Obama & Chu Push Ahead With Clean Coal Projects Despite the Cost

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/03/09/obama-chu-push-ahead-with-clean-coal-projects-despite-the-cost/

Obama & Chu Push Ahead With Clean Coal Projects Despite the Cost

The Obama administration is moving ahead with the development of the “clean coal” technology of carbon capture and storage, even though experts say that the technology’s high costs will prevent it from being widely adopted for decades. Carbon capture and storage requires that carbon dioxide emissions be captured in the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants and factories, and then converted into a liquid and pumped into reservoirs deep in the earth. “I won’t be surprised if we have some of these in place in the 2020 to 2030 decade, but … it’s going to be on the margins, just because it costs so much” (http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5244QJ20090305?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10112">Reuters), says energy consultant Bill Durbin.

In 2008 the Bush administration canceled the flagship clean coal project, called FutureGen, which called for the construction of a near zero-emissions coal power plant that would test carbon capture and storage technology. The project’s costs had escalated to $1.8 billion by the time it was canceled, but new Energy Secretary Steven Chu has indicated that he may revive at least parts of the project, saying, “We are taking, certainly, a fresh look at FutureGen, how it would fit into this expanded portfolio” (http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/03/05/05greenwire-doe-taking-fresh-look-at-futuregen--chu-9993.html">Greenwire).

In a recent Congressional hearing on energy policy, Chu stressed that clean coal is on the administration’s agenda, despite his statement when he was a private citizen that “coal is my worst nightmare.” Republicans - and a significant number of Democrats - want assurances that the Obama administration will keep using coal, which is abundant and cheap but scientists say is a major source of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions…. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., led the charge, complaining that forecasts that solar power will only account for a small share of the U.S. power consumption by 2015 “means that clean coal and nuclear power it seems to me, then, are far more important than maybe some people appreciate today.” Chu replied that “I agree with that” (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200903051200DOWJONESDJONLINE000890_FORTUNE5.htm">Dow Jones).

Much of the technology that would be used in carbon capture and storage systems is already proven. Oil firms, for example, have long experience of pumping carbon dioxide into reservoirs to increase their pressure and thus squeeze out more fuel . Researchers also have variety of ways to scrub carbon dioxide from exhaust gases passing through a smokestack. But the expense of building commercial-scale power plants with these systems is still prohibitive. That leads environmental groups like Greenpeace to argue that clean coal technologies will never be competitive, since other low-carbon technologies, such as wind power, are already cheaper and becoming more so as time passes (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13226661">The Economist).

[Triana]

1. Stupid. Short-sighted. Filthy. And NOT change. n/t

[laconicsax]

2. Ugh.

[Political Heretic]

3. Wait which is it - is it that there is no such thing as clean coal or is it that its too expensive.

This article basically says the technology IS there to have a clean coal product, but its too expensive. But when other people talk about ways to manage costs then suddenly there is no such thing as clean coal.

Funny how, on a subject I'm only passingly interested in, it seems like I can't get the straight story.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. It works on paper

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/chief-barrier-to-clean-coal-cost/

March 9, 2009, 7:00 am

Cost Is Chief Barrier to ‘Clean Coal’

By Kate Galbraith

A schematic of clean coal technology, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

At a forum in New York last week, experts on carbon-capture and sequestration, or C.C.S., mostly agreed that the technology was already available, but that the main obstacle was cost.

“The real issue is economics, and the economic issue can be solved by policy,” said David Hawkins, the director of climate programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the organization that hosted the forum. He was referring to the possibility that the United States could put a nationwide price on carbon-dioxide emissions through a carbon trading or carbon tax policy.

Oil companies have been sequestering carbon dioxide in oil fields for several decades, in areas like the Permian Basin in west Texas. The carbon dioxide, injected into the ground, helps to get at the oil that cannot be extracted by easier methods.

Tim Bradley, the president of Kinder Morgan, a pipeline company that says it is the country’s largest transporter of carbon dioxide, said that carbon dioxide helped to produce just over 10 percent of the barrels produced in the United States, and that there were already more than 100 such projects across the country that produce oil with carbon dioxide.

