CCS ‘READY’ FOR NEW COAL PLANTS, DOE FOSSIL ENERGY NOMINEE SAYS

Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
12/06/13

Chris Smith, the Obama administration’s nominee to serve as assistant secretary of energy for fossil energy, said in a recently released set of questions-and-answers by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that all components of carbon capture and storage have been demonstrated and he believes CCS is “ready” for deployment on new power plants. Smith  stopped short, though, of saying that the technology has been “adequately demonstrated” as defined by the Clean Air Act. “Whether a technology is ‘adequately demonstrated’ within the meaning of the Clean Air Act is an issue committed to EPA’s discretion,” he said. “DOE does not make that determination. That said, there are 12 large projects in commercial operation today demonstrating CCUS around the world. All components of CCS, including large-scale CO2 capture, transportation and multi-million ton per year injection, have been demonstrated world-wide and in the U.S. for many years.”

The questions from the committee were follow-ups to similar queries legislators posed at Smith’s nomination hearing in mid-November, and a large portion focused on CCS and controversial proposed EPA new source performance standards that would essentially mandate the use of the technology for any new coal-fired plant. Although many committee members appeared continued to press questions about whether CCS is commercially available or ready for large-scale deployment, Smith underscored the DOE’s commitment to working with industry to advance the technology and drive down costs. “I believe we have already made significant progress,” he said. “During the Obama administration, DOE has made an approximately $6 billion commitment to accelerate deployment of clean coal technologies, including technologies to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants. … We expect to see substantial cost reductions brought into industrial practice with continued R&D and as large-project deployments advance from first-of-a-kind plants.”

But Smith was vague when offering details about significant cost overruns at a CCS demonstration project funded by the DOE: Southern Company’s flagship pre-combustion Kemper County project, to which the DOE gave $270 million and which is approaching $5 billion in cost. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) noted that Tom Fanning, Chairman, president and CEO of Southern Company, said that one of the reasons for the cost overruns is a lack of engineering work up-front but hasn’t gone into further detail. “From what I understand, he hasn’t given your department any more information either, and if he has, your department hasn’t published it,” Manchin said. “Can you promise me that if you’re confirmed, you will get to the bottom of where the cost overruns happened, and publish a report on it immediately?” Smith responded, “Under the cooperative agreement between the Department of Energy and Southern Company, there are terms for data-sharing so the Department can help apply best practices to other projects going forward. If confirmed, I will work to understand how and why the cost overruns happened.”

EOR Opportunities

Sen. John Barrosso (R-Wyo.) also questioned Smith on whether enhanced oil recovery using CO2 could be used to recoup some costs of CCS nationwide, saying that EOR only takes place in areas of the country that have aging oil fields and a carbon dioxide pipeline network. Smith responded that “while EOR currently only takes place in certain areas of the country, those areas will serve as critical commercial opportunities that will produce domestic oil and provide revenues as we drive down the costs of CCS technology nationwide. All would benefit from the cost reduction and learning-by-doing that comes from increased CCS deployment. In addition, those projects and investments would anchor expanded CO2 pipeline infrastructure, which will ultimately support and even attract companies who wish to take advantage of CO2 storage natural resource.”

He also said that EOR currently represents about 2 percent of oil production—or .3 bbl/day—but that a study conducted for the Energy Information Administration suggested that EOR with CO2 could produce 3 M bbl/day in the U.S. “Such a factor of ten increase in CO2 EOR compared with today would require capture of over five hundred megatons of CO2 from power plants and/or appropriate manufacturing,” he said. “Five out of eight major CCUS demonstration projects include an EOR component. If confirmed, I will continue to focus on the opportunities for utilizing captured CO2 facilities.”

FE R&D Programs

Smith also underlined ways DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, where he currently serves as acting assistant secretary, is working to help advance CCS, saying FE is funding eight major demonstration projects to help address risks associated with first-of-a-kind technology and has a “robust” research and development program that aims to help reduce CCS costs and make the technology more efficient. He also pointed to FE’s seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, which are focused on “carbon storage, developing technologies with industry to ensure the safe and permanent storage of the captured CO2 in different geologic formations and sequestering large volumes of CO2.” “These large volume tests and related applied science will provide the field experience to develop and validate technologies that can predict storage capacity, validate storage permanence and develop best practices,” Smith said.

He also said that FE has an R&D program for non-CCS technologies that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including the Advanced Energy Systems program that explores advanced combustion and gasification systems and hydrogen turbines. “The cross-cutting research program explores plant optimization technology and coal utilization science,” he said. “If confirmed, I will continue to support a robust and comprehensive clean coal technologies program.”