$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oilprice.com', '
')April 24, 2023. The EPA plans to require gas-powered plants to capture carbon dioxide emissions.
The new rules could be made public this week.
"These standards could level the playing field between new gas plants and new renewable energy," a Sierra Club official told Reuters.
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The Environmental Protection Agency plans to adopt requirements for gas-fired power generators to capture the carbon dioxide emissions of their facilities, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources.
According to the sources, the new rules could be made public as soon as this week to cover both new and existing power generation facilities running on natural gas. Natural gas, Reuters notes, accounts for a quarter of total U.S. carbon emissions.
Once these rules come into effect, utilities will have to choose what to invest in: gas-fired plants with carbon capture and storage systems in place or renewables.
"These standards could level the playing field between new gas plants and new renewable energy," a Sierra Club official told Reuters, which noted that currently, most U.S. gas-fired plants do not pay for the carbon emissions they generate.
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EPA plans to require gas-powered plants to capture CO2
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EPA plans to require gas-powered plants to capture CO2
by jato0072 » Mon 24 Apr 2023, 21:42:48
EPA Targets Gas-Fired Power Plants With Carbon Capture Requirements
Apparently the so called "Inflation Reduction Act" passed and signed into law now allows the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Couple that with the new and creepy sounding "Office of Environmental Justice". Does carbon sequestering technology even exist? How much energy will it remove from the Natural Gas --> Electrical generation process?
"On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
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jato0072 - Lignite
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Re: EPA plans to require gas-powered plants to capture CO2
by kublikhan » Tue 25 Apr 2023, 11:33:35
Yes, the technology exists. But it is very expensive and energy intensive. That is why most of the still functioning CCS projects in the US are not pure CCS but instead used the captured co2 for enhanced oil recovery. I don't think you could do that with the vast majority of large co2 emitters in the country. And for the projects that don't use the co2 for enhanced oil recovery, many of those end up shutting down prematurely or never even getting off the ground in the first place. I'm afraid this might be one of those typical knee-jerk reactions by government trying to make things better, only for the solution to be worse than the problem they are trying to solve. As for the energy consumption of CCS, it varies. But I think CCS taking around 1/3rd of the energy produced by the plant is a common value.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')f the 12 commercial C.C.S. projects in operation in 2021, more than 90 percent were engaged in enhanced oil recovery, using carbon dioxide emitted from natural gas processing facilities or from fertilizer, hydrogen or ethanol plants, according to an industry report. That is why we consider these ventures oil or natural gas projects, or both, masquerading as climate change solutions.
In an effort to capture and store carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel-burning power plants, the Department of Energy has allocated billions of dollars for failed C.C.S. demonstration projects. The bankruptcy of many of these hugely subsidized undertakings makes plain the failure of C.C.S. to reduce emissions economically.
The Kemper Power Project in Mississippi spent $7.5 billion on a coal C.C.S. plant before giving up on C.C.S. in 2017 and shifting to a gas-powered plant without C.C.S. The plant was partially demolished in October 2021, less than six weeks before President Biden signed the infrastructure bill with its billions of taxpayer money for C.C.S.: good money thrown after bad. The FutureGen project in Illinois started as a low-emission coal-fired power plant in 2003 with federal funds, but ultimately failed as a result of rising costs.
The Texas Clean Energy and Hydrogen Energy California C.C.S. projects were allocated over a half- billion dollars collectively, then dissolved. The list goes on, with at least 15 projects burning billions of dollars of public money without sequestering any meaningful amount of carbon dioxide. Petra Nova, apparently the only recent commercial-scale power project to inject carbon dioxide underground in the United States (for enhanced oil recovery), shut down in 2020 despite hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits.
Every Dollar Spent on This Climate Technology Is a Waste$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')f the 12 commercial C.C.S. projects in operation in 2021, more than 90 percent were engaged in enhanced oil recovery, using carbon dioxide emitted from natural gas processing facilities or from fertilizer, hydrogen or ethanol plants, according to an industry report. That is why we consider these ventures oil or natural gas projects, or both, masquerading as climate change solutions.
In an effort to capture and store carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel-burning power plants, the Department of Energy has allocated billions of dollars for failed C.C.S. demonstration projects. The bankruptcy of many of these hugely subsidized undertakings makes plain the failure of C.C.S. to reduce emissions economically.
The Kemper Power Project in Mississippi spent $7.5 billion on a coal C.C.S. plant before giving up on C.C.S. in 2017 and shifting to a gas-powered plant without C.C.S. The plant was partially demolished in October 2021, less than six weeks before President Biden signed the infrastructure bill with its billions of taxpayer money for C.C.S.: good money thrown after bad. The FutureGen project in Illinois started as a low-emission coal-fired power plant in 2003 with federal funds, but ultimately failed as a result of rising costs.
The Texas Clean Energy and Hydrogen Energy California C.C.S. projects were allocated over a half- billion dollars collectively, then dissolved. The list goes on, with at least 15 projects burning billions of dollars of public money without sequestering any meaningful amount of carbon dioxide. Petra Nova, apparently the only recent commercial-scale power project to inject carbon dioxide underground in the United States (for enhanced oil recovery), shut down in 2020 despite hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')echnologies that capture CO2 are energy-intensive. “If you had a 1,000-MW coal plant, in order to capture all the CO2 off of that plant, you would need 300 MW of steam and power. So, it effectively becomes a 700-MW net output plant.”
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')The amount of coal required for the 1GW power plant without carbon capture technology during its lifetime is around 1.52 × 10^8 tons and with carbon capture it is around 2.10 × 10^8 tons.] Carbon capture technology necessitates 37.74% more coal, which creates additional GHG emissions.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]1. Carbon Capture Is an Expensive Failure
After billions of dollars in public and private investments over decades, there are no carbon capture success stories — only colossal failures. One of the largest was the Petra Nova coal plant in Texas, once the poster child for CO2 removal. But the plant consistently underperformed, before it finally closed for good last year.
Another high-profile example — the San Juan Generating Station in New Mexico, touted as the largest capture project in the world — may already be headed to a similar fate. Update: On December 20, 2022, the City of Farmington announced that they withdrew from the carbon capture/sequestration (CCS) project at San Juan Generating Station. This was followed the next day (December 21, 2022) by Enchant Energy (Enchant) issuing a press release abandoning the CCS project at SJGS. SJGS and San Juan Mine are now permanently closed and will be decommissioned/demolished/remediated in early 2023.
2. Carbon Capture Is Energy Intensive
Running a carbon capture system is incredibly energy-intensive. It essentially requires building a new power plant to run the system, creating another source of air and carbon pollution. That undermines the whole goal of capturing carbon in the first place.
3. Carbon Capture Actually Increases Emissions
Due to the large amount of energy required to power carbon capture, plus the life cycle of fossil fuels, carbon capture in this country has actually put more CO2 into the atmosphere than it has removed.
4. Storage Presents Significant Risks
There are also other significant risks related to the disposal and storage of carbon. For example, well failure during injection or a blowout could result in a release of large amounts of CO2. Storage locations can leak CO2, as they are often sited near fossil fuel reservoirs. There, oil and gas wellbores provide a pathway for CO2 to escape to the surface. Those storage leaks could contaminate groundwater and soil. Moreover, CO2 injections could cause earthquakes, which have already been measured at injection sites.
The oil barrel is half-full.
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