…

[Political Heretic]

9. See, this makes the most sense to me - it is doable, but pointless because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[TheWraith]

8. Short version, you can knock down the negative emissions.

It'll never be truly clean, but for however long we have to have coal plants online, it's better than running them as is.

[Metta]

4. Jeez, following more bad advice. What a waste of money, time and talent. There are more pressing

uses for all. He *does* take some bad advice.

[jbnow]

7. It isn't new for him. He talked a lot about clean coal

during campaign. He'd really go into detail about it when someone asked a coal question during town halls...but I don't know the lingo well enough to really quote him now. He talked at length about the current problems with it and the standards it would have to reach and the barriers to that and why he felt it was worth it

He knew he angered both sides in the coal matter, he sometimes started the answer with "OK you won't like this..." to people asking from either side.
Another thing he's talk at length about was the need to move from corn ethanol to cellulosic ethanol. He loved talking about cellulosic ethanol and local development and distribution...
That doesn't make up for his clean coal belief...but it's a good thing.

[doc03]

6. Baard Energy is building a coal liquefaction plant

near where I live. I believe it is supposed to be in operation in 2011, they plan to inject the CO2 into old gas wells, they are willing to put $5 billion into the project so they must think it will work.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. It depends on what you mean by "it will work"

Most importantly I think they want it to work as a PR piece. They're hoping the public reaction will be, "Well, OK! Maybe coal's not so bad after all!" (Build one "clean" plant, and people feel better about the 1,000's of "dirty" plants.")

[doc03]

11. So, they have to start somewhere and it will take years

to replace all the old plants. I get my heat from coal and if they shut down the coal plants the rates will go through the roof. I work on an electric arc steel furnace if you close the coal plants it would force us out of business. Then there are all the coal mining jobs. I guess if you believe the global warming myth you would be all for that. Yes myth, back in the 70's scientists were convinced we were going into a new ice age. There are climate cycles and I think the global warming is nothing more than that.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. "back in the 70's scientists were convinced we were going into a new ice age"

Well, I actually remember the 70's, and that is bunk, pure and simple.

There were a few crackpots, who got some media play, while the majority of the Scientific community said, "Eh… no."
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37590/title/Cooling_climate_%27consensus%27_of_1970s_never_was

…

Not true, climatologist Thomas C. Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., and his colleagues report in the September Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The team’s survey of major journal papers published between 1965 and 1979 found that only seven articles predicted that global average temperature would continue to cool. During the same period, 44 journal papers indicated that the average temperature would rise and 20 were neutral or made no climate predictions.

…

In fact, in the 70's, there were more scientists sounding the alarm about "Global Warming." They too got some media play, but folks like yourself have conveniently forgotten that.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37590/title/Cooling_climate_%27consensus%27_of_1970s_never_was

…

When these skeptics mention previous concerns about global cooling, they typically cite media reports from the 1970s rather than journal papers —“a part of their tremendous smoke screen on this issue,” says Peterson. Among major magazines, Time and Newsweek ran articles expressing concern about the previous decades’ cooling trend, juxtaposing the specter of decreased food production with rising global population.

But even a cursory review of 1970s media accounts shows that there was no consensus about global cooling among journalists, either, Peterson says. In May 1975, the headline of a New York Times article warned that “major cooling may be ahead.” Three months later, another headline in the same paper — atop a feature written by the same reporter — stated that two recent journal articles “counter view that cold period is due.”

…

[wtmusic]

14. Why is it that those who consider GW a myth

tend to have a financial stake in the issue, whereas those who accept the science typically have none?

Good callout on a classic straw man :thumbsup:

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. Well, now, let's be honest

We all have a stake (financial and otherwise) in it being a myth.

If it's true (which it is) then we're in a heap of trouble (which we are.)

[wtmusic]

12. Obama's ties to the coal lobby never fail to disappoint. nt