American Electric Power announced recently that the company is abandoning its plan to build a full-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) demonstration plant. While the Department of Energy initially promised to fund half the cost of the project, they have reneged on their support now that the cost of carbon won’t make expensive energy production cheaper by comparison.
The problems are not all at the federal level. In addition to the loss of federal support, AEP was also informed that state regulators would not allow them to increase consumer utility rates to cover the cost of carbon-free energy production. In these tough economic times, it is hard to tell people that their utility rates will increase substantially—as much as 40 percent or more—regardless of their personal concerns about oil dependency or the environment.
Carbon capture and sequestration is a relatively new experimental technology that scrubs carbon dioxide from the emissions of coal-burning power plants and pipes it to geological storage sites underground (or in the ocean). The U.S. is replete with geological formations that would serve as ideal carbon-dioxide storage sites in places that are not vulnerable to disruptions (i.e. earthquakes or volcanoes).
To date, CCS has been accomplished only at the experimental level on a very small scale, but the hope is that we can perfect the technology and reduce the cost so that not only can we use it in the U.S. but also so that developing countries can afford to purchase—or we can afford to donate—this technology as well. They, like us, burn a lot of coal, and since the availability of electricity and improved quality of life are inextricably linked, it is not reasonable to expect poor nations to overlook plentiful coal as a reliable and cheap energy source on their way to development.
Carbon sequestration is expensive for a number of reasons. First, the scrubber technology is not inexpensive. Second, CCS systems use a lot of energy themselves, thereby requiring plants to increase power generation by as much as 50 percent in order to distribute the same amount of consumer electricity. Consumers, then, must be asked to pay not just for the electricity they use, but for the electricity used to scrub the carbon from the emissions released during the production of the electricity they use, which adds significant cost.
Then there is the issue of moving carbon dioxide from the source to the geological storage site. There is already a network of pipelines that transport carbon dioxide for use in oil extraction, but that network would likely need to be expanded to handle increased loads and to cover additional geography. In addition, although the Bureau of Land Management considers carbon dioxide to be a commodity, the Environmental Protection Agency has listed carbon dioxide as a pollutant. This adds to the cost and complexity of moving carbon dioxide around.
And there is that pesky little issue about accidental releases that would cause the near instant asphyxiation of a large number of people should a geological storage site fail. These failures are unlikely, but not impossible, and if we aren’t careful, CCS pipelines and storage sites will become the next victims of the perpetual NIMBY syndrome … in the same way that solar farms, wind farms, oil drilling, and nuclear power have suffered a similar fate. It’s sort of like higher taxes—they are fine as long as someone else is paying them. Alternative energy is great if someone else pays and nothing about our personal lifestyles is required to change.
The decision on the part of AEP highlights that moving to a carbon-free energy system takes a lot more than political will. It requires technological sophistication, time and money, which is why it is highly unlikely that we will see any appreciable reduction in carbon dioxide production for some time to come.
