New EPA rules aimed at cutting carbon emissions are expected to be unveiled June 2nd. It’s a big deal. Coal generates nearly half of this country’s electricity and is the largest source of air pollution. The new rules are expected to spur the use of clean coal technology. At least that’s the hope of both the coal industry and some environmental groups. Marfa Public Radio’s Lorne Matalon has this report for ‘Inside Energy’ on a clean coal project in west Texas---one of two in the country.
The wind is blowing across a 600 acre piece of land in Penwell, currently a ghost town in the Permian Basin of west Texas. Abandoned oil tanks are strewn across the empty field. The directors of a plan known as the Texas Clean Energy Project say a coal-fired power plant will be built right here over the next four years. It’s a plant some people say will be an environmental game changer.
“I am in favor of building electric power plants that capture their carbon.”
That’s Laura Miller, former mayor of Dallas. As mayor, she was not in favor of the construction of 11 coal-fired electric power plants in Texas. That was in 2007. Fast forward to 2014. Miller now heads up this 3-point-5 billion dollar Texas Clean Energy Project----which despite the name is all about making electricity from coal---but not the old way.
“Traditional coal plants take a lump of coal, put a match to it and it burns up a smokestack. And you desperately try to pull off sulfur, mercury, grit off the coal emissions."
The new twist? Turning coal into gas.
“21st century coal takes coal and puts it in a large receptacle called a gasifier and you add a little pure oxygen and you heat it up to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit and you make a gas out of the lump of coal."
Miller says that’s what marks this technology.
“And by putting it into a gaseous form, you’re much more able to pull out the bad stuff including carbon dioxide.”
It’s a technology called Carbon Capture and Storage--CCS. Eight U.S. plants use this technology right now and bury the carbon dioxide in the ground, theoretically permanently. What’s new here is the plan to recycle the CO2. A major Texas utility has agreed to buy captured CO2 to make electricity. And CO2 will also used to extract oil here in the Permian Basin, the country’s highest producing oilfield. The operation also produces by-products like fertilizer and even baking soda.
As hopeful as that might sound, critics charge that any use of CCS will slow the country’s migration to renewables like wind and solar. But several major environmental groups, historical foes of coal, support the project.
“It’s very difficult to perceive a future where we are not using fossil fuels for energy for decades into the future. It’s also difficult to foresee that we can address our problem of climate change if we do not capture the carbon from those fossil sources.”
Tim Profeta is the Director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Solutions at Duke University.
“Any new technology brings along risks of, will it perform and how much exactly will it cost?"
Meaning it’s a calculated but expensive roll of the dice.
“By putting this capture technology on the ground we’re narrowing the risks around its future deployment. And it’s very important to do the first one.”
The EPA won’t force existing plants to adopt CCS. But by mandating emission reductions, the agency hopes the technology is adopted as new plants are built---making CCS cost effective over time.
The Environmental Defense Fund’s Jim Marston says CCS is also critical for emerging energy-hungry economies.
“The real opportunity for growth is actually in India and China where they’re continuing to build new coal plants. And we could clean up their plants. And we need to do that very quickly because China’s now surpassing the U.S. as the number one emitter of carbon dioxide.”
In fact, China’s already in this game. China’s Export-Import Bank has agreed to lend the Texas project $2.5 billion dollars, marking its largest foreign investment in the technology.
Changing the U.S. power infrastructure is like stopping a guided-missile cruiser. It can’t be done quickly---which is why supporters of the Texas project say the technology is important---right now.
