Congressional leaders are beginning to start thinking about a climate bill again.
Health care legislation has finally started
moving forward in Congress. Shawn Allee reports
the US Senate can now devote some attention to
its unfinished work on climate change:
Transcript
Health care legislation has finally started moving forward in Congress.
Shawn Allee reports the US Senate can now devote some attention to its unfinished work on climate change:
The climate-change bill got a cold reception last year, but Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman say they’re making headway lately.
Margaret Kriz Hobson tracks climate legislation for the National Journal.
She says the Senate got stuck negotiating a complex carbon trading scheme.
That would have required most industries to trade carbon pollution credits.
Kriz Hobson says the three senators are now focusing mostly on power companies.
“A lot more people are letting them in the door because the proposal that they’re bringing forward would include some benefits for nuclear power, oil drilling in the United States and for more modern technologies for capture and sequestration.”
That last technology would basically bury carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.
That could save money and jobs in states that burn or mine coal.
A coal mine in West Virginia.
(Photo by Erika Celeste)
The coal industry wants us to
believe in the idea of ‘clean coal.’
But burning coal emits a lot of
carbon dioxide, the greenhouse
gas contributing to climate change.
The coal-burning electric power
industry is just now testing technology
to capture CO2 and to permanently
store it. The second round of tests
is happening at American Electric
Power’s Mountaineer Power Plant
in New Haven, West Virginia. Hank
Courtright is monitoring those tests.
He’s with the non-profit Electric Power
Research Institute. Lester Graham
talked with him and asked how the
tests are going:
Transcript
The coal industry wants us to
believe in the idea of ‘clean coal.’
But burning coal emits a lot of
carbon dioxide, the greenhouse
gas contributing to climate change.
The coal-burning electric power
industry is just now testing technology
to capture CO2 and to permanently
store it. The second round of tests
is happening at American Electric
Power’s Mountaineer Power Plant
in New Haven, West Virginia. Hank
Courtright is monitoring those tests.
He’s with the non-profit Electric Power
Research Institute. Lester Graham
talked with him and asked how the
tests are going:
Hank Courtright: We think it has great progress, it’s really the second step of a multi-step process that we’re doing. We had just concluded a project up in Wisconsin on a smaller scale, the same type of technology, and it was very successful. It capture 90-plus percent of the CO2 that passed through it and saw some great promises as far as reducing the cost of doing it. The idea here is that we’re scaling it up ten times larger at the mountaineer plant and so far the early results seem very good and we’ll continue to test that over a year plus to see how it does produce.
Lester Graham: I understand it takes a lot more energy to run this extra CO2 capture equipment, as much as 30% more coal has to be burned to generate the same amount of electricity, what’s being called a parasitic load. What’s this going to mean for our power bills?
Hank: Well, what we’re trying to Lester is that the parasitic load gets down into the, let’s say, the 10 to 15% range. If you get to that level, it means that the electricity out of a coal plant might be about 25% higher than it is. But right now coal is basically the cheapest form of producing electricity, so it still ends as being an economical option even if you might be increasing the cost of that coal plant by about 25%.
Lester: If they can accomplish that with this experiment, how long will it take to get this technology built into the bulk of coal burning power plants?
Hank: Well, you’re going to be working over this for several decades, really. If this plant at Mountaineer works well, our thinking is around 2020 you’re going to be able to have most new coal power plants use the carbon capture and storage. And you might be able to retrofit about 20%, 25% of the existing plants in the United States with this type of technology.
Lester: If all of these methods fizzle, we can’t capture carbon economically, or at the other end, we can’t find a way to sequester this carbon underground, or whatever type of method they can come up with, what’s next?
