Rachel's Democracy & Health News #944  [Printer-friendly version]
January 31, 2008

A ROCKY START FOR "CLEAN COAL"

[Rachel's introduction: In the U.S., the future of global warming
hinges on a fight over coal-fired electric plants, which, together,
emit 60% more carbon dioxide (CO2) than all the automobiles in the
nation.]

By Peter Montague

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) announced January 30 that it is
pulling out of the Futuregen Project in Mattoon, Illinois --
America's $1.8 billion "clean coal" demonstration plant scheduled to
start construction next year. DoE had committed to paying 74% ($1.3
billion) of Futuregen's costs.

"Clean coal" is the coal industry's term for various end-of-pipe
filters that capture carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the main global warming
gas -- pressurize it into a liquid, and store it underground, hoping
it will stay there forever. This is known as "carbon capture and
storage" or CCS for short.

Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and other Illinois politicians
immediately denounced DoE for reneging on its commitment to the
Mattoon "clean coal" project. (Not to be outdone, Mr. Obama's
political rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, has said that, if elected
President, she will "put immediate funding towards 10 large-scale
carbon capture and storage projects.")

DoE's 13 industrial partners in the Illinois project (the Futuregen
Alliance) have bravely promised to press ahead, but without DoE's
billions, the Illinois project is almost certainly dead.

Ho hum, you say?

Not so. The U.S. response to global warming -- and therefore,
arguably, the future of the planet -- is wrapped up in this fight.

President Bush had personally announced the Futuregen project Feb. 17,
2003 as a "bold" 10-year demonstration to turn coal into gas (mainly
hydrogen and carbon dioxide), burn the hydrogen to make electricity,
and bury the carbon dioxide a mile underground, hoping it would stay
there forever. Originally Futuregen was also intended to produce
liquid transportation fuels from coal, according to the New York
Times. In 2003, Futuregen was supposed to cost $750 million, but
recent estimates have escalated to $1.8 billion, and further increases
were expected, so the DoE pulled out.

Futuregen was an important part of the coal-industry's "clean coal"
campaign because it would combine, for the first time, coal
gasification with carbon capture and storage (CCS). Coal gasification
had been demonstrated at commercial scale a decade ago at the small
(260-megaWatt) Polk Power Station 40 miles southeast of Tampa, Fla.
(Polk uses a system called IGCC, short for integrated gasification
combined cycle.) Despite this technical innovation, Polk still emits
its carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global
warming. Futuregen in Illinois was supposed to show that a small (275-
megaWatt) electric power plant could combine coal gasification with
carbon capture and storage (CCS), reducing near-term CO2
emissions by perhaps 85% compared to standard coal-burning plants.[1,
pg. 4] (In the longer term, no one knows if, or when, CO2
stored below ground will escape to the atmosphere. The stated goal of
the Futuregen project to store CO2 below ground for 5000 years.)

As the nation's first demonstration of carbon capture and storage
(CCS) below ground from a coal-fired power plant, the Futuregen
project seemed crucial for the future of the coal industry. In 2002,
the U.S. emitted a total of 5611 megatonnes (millions of metric
tonnes) of CO2 from the combustion of all fossil fuels (coal, oil,
gasoline, and natural gas). The nation's roughly 500 coal-electric
plants emitted 33% of this (1868 megatonnes), which is 60% more than
all the CO2 released that year by all the gasoline-powered automobiles
in the nation (1176 megatonnes).[2]

If you are looking for an obvious choke-point to cut greenhouse gases,
coal is it.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) -- sometimes called carbon capture
and sequestration (CCS) -- would benefit other industries besides
coal. An 85% reduction of CO2 emissions from coal plants would make
"space" for the automobile industry to continue to pollute, so the
automobile and oil corporations are enthusiastic about CCS for coal.
The electric utilities favor CCS because it would mean they could stop
worrying about unfamiliar renewable technologies like solar, wind,
geothermal, and tidal power; if they can get CCS going on a large
scale, renewable energy won't be needed. Coal mining executives
strongly favor CCS because without it their day is done. And the
railroads favor CCS because 44% of all rail freight (by weight) is
coal.[3]

To stop global warming, stop coal

James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies and a leading U.S. climate expert, testified in November,
2007, "Saving the planet and creation surely requires phase-out of
coal use except where the CO2 is captured and sequestered (stored in
one of several possible ways)." And he has said even more
dramatically, "If we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power
plants, those coal trains will be death trains -- no less gruesome
than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with
uncountable, irreplaceable species," he said, reminding us that the
future of all life on Earth is at stake.

To avoid a total phaseout of coal, the coal industry is desperately
eager to "demonstrate" that CO2 can be captured and sequestered a mile
below ground, where they hope it will stay forever.

To stop coal, stop CCS

Without CCS, coal is over, and if coal is over then space opens up for
renewable technologies, creating an opportunity for America to
revitalize its economy and once again demonstrate its industrial
power, ingenuity, leadership, and productivity. It poses a basic
choice for the nation: stick with 19th century technologies (coal and
oil) or move into the 21st century and revitalize our economy and our
standing in the world at the same time.

Naturally, with the coal, oil, automobile, mining and railroad
industries depending upon it, carbon capture and storage will not be
easily derailed. Both political parties enthusiastically endorse the
coal industry's "clean coal" campaign. In his 2008 State of the Union
address Jan. 28, President Bush said, "Let us fund new technologies
that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions." And,
as noted above, both Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton
support carbon capture and storage.

So Futuregen may be dead, but carbon capture and storage is anything
but.

Two days after President Bush endorsed "clean coal" in his final State
of the Union address, Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell held a press
conference to renounce the Illinois Futuregen project. However, he was
quick to point out that President Bush's 2009 budget includes a $648
million subsidy for coal -- a $129 million (25%) increase over 2008.

Mr. Sell pointed out that there are at least 33 coal plants planned,
or under construction, using IGCC gasification technology. He gave the
utilities until March 3 to apply for 100% government funding to
add carbon capture and storage to any of those 33 projects. He said
the DoE's new approach would result in "twice as much carbon" being
buried in the ground in the next few years, compared to the Illinois
Futuregen project.

So it seems apparent that the Department of Energy beheaded the
Mattoon Futuregen project not to derail so-called "clean coal" but to
accelerate its development, aiming to get CCS demonstration projects
going more quickly in more places simultaneously. Like the mythical
Hydra, a giant many-headed serpent with poisonous breath, Futuregen
and its progeny will be hard to kill.

[More next time.]

=========================================================

[1] IPCC Special Report Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (Geneva,
Switzerland: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2005). [24
Mbyte PDF]

[2] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse
Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, April 15, 2007. See Table 2-1 in
Annex 2. [27 Mbytes PDF]

[3] Association of American Railroads, Railroad Facts 2007 Edition
(Washington, D.C.: 2007), pg. 28.