Instead of reviving a pilot project to perfect unproven technology to capture carbon dioxide from burning coal, the Obama administration should promote proven technology that eliminates two-thirds of CO2 emissions, veteran environmental and political writer Gregg Easterbrook writes in The New York Times.
The object of Easterbrook's scorn is the FutureGen project in Mattoon, Ill., a partnership between the Department of Energy, electric utilities and coal companies, and the subject of several items on this blog. "FutureGen was better off canceled. Government is good at basic research, poor at commercial-scale applied energy technology," Easterbrook writes, citing previous flops. "Test runs may not begin for a decade. No wonder the project’s nickname is 'NeverGen.' This is part of a Washington tradition — beginning pie-in-the-sky projects that create an excuse to avoid forms of conservation and greenhouse-gas reduction that are possible immediately."
Easterbook points to the “integrated gasification combined cycle” process, which not only requires a third less coal but "can achieve near-zero emissions of toxic material and chemicals that form smog" and is better suited to carbon-capture technology than old-fashioned plants. Duke Energy is building an IGCC plant in Indiana, but "Most state public-utility commissions have denied requests to construct these environmentally friendly systems," he writes. While the up-front cost is larger, "the economics of gasification plants may become attractive, with low-emission plants costing less to run," if Congress passes a cap-and-trade system like that in the climate bill the House passed last week. (Read more)
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