Hank: Well, that causes some difficulties because right here in the United States coal is used to produce about half our electricity. And if it doesn’t work on coal, it’s also the issue that it won’t work on any other fossil fuels such as natural gas, which produces about 20% of our electricity. So you’re into a difficult situation that if you’d wanted to significantly reduce the CO2 emissions to improve the climate change issue, then you’d have to be looking at a combination of probably nuclear power and a very large roll out of renewable energy. Both of those would have to take the lion share of electricity production. But our hope is that we can get this working because it is not only here in the US that you need it on fossil fuels of coal and gas, but also in places like China, Russia, India, Australia, country’s that very large reserves of coal and hope to use those natural resources.
Lester Graham at the coal mine Shay #1 in Macoupin County, Illinois. He's interviewing the mine general manager Roger Dennison.
(Photo courtesy of Phil Ganet)
The coal industry is hopeful
an old technology will help
them clean up an increasingly
unpopular fuel. Lester Graham
reports, without it, coal faces
an uncertain future:
Transcript
The coal industry is hopeful
an old technology will help
them clean up an increasingly
unpopular fuel. Lester Graham
reports, without it, coal faces
an uncertain future:
[Editor’s Note: The script for this story will be posted shortly.]
Burning fossil fuels such as
oil and coal creates carbon
dioxide. CO2 contributes
to climate change. Samara Freemark reports
some scientists say we could
capture the emissions from
smokestacks and put in in the
ground – and they think they’ve
found a good place:
Transcript
Burning fossil fuels such as
oil and coal creates carbon
dioxide. CO2 contributes
to climate change. Samara Freemark reports
some scientists say we could
capture the emissions from
smokestacks and put in in the
ground – and they think they’ve
found a good place:
It’s called carbon capture: collecting CO2 from smokestacks, liquefying it, and piping it underground for permanent storage.
A big question is exactly where to bury the carbon dioxide so it doesn’t escape.
A new study from Rutgers University says one good place might be the underwater lava formations that run all along the eastern seaboard.
Dennis Kent is one of the study’s authors. He says the formations are full of basins that could double as CO2 reservoirs. And they’re conveniently close to population centers.
“You have to get it from the power plant to wherever the reservoir is. So having it closer would be an advantage. Take the Co2 down the road somewhere and lock it away.”
The study measured the capacity of one basin off the coast of New Jersey. It found the basin could hold a gigaton of carbon dioxide- or, the amount of gas a coal-burning power plant produces in four decades.
When it comes to global warming,
America’s in a bind. Almost half
of our electricity comes from coal.
But, compared to other power sources,
coal produces the most carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas. Industry’s testing
so-called ‘clean coal’ technology to
deal with the problem. Shawn Allee has this update on a test
project that has some hard work
left to do:
Transcript
When it comes to global warming,
America’s in a bind. Almost half
of our electricity comes from coal.
But, compared to other power sources,
coal produces the most carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas. Industry’s testing
so-called ‘clean coal’ technology to
deal with the problem. Shawn Allee has this update on a test
project that has some hard work
left to do:
If you live outside coal-mining country, you may have missed this news about a clean-coal project in West Virginia.
“A big announcement has the state and members of the coal industry very excited about the future of the state’s most valuable resource. Good Evening, I’m April Hall…“
The fanfare’s about a company called American Electric Power. Last fall, AEP started a test that could begin a clean-coal revolution.
“The Mountaineer power plant in Mason County is going to be the first facility in the world to use carbon capture and sequestration technology to cut down on the carbon dioxide that that plant emits. AEP is hoping the implementation …“
The Mountaineer test project made headlines because there’s talk of clamping down on America’s carbon dioxide emissions. Coal produces nearly twice its own weight in carbon dioxide. So, if we could bury or sequester the stuff that would help solve the coal industry’s carbon dioxide problem. Expectations are high, but the company is keeping its cool.
“The tension we’re fighting against is the fact that you can’t go from concepts on paper to commercial scale in one step.“
Gary Spitznogle runs an engineering division for AEP, and if you think he sounds cautious, it’s because he is. Spitznogle says AEP needs to validate carbon capture and sequestration.
