Should CO2 Standards be Relaxed and Allow Advanced Coal Technologies?
Some Senate Democrats are asking President Obama to reconsider his administration’s approach to regulating greenhouse gas emissions, saying that advanced coal technologies are a viable way to generate electricity. Easing up to allow more diversity in the country’s fuel portfolio is not only a prudent policy but it's also an affordable and healthy one, they add.
In a
March 14 letter, four senators from energy-producing states say
that the greenhouse gas regulations proposed by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency a year ago would force all coal
plants to meet the same emissions requirements as new gas-fired
facilities. Alternatively, modernizing not just the existing coal
fleet but also new construction -- if permitted -- would maintain a
reliable system at a low cost.
“Our nation can continue to use coal and continue to lower
emissions,” say Senators Joe Manchin, D-WV, Mary Landrieu, D-La.,
Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. and Joe Donnelley, D-Ind. “Coal-based power
generation projects are being developed across the country using
state-of-the-art technologies that are laying the foundation for
revolutionary advancements in power plant efficiency and reduced CO2
levels.”
They are asking the president to allow utilities the right to make
power plant upgrades that increase productivity -- but in a much
cleaner way. The lawmakers specifically mention “supercritical” coal
plants, which are part of the newer generation of coal facilities as
well.
But those advanced coal generation technologies are expensive and
may only be worth it if the nation attaches a price to carbon.
Otherwise, it would be cheaper to build natural gas plants and
particularly if the price of such fuel remains relatively low.
A year ago, the EPA put forth its new rules for U.S. coal plants,
which say that they cannot emit more than 1,000 pounds of carbon
dioxide per megawatt hour. Natural gas facilities using
combined-cycle combustion turbines have no problems meeting those
standards.
The effect of the greenhouse gas rule is therefore to force older
coal plants into retirement, unless they are able to incorporate the
methodologies to both capture the carbon dioxide and to bury it
underground. Those technologies are at least a decade way, and they
remain cost prohibitive.
"Commercial deployment of carbon capture and sequestration is
possible within 10 to 15 years while many efficiency technologies
have been used and are available for use now," says the government
watchdog General
Accountability Office. "Use of both technologies is, however,
contingent on overcoming a variety of economic, technical, and legal
challenges."
Still Fighting
Carbon capture and burial and advanced coal technologies focused on
efficiency are not mutually exclusive of one another. The two can be
used in tandem; however, the current high prices would tend to
prevent that possibility. Efficiency upgrades, meanwhile, could be
made to existing coal-fired power plants.
Those older and pulverized coal-fired plants are the least efficient
units with about 35 percent of the energy input converted to
electricity. But as more power generators opt for supercritical
units with higher water-side operating pressures the efficiencies
associated with pulverized coal units can increase to at least 40
percent. Ultra-supercritical facilities have efficiency rates of 50
percent or more.
Coal gasification, meanwhile, is different. Here, the coal is
essentially cleansed of its emissions before it would be released
from the smokestack. It’s even more expensive than the supercritical
methods.
Southern Co. is working on a coal gasification plant that will also
be able to capture and sequester carbon at a plant in Mississippi
while NRG Energy is doing the same at a facility in Texas. And, Duke
Energy’s coal gasification project Indiana is scheduled to get going
this summer.
"Gasification has been around for some time," John Mead, director of
the Coal Extraction and Utilization Research Center at Southern
Illinois University Carbondale, told this writer earlier. "But
incremental improvements can make the technology more attractive to
industries that use conventional processes. However,
ultra-supercritical coal generation can rival coal gasification in
power generation applications. We need to move on multiple fronts.
From a planning standpoint, government and industry must
collaborate."
Indeed, according to the “Technology
Roadmap” released by the Coal Utilization Research Council and
the Electric Power Research Institute, coal has made great strides
and it can do even better. Their energy assessment says that such
pollutants as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and mercury have
already been dramatically reduced. The two also say that the cost of
carbon capture and sequestration technologies can fall by 30-40
percent by 2025.
Utilities, generally, are acquiescing to the more stringent
emissions requirements. But their coal counterparts are still
wrestling with this. Together, they are evaluating their legal and
regulatory options, although if coal is to remain viable, then
industry must keep investing in tomorrow’s technologies.
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