Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
5/16/2014
The current status of the nation’s coal fleet is not optimal for a large scale deployment of carbon capture and storage technology, the National Coal Council reported at its meeting this week. The council approved a new report, Reliable & Resilient: The Value of Our Existing Coal Fleet, which assesses the benefits of retaining and maintaining the existing fleet of U.S. coal power plants in a number of lights, including the potential implementation of CCS at a large scale throughout the fleet. The report states that “substantial progress has been made on CCS systems for CO2 capture from power plants, but much more work is needed before these systems can be a practical commercial option for existing power plants. Cost, system integration and legal framework issues are all major barriers to deployment of currently available technologies.”
The report provides a detailed list of obstacles to the deployment of CCS technologies, including:
- They have not been demonstrated at commercial scale on a power plant;
- The knowledge base on saline storage and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) remains limited, and there are unresolved non-technical barriers to both;
- The current technologies are too costly, impose significant energy penalties and can significantly increase cooling water requirements for the generating unit;
- There are numerous challenges related to the integration of CCS on existing units;
- Significant uncertainty exists regarding the characteristics, feasibility and availability of geologic storage opportunities; and
- Significant legal and regulatory challenges remain to be resolved, including those related to the long-term stewardship and liability of geologically stored CO2.
NCC Coal Policy Committee Chair Fred Palmer, in presenting the report to members of NCC and the general public, noted that the existing fleet was not built with a consideration for CCS and mentioned several other technologies which improve the efficiency of coal plants. “Existing coal plants were not designed, nor were they located with CCS in mind,” Palmer said. “More research is needed to commercialize CCS retrofit potential, improved efficiency will provide an interim path in the meantime.”
However, developing these efficiency measures is not currently supported by the regulatory environment, he said. “Federal New Source Review rules constrain investments in this efficiency. EPA isn’t the solution here; right now EPA is the problem. We want EPA to be the solution and hopefully as we go forward with the existing fleet discussion, EPA will consider the constraints that are on the existing fleet right now.”
To address these issues, the report concludes, further research, development and deployment is required. “Some of these problems are being addressed to some extent by ongoing RD&D. With adequate funding, DOE plans to have 2nd Generation CCS technologies (at lower cost than current technologies) available to begin demonstration in 2020-2025, and available for commercial use a few years later. However, retrofitting existing units (or repowering them with CCS systems) poses the additional problem that there is a limited time window for development of needed technologies.” The limited time window mentioned is due to the age of the nation’s current fleet. Only 10 percent, the report states will be less than 40 years old in 2030. This becomes a problem when making investment decisions. “Decisions on whether to retrofit capital intensive hardware, such as CCS systems, are based on multiple economic factors, some of which relate to the remaining useful life of potential retrofit candidates, and some of which are highly uncertain when projected 15 years into the future.”
The report was approved by the membership of the NCC and will be presented to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