“Validation is kind of that intermediate step between what is truly research work and full commercial scale.“
Validation is another way of saying this technology mostly works but let’s take it for a spin. Let’s run bigger and bigger tests, so we learn more and more.
“The test is treating the amount of gas that would be coming from a 20MW generating unit, so that’s very small.“
From 20 megawatts now to two hundred fifty megawatts in a few years – that’s still less than a quarter of the power generation at the Mountaineer plant.
But what’s the point of tests like this? Well, there’s a problem with carbon capture and sequestration: it wastes coal. This waste is called parasitic load. Parasitic – as in parasite.
Spitznogle: “And because it’s taking the power it’s consuming from the generating plant that you’re controlling, it’s in a sense a parasite of that power plant.“
Allee: “Sounds kind of nefarious.“
Spitznogle: “The reason is that it’s such a focus is that, no matter what technology you look at, the number is large.“
Carbon capture and sequestration equipment need power. That adds a parasitic load of thirty percent onto a coal plant. That means it takes thirty percent more coal to generate the same amount of electricity for customers. Spitznogle needs to find out if his technology cuts that parasitic load figure. Other people hope he finds out, too.
“The overarching concern I would have today is urgency.“
Ernest Moniz runs MIT’s Energy Institute. He says if power companies don’t get a handle on parasitic load we’re in for higher utility bills. One estimate puts the cost of clean-coal power at seventy percent above today’s prices. Moniz says we need bigger tests and more of them.
“We’re pushing up against the envelope and we have to do it. If we’re going to be serious about using our extensive coal reserves in a time of carbon constraints, well, then we have to just demonstrate this technology.“
If we fail to demonstrate clean coal technology, the choices aren’t good. We’d have to abandon our cheap coal supplies or we’d burn dirty coal, then deal with the costs of climate change.
Some suspect that in Copenhagen, rich countries might agree to pay poor countries to stop cutting forests.
(Photo by John J. Mosesso, courtesy of the National Biological Information Infrastructure)
World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen,
Denmark next month to begin dealing with
global climate change. A firm treaty is
off the table for now, but one idea they’re
thinking through is to preserve forests
and have them absorb heat-trapping carbon
dioxide. Shawn Allee reports,
some scientists want all this forest talk
to include animals, not just trees:
Transcript
World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen,
Denmark next month to begin dealing with
global climate change. A firm treaty is
off the table for now, but one idea they’re
thinking through is to preserve forests
and have them absorb heat-trapping carbon
dioxide. Shawn Allee reports,
some scientists want all this forest talk
to include animals, not just trees:
Stuart Pimm is a biologist at Duke University. He says in Copenhagen, rich countries might agree to pay poor countries to stop cutting forests. Pimm says that’s great but not all forests are equal.
“Some forests have more carbon in them than others, and some forests have more species in them than others.”
Pimm and other biologists say carbon pricing alone might mean carbon-poor forests get cut – even if they’re home to lots of animal species. They want negotiators to somehow tweak any climate agreement.
“So we should be encouraging countries not to burn their forests, but we should encourage them not to burn the forests that are so biologically rich.”
Climate negotiators could take up Pimm’s idea next month in Copenhagen.
The rock, soil and tiny plants in a green roof help insulate a building.
That can cut heating and cooling costs. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Green roofs are a popular, but
expensive, way for building owners
to prove their green credentials.
Shawn Allee reports some
researchers feel they might do even
more environmental good than they
thought:
Transcript
Green roofs are a popular, but
expensive, way for building owners
to prove their green credentials.
Shawn Allee reports some
researchers feel they might do even
more environmental good than they
thought:
The rock, soil and tiny plants in a green roof help insulate a building.
That can cut heating and cooling costs.
Researchers at Michigan State University think they’ve found another
benefit, too.
Brad Rowe says the tiny plants absorb carbon from the air. Rowe says the
plants are small, so this carbon sequestration effect is small, too. But
he says green roofs are still better than plain-jane roofs.
