[Vision2020] Union of Concerned Scientists: Coal Power in a Warming World (2008)

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/technology_and_impacts/energy_technologies/coal-power-in-a-warming-world.html
 Coal Power in a Warming World (2008)

A Sensible Transition to Cleaner Energy Options
Download: Coal Power in a Warming World
(2008)<http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/Coal-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf>

*Executive Summary October 2008*

If the United States continues burning coal the way it does today, it will
be impossible to achieve the reductions in heat-trapping emissions needed to
prevent dangerous levels of global warming. Coal-fired power plants
represent the nation’s largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2, the main
heat-trapping gas causing climate change), and coal plant emissions must be
cut substantially if we are to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the
worst consequences of climate change.

*Treading A Dangerous Path*
Yet despite the urgent need to reduce CO2 emissions, the United States is
poised to increase its emissions greatly—by building many more coal plants.
Virtually all of these new plants, like existing ones, would lack so-called
carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology—equipment that would allow a
plant to capture CO2 before it is released and then store it underground.

CCS is still an emerging technology. It has the potential to substantially
reduce CO2 emissions from coal plants, but it also faces many challenges. In
its current form the technology would greatly increase the cost of building
and running coal plants while greatly reducing their power output. In
addition, careful selection and monitoring of geologic storage (or
“sequestration”) sites, and the development of regulatory standards and
mechanisms to guide this process, will be needed to minimize the
environmental risks associated with CO2 leakage (including groundwater
contamination).

For CCS to play a major role in reducing CO2 emissions, an enormous new
infrastructure must be constructed to capture, process, and transport large
quantities of CO2. And although CCS has been the subject of considerable
research and analysis, it has yet to be demonstrated in the form of
commercial-scale, fully integrated projects at coal-fired power plants. Such
demonstration projects are needed to determine the relative cost
effectiveness of CCS compared with other carbon-reducing strategies, and to
assess its environmental safety—particularly at the very large scale of
deployment needed for CCS to contribute significantly to the fight against
global warming.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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