Path To Climate Solution: Reduce Emissions
WASHINGTON — Finding an economical way to capture carbon dioxide from existing coal burning power plants is key to getting China to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as well as for U.S. efforts to combat global warming, says a study being released Friday.
The report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concludes that the United States cannot meet its targets for stabilizing greenhouse gases unless it finds a way to economically capture carbon dioxide emissions coming from existing coal-burning power plants.
Coal plants generate about half of the country's electricity and 80 percent of the nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide released annually into the atmosphere from power production. China also relies heavily on coal for electricity production and in the last five years has been on a rush to build new coal plants _ none of them designed to capture carbon dioxide.
"There is no credible pathway towards stringent greenhouse gas stabilization targets without CO2 emission reductions from existing coal power plants," says the report. Members of Congress, where a bill to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions could come up for a House vote as early as next week, were being briefed on the MIT report.
Carbon dioxide has been captured and put into the ground in relatively small scale projects _ mostly in connection with enhanced oil recovery, for years, but never in the huge volumes that would be needed to capture emissions from a large coal plant.
The MIT report says there are multiple technologies being explored for carbon capture, but the government still has not adequately supported carbon capture research and is moving too slowly to develop large demonstration projects to show that capturing carbon dioxide and injecting it into the ground will work at the scale needed.
The report, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press in advance of a press conference Friday, says the federal government and industry need to "dramatically expand" its support for carbon capture research and development to the tune of $12 billion to $15 billion over the next decade.
Such technology, if shown to work in U.S. plants, could get China to reduce greenhouse gases from its rapidly growing network of coal burning power plants, the report says.
"We've got to address the carbon emissions from our current fleet (of coal plants) and also have to think how the technology we develop can be applied in China," Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative and co-author of the report, said in an interview.
Together, the U.S. and China account for 20 percent of the world's carbon dioxide from coal burning power plants, said Moniz. If China doesn't address emissions from its coal plants "we really can't address the climate issue in a serious way."
The MIT report summarizes a consensus view of participants in a symposium sponsored by MIT's Energy Initiative on the feasibility of retrofitting existing coal plants with carbon capture technology. Participants included 54 representatives utilities, academia, government, public interest groups and industry.
The report said about half of the U.S. coal plants _ most of those producing 300 megawatts or more of power _ may be suitable for carbon capture technology. Many of the smaller plants, accounting for about 30 percent of electricity production, can achieve emission reductions through increased efficiency, use of a mix of coal and biomass as fuel and other measures. Other plants, especially the oldest, may have to be replaced, said Moniz.
Wayne Leonard, chief executive of Entergy Corp., who was a co-chairman of the symposium, said the symposium's conclusions should be viewed "in an international context" especially as carbon capture technology development relates to China.
"In the U.S. coal is the reality. But in China and India it is the future" and they won't abandon it because of climate change, said Leonard. "But offering them a technological solution, a solution that we are actively developing and deploying ourselves on our own coal plants, would be something that has a far better chance of success in getting them to act."
While Entergy, the New Orleans-based utility, relies on coal for less than 10 percent of its electricity production, it was a co-sponsor with MIT of the carbon capture symposium on which Friday's report is based.
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H. JOSEF HEBERT | 06/19/09 05:16 AM |