“You have all these roofs everywhere and basically, they’re doing nothing
– they’re essentially dead. So, putting plants on them is one way to
sequester carbon above ground, in the leaves and stems, the roots, and even
in the soil that’s on top of the roof.”
Rowe says if Congress ever puts a price on carbon emissions, green roof
owners might get credit for sequestering carbon – and that could cut a
green roof’s high price tag.
Engineering Professor Rich Axelbaum studies his "oxy-coal combustor," a device he hopes could someday trap CO2 in coal-fired power plants. (Photo by Matt Sepic)
The device has not yet been adapted to an industrial scale, and researchers are not whether the CO2 it would capture could be stored underground indefinitely. (Photo by Matt Sepic)
The combustor burns the coal with pure oxygen, rather than in the air. (Photo by Matt Sepic)
Coal has a reputation as a sooty, dirty fuel. More recently, environmentalists and the coal industry alike have become just as worried about the carbon dioxide released when coal is burned. In the third part of our series on the future of coal, Matt Sepic has this look at the science behind so-called “clean coal”:
Transcript
Coal has a reputation as a sooty, dirty fuel. More recently, environmentalists and the coal industry alike have become just as worried about the carbon dioxide released when coal is burned. In the third part of our series on the future of coal, Matt Sepic has this look at the science behind so-called “clean coal”:
As far as most leaders of the coal industry are concerned, the debate about global warming is over. It exists, carbon dioxide contributes to it, and it’s a crisis. But as they’re quick to point out, nearly half the nation’s electricity comes from coal. It’s domestic. It’s relatively cheap. And there’s a lot of it.
Steve Leer is the CEO of Arch Coal. Leer says unless Americans want that power to get really expensive, coal will have to remain part of the equation. But he says something has to be done about all that carbon dioxide.
If we don’t solve that CO2 question, the backlash of high cost electricity becomes an issue for all of us.
Arch Coal is the nation’s second largest coal producer. It’s paying for research into carbon capture and storage. The idea is to divert CO2 from smokestacks, compress it, and then pump it underground.
Engineering professor Rich Axelbaum is studying this with money from Steve Leer’s company. In his lab at Washington University in St. Louis, Axelbaum and two students are tweaking a device they call an oxy-coal combustor.
RA: “It’s a relatively small scale, quite a small scale for industrial, but it’s a relatively large scale for a university.”
MS: “It looks like a few beer kegs stacked end to end and welded together.”
RA: “Right, right.”
Axelbaum can burn coal inside this furnace along with a variety of combustion gases. He’s trying to figure out exactly how much oxygen to inject to yield pure carbon dioxide.
“We can capture the CO2 from a combustion process, by instead of the burning the coal in air, you’re burning it in oxygen, so the stream coming out of the exhaust is CO2.
Axelbaum says there’s no sense in filling valuable underground storage space with CO2 mixed with other gases if a power plant is built that can grab nearly pure carbon dioxide and store it.
He says energy companies already pump CO2 underground to extract crude oil, so some of the technology already exists. But environmentalists say the next step – which is crucial for any so-called clean coal power plant to work– is far from proven.
“No one knows in the industry whether in fact they can sequester carbon permanently.”
David Orr teaches Environmental Science at Oberlin College in Ohio. He says storing CO2 underground is easier said than done. And nobody knows if rock formations in different parts of the country can hold the huge amounts of carbon dioxide America’s power plants produce without it eventually leaking out.
Orr says because the goal is to reduce global warming, politicians would be better off funding research into other energy alternatives.
The metric here is how much carbon do we eliminate per dollar spent on research and deployment of technology?
Orr says the 3.4 billion dollars set aside for clean coal research in the federal stimulus bill would be better spent studying wind and solar power, modernizing the nation’s electrical grid, and finding ways to improve energy efficiency.
