One of the key messages from the
Stern Review on the economics of climate change was -
"An overwhelming body of scientific evidence now clearly indicates that climate change is a
serious and urgent issue. The Earth’s climate is rapidly changing, mainly as a result of
increases in greenhouse gases caused by human activities."
Coal is a globally abundant and a relatively cheap fuel and will continue to play a significant role in
power generation and steel production. But coal use contributes significantly to CO2 emissions.
In the future technologies that enable carbon dioxide management will become increasingly
important.
A
MIT study discusses the interrelated technical, economic, environmental and political challenges
facing increased coal-based power generation while managing carbon dioxide emissions from this
sector. Key findings in this study:
- Coal is a low-cost, per BTU, mainstay of both the developed and developing world, and its use
is projected to increase. Because of coal's high carbon content, increasing use will exacerbate
the problem of climate change unless coal plants are deployed with very high efficiency and
large scale Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is implemented.
- CCS is the critical enabling technology because it allows significant reduction in CO2
emissions while allowing coal to meet future energy needs.
- A significant charge on carbon emissions is needed in the relatively near term to increase the
economic attractiveness of new technologies that avoid carbon emissions and specifically to
lead to large-scale CCS in the coming decades. We need large-scale demonstration projects
of the technical, economic and environmental performance of an integrated CCS system. We
should proceed with carbon sequestration projects as soon as possible. Several integrated
large- scale demonstrations with appropriate measurement, monitoring and verification are
needed in the United States over the next decade with government support. This is important
for establishing public confidence for the very large-scale sequestration program anticipated in
the future. The regulatory regime for large- scale commercial sequestration should be
developed with a greater sense of urgency, with the Executive Office of the President leading
an interagency process.
- The U.S. government should provide assistance only to coal projects with CO2 capture in order
to demonstrate technical, economic and environmental performance.
- Today, IGCC appears to be the economic choice for new coal plants with CCS. However, this
could change with further RD&D, so it is not appropriate to pick a single technology winner at
this time, especially in light of the variability in coal type, access to sequestration sites, and
other factors. The government should provide assistance to several "first of a kind" coal
utilization demonstration plants, but only with carbon capture.
- Congress should remove any expectation that construction of new coal plants without CO2
capture will be "grandfathered" and granted emission allowances in the event of future
regulation. This is a perverse incentive to build coal plants without CO2 capture today.
- Emissions will be stabilized only through global adherence to CO2 emission constraints. China
and India are unlikely to adopt carbon constraints unless the U.S. does so and leads the way
in the development of CCS technology.
- Key changes must be made to the current Department of Energy RD&D program to
successfully promote CCS technologies. The program must provide for demonstration of CCS
at scale; a wider range of technologies should be explored; and modeling and simulation of the
comparative performance of integrated technology systems should be greatly enhanced.
