COAL?!?! What are they thinking?

June 29th, 2010

cleancoal

How much did the “Partners for Affordable Energy” pay for this?  You can find them at www.powerofcoal.com and www.poweringourlives.com.

Here’s the revealing part, the very last paragraph:

Adding the Bemidji area is a new high-power transmission line from its facilities in North Dakota to Minnesota Power’s power plant at Cohasset. That line is in the permitting process now, and should be completed by 2012, Fee said.

The St.PPP picked up this “article” and yet omitted that closing truth:

Technology touted as solution for coal power

Here’s the Bemidji Pioneer article:

Published June 27 2010

Future energy needs still depend on coal


Research and development continues into clean-coal technologies for future power plants, say industry officials.

By: Brad Swenson, Bemidji Pioneer

Research and development continues into clean-coal technologies for future power plants, say industry officials.

Meanwhile, as environmental movements have stalled new coal plant construction, utilities will depend during the next 10 years more on natural gas-fired peaking plants, such as the second one planned at Solway, and wind generation.

“There has to be something for baseload generation – 24-hour power,” says Steve Van Dyke, spokesman for Partners for Affordable Energy, an industry coalition that supports the use of coal for energy production.

About 50 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from coal, he said. “If not coal, then what? What’s going to make up that volume of fossil fuel?”

Van Dyke and Kevin Fee, spokesman for Minnkota Power Cooperative, were interviewed last week while they were in Bemidji.

Research is ongoing to develop cleaner technologies for coal, but Van Dyke adds that lignite in North Dakota can be a stopgap measure as it is easily available, with mining right next to the power plant.

Much of Minnesota’s electricity is transmitted from plants in North and South Dakota.

“Just as the state of North Dakota has been working hand-in-hand with the lignite industry for years, the federal government could step that up,” he said. “If CO2 (carbon dioxide) is the problem, we think that’s the solution.”

Clean coal technologies is about 10 years away, Van Dyke said, but in the end would be a much better technology for baseload generation. The current “cap-and-trade” proposal to limit carbon dioxide is too costly and technology isn’t there to limit carbon, he added.

“We think a better way of advancing this is instead of looking at a cap and trade, is to look at a CO2 capture and storage investment fee,” he said. “It could be very small, it could sunset after a certain number of years.”

It would be charged to the consumer, perhaps a tenth of 1 percent of a kilowatt hour, he said. “The billions of dollars that would generate would act as a partner for the federal government through the Department of Energy to work with the 350 plants or new plants or whatever you need to do.”

The coal industry is working on several new technologies, such as reducing carbon intensity by increasing renewable and nuclear energy, improving the efficiency of using coal and sequestering carbon. Capturing and storing carbon seems the most viable, he said.

Already in use is North Dakota’s Great Plains Synfuels Plant, where every year about 2.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is captured and transported via pipeline to the oil fields near Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where the gas is stored, or sequestered, in partially depleted underground oil reserves. The plant is located near the Beulah, N.D., power plant.

One study involves finding a way to mimic the human lung, which has a membrane that transfers carbon dioxide to oxygen. Finding the right enzyme that works is the study’s focus.

Another technique is using a hotter fire to burn up more carbon, but a container that can stand that high heat needs yet to be developed, he said.

The state of North Dakota is investing $6.97 million into research and development, Van Dyke said. Projects include carbon-capture related projects and carbon storage-related projects. And it is working with private industry, universities and Canada.

An industry-sponsored study into the costs for existing plants to achieve goals set in carbon-reduction bills in Congress by 2012 would double for lignite plants, he said.

“Right now the price of electricity from a lignite-based plant is about 2 cents per kilowatt hour, which is very cheap,” Van Dyke said. “Part of the reason it’s cheap is there are no trains involved. The Young Station is built right next to a … coal mine. … The price increase would be 100 percent of the wholesale price.”

The coal industry is also active, Van Dyke said. “Since 1987, for every dollar the state has invested, $6 has been invested by the industry. It’s a way to leverage state dollars.”

The U.S. Department of Energy is seeking new technologies that can be ready to go in 10 years.

“Within the next 10 years they want demonstration projects that will prove whether or not these are viable technologies that can then go to full scale power plants,” Van Dyke said. “Any CO2 reduction goals have to be in sync with where the technology is.”

The Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and Congress need to be talking with each other and understand that their policies must be in sync with where the technology is, he said.

The industry faces technical and legal/social challenges as well, Van Dyke said.

“Very little on the federal level has been done with legal/social issues,” he said. In North Dakota, the Legislature in 2009 defined who owns the pore space in the rock underground as the owner of the surface land.

“You put CO2 down there you need pores and permeability between them,” he said.

Liability issues have also been done on a state level. “The federal government, if its serious about we’re going to have carbon capture and sequestration, then they need to be looking at what’s the long-term liability for this, because when you talk about something over thousands of years, you start talking about countries. You don’t even consider companies anymore.”

Public acceptance is also a challenge, he said, with NIMBY and NUMBY – Not in my back yard and Not under my back yard.

Technical issues include capture technology for existing plants and new plants, the cost of carbon capture and sequestration, finding sufficient storage capacity and permanence.

“One thing about the United States, there are a lot of places where CO2 could be stored,” Van Dyke said. “Almost anywhere where there is an oil field there is the same type of geology that can be used to store this.”

Meanwhile, Minnkota’s Fee said that more peaking plants powered by natural gas will be built in lieu of large coal-fired power plants – until clean-coal technology is proven.

Adding the Bemidji area is a new high-power transmission line from its facilities in North Dakota to Minnesota Power’s power plant at Cohasset. That line is in the permitting process now, and should be completed by 2012, Fee said.

Posted by Carol A. Overland
Filed in Political Sense (non?), Power Plants - includes Mesaba coal gasification
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