But the United States still has more than a century’s worth of coal reserves. And with plenty of money going into both research and advertising, talk of carbon capture and storage is certain to continue, even if it remains just that.
Corn-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland creates excess carbon dioxide while brewing ethanol and other alcohols from corn. The company is donating carbon dioxide from a plant in Decatur, Illinois. Scientists will bury the CO2 deep underground and test whether the local rock can hold it there indefinitely. If it can, the government may encourage coal-fired power plants and other carbon sources to sequester their carbon underground. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
One of the cheapest, easiest ways to make
electricity in America is to burn coal, but there’s
this little problem of global warming. The coal power
industry is a major offender because burning coal
gives off carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
It’s enough to make you think – should we burn coal at all?
Shawn Allee reports some scientists hope to prove
we can put coal emissions out of sight, out of mind:
Transcript
One of the cheapest, easiest ways to make electricity in America is to burn coal. But there’s this little problem of global warming. The coal power industry is a major offender… because burning coal gives off carbon dioxide – the main greenhouse gas. It’s enough to make you think – should we burn coal at all? Shawn Allee reports some scientists hope to prove we can put coal emissions out of sight, out of mind:
A big part of our global warming problem starts right in coal country. Recently, I recorded this coal train leaving a coal mine, destined for some power plants.
(sound of coal train)
It was a long train … and across the country, hundreds like it run constantly. The coal power industry generates half our electricity. And that’s responsible for nearly forty percent of the carbon dioxide, or CO2, we chuck into the atmosphere.
Well, wouldn’t it be great if we could reverse some of this? So, when we pull coal out of the Earth and then burn it … we could just send some of the carbon dioxide gas underground?
That’s getting tested by scientists.
I found one.
ALLEE: “What’s your name, sir?”
FINLEY: “Robert Finley. I’m the director for the center for energy and earth resources at Illinois State Geologic Survey.”
Finley wants to take carbon dioxide and bury it deep under the town of Decatur, Illinois.
He says the rock has to be just right.
One layer needs to absorb the carbon dioxide, while other rock has to keep it put.
“In order for the CO2 to remain in the subsurface, to not leak back in the atmosphere, we have to have an excellent seal.”
Finley calls this geological carbon sequestration, and he says it’s worked … in small tests. His experiment and six others across the country are much larger. Finley says the technology is promising, but needs testing.
“Decatur involves two years of characterizing the site and drilling wells before we even inject CO2. Three years of CO2 injection, then two more years of study of the site. So, that in total is a seven year effort.”
Again, he’s gotta make sure the carbon dioxide stays underground … and that it won’t hurt water or other underground resources. But while Finley experiments, coal plants continue to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s got some environmental groups a little impatient.
“The best way to avoid emissions from burning coal is to not burn it in the first place.”
This is Ron Burke, the Midwest Director for The Union of Concerned Scientists.
“We can meet most of our energy needs by substantially increasing the use of energy efficiency and renewable energy.”
Allee: “But when you listen to Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, it seems that both of these candidates seem to want to make it work, when Mr. Finley and others doing work on the ground say I won’t even have my data until 2014.”
Burke: “It’s clear that a lot of elected officials share this aspirational goal to commercially develop so-called clean-coal technology. But right now we can’t depend on it. We shouldn’t be developing plans to mitigate greenhouse gases assuming that technology’s going to be available.”
Geologist Robert Finley says we cannot rely on carbon sequestration exclusively.
Even if CO2 can stay underground forever, there’s no guarantee we can afford to send it there.
“One could argue we should have been doing this five years ago or earlier, but we can’t go forward and simply drill a well next year and move forward without these kinds of studies, because that would be reckless in my view.”
Finley doesn’t apologize for the pace of science.
He says he’s confident it can answer questions about carbon sequestration…. he just hopes it’s in time to make a difference for the global warming problem.
Congressional leaders are beginning to start thinking about a climate bill again.
