Climate Climate & Energy

Expensive coal + hydrogen = ?

As follow-up to my post yesterday: There is now a bidding war emerging for the FutureGen clean coal plant, targeted to cost $6500/kW. Texas and Illinois are fighting to win this fantastic prize. If they get it, they'll ensure they can keep burning coal, but will do it in a plant that is absurdly expensive.

As a fringe benefit, they'll generate hydrogen (aka, a fuel that no one is presently demanding for their vehicles), on the off chance that if a market arises they can sell it. Goodness knows they'll need it if the coal plant is ever going to pencil out.

Presumably, this is a better idea than investing in more cost-effective renewable/cogen/efficiency projects that would actually produce a product people want.

See an article from Restructuring Today, "Illinois works hard to win FutureGen clean coal/hydrogen plant" ($ub req'd), below the fold:

Advocates talk up concentrated solar power

It would provide an endlessly renewable, carbon-free power supply, and be a means of bringing drinkable water to those who need it most — on the cheap. An environmentalist’s utopian imaginings? Advocates of concentrated solar power say it could be the future.

How to keep wind power soaring

If you are interested in how wind power can continue to soar, be sure to read an excellent study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: "Using the Federal Production Tax Credit to Build a Durable Market for Wind Power in the United States" (PDF).

The authors conclude:

... our analysis suggests that a longer-term extension of the federal PTC may provide a number of benefits, including accelerated wind deployment, reductions in installed wind project costs, and increased domestic wind turbine and component manufacturing. At the same time, we also identify several PTC design considerations, beyond the duration of any extension, that may deserve consideration by Congress.

Thanks to Hal L. for sending this my way.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Farm Belt residents not gung-ho about ethanol plants

One might expect that ethanol plants would be unconditionally embraced in the farm belt, but farm families are not immune to NIMBY-ism. When plans for an ethanol distillery were announced for the outskirts of Sparta, Wis., residents concerned about emissions, odor, and, yes, the view, printed up T-shirts: “Good idea. Bad location.” Residents of New […]

Group urges Congress to ban bunker fuel in wake of S.F. oil spill

In the wake of the catastrophic oil spill in San Francisco Bay, green group Friends of the Earth has started a petition drive urging Congress to ban the use of bunker fuel, which is gooey, chock full o’ toxins, and slow to break down. The fuel, a byproduct of oil refining, is favored by the […]

Coal plants, like nuclear, suck up lots of water during operation

We've seen states like Kansas reject coal plants because of concerns the emissions will accelerate global warming. That's coal's biggest fatal flaw. We've also seen that nuclear power has its own Achilles heel in a globally warmed world -- water.

Now the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a major editorial, raises both the emissions issue and the water issue for coal. It questions whether now is the time to be building thirsty coal plants in a state where major water sources like Lake Lanier (see picture) are drying up:

Months before the drought had seized the public's full attention, the state Environmental Protection Division [EPD] granted permits for a new coal-fired power plant in Early County, a rural community in a severely depressed corner of southwest Georgia. But for a variety of reasons -- including mounting concerns about long-lasting water shortages and worsening air pollution -- state regulators ought to reconsider, or perhaps even reverse, their decision.

The drought has forced citizens and political officials to confront environmental concerns that are usually brushed aside. So, while Mother Nature has our attention, Georgia's leaders should think broadly about conserving all of our resources and expanding our energy portfolio.

Just how much water does the coal plant need?

Interview with smart grid expert Steve Pullins, part two

For nearly 30 years, Steve Pullins has worked in and around the utility industry, in capacities ranging from systems engineering to project development to high-level consulting. He currently works at SAIC, where he heads the Modern Grid Initiative for the National Energy Technology Laboratory. I spoke with him at the Discover Brilliant conference in Sep. […]

The cost of the FutureGen ‘clean coal’ plant doubles

This from Greenwire today ($ub req'd): "The DOE FutureGen program has announced that their "clean coal" plus carbon sequestration is checking in at $1.8 billion for a 275 MW plant, or $6500/kW."

OK, so it's at an early stage, but even if you cut that cost in half, it still doesn't pencil out. How long before we get over the illusion that coal is cheap?

Story below the fold. (Note that I have given them the benefit of the doubt that their description of the plant as a "275 watt" facility was a typographical error.)

Delusional Beltway optimism about energy

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a seminar hosted by several departments at the University of Texas on the topic of "peak oil." The occasion was the visit of David Sundalow of the Brookings Institution, who is hawking his new book Freedom from Oil. This was mutually convenient for him and the university, which is trying to carve out a position as an optimistic, rolled-up-sleeves, can-do problem-solver in the fields of energy and water.

I have no objection to that approach and am pleased to be somewhat distantly associated with it. That said, I did not leave the event with great enthusiasm for Sundalow's book. It was worthwhile in that it drew for me a sharp distinction between can-do optimism and unrealistic, delusional optimism.

I think a train wreck of development, energy, food, environment, and warfare, all driven by a hugely overpopulated planet, is going to be very hard to avoid. I think we can avoid it, and even when I am pessimistic I whistle a happy tune and act as if we can avoid it -- because without optimism there is no hope. Optimism is a moral imperative. That said, it needs to be reality-based optimism. Sometimes the things we want to work aren't the things that are going to work.

Priorities

Here’s a nice little graph showing U.S. R&D spending in various types of energy compared to spending in Iraq for 2007 (click on the image for background): This is what we, collectively, deem important.