U.S. Department of Energy officials on Wednesday briefed Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (R) on potential carbon capture utilization and storage options for unit 3 of the Colstrip coal-fired power plant. “We will leave no stone unturned as we continue to find ways to support the workers and community of Colstrip,” Bullock said in a press release. “Today’s meeting provided our state a look into new technology that could keep hard working Montanans in control of our own energy future.”
The Colstrip power plant is located about 125 miles east of Billings and has four units with a total generating capacity of 2,094 megawatts (MW). Two of those units are scheduled to shut down by 2022. Unit 3 has a generating capacity of 740 MW. The plant is owned by Talen Energy LLC, Puget Sound Energy Inc., Portland General Electric Co., Avista Corp., PacifiCorp and NorthWestern Energy.
DOE estimates that retrofitting the unit could cost between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion depending on the type of retrofit and the method of CO2 capture used. Officials also discussed the potential to use the captured carbon for enhanced oil recovery.
The Department of Energy also presented other options for cutting the plant’s carbon emissions, including increasing the facility’s efficiency and co-firing with natural gas and biomass.
Bullock in June released a state energy plan calling for CCS support. In the plan, the governor pledged to advocate for more support and funding from the federal government for CCS, and to work with the Department of Energy to “review the feasibility of carbon capture and EOR as a means of addressing the carbon emissions from coal-fired generation in Montana.”
In the energy plan, Bullock referenced a tour he took of SaskPower’s Boundary Dam project, the world’s first commercial-scale post-combustion CCS project on a coal-fired power plant. “As would be expected, the new technology is not without its challenges and detractors. But the plant can capture in excess of 90 [percent] of its CO2 emissions for storage and utilization in enhanced oil recovery,” the plan says. “We need to ask, why isn’t this happening here?”