nuts.
keithbvadu2
(36,724 posts)Trump's idea of 'clean' coal
http://time.com/4912730/donald-trump-clean-coal-phoenix/