Carbon Capture and Storage: Energy Costs Revisited

# Total resources" is our best estimate of the total amount of coal, including undiscovered in the United States. Currently, total resources are estimated to be about 4 trillion short tons.1 Total Resources includes several categories of coal with various degrees of geologic assurance and data reliability.
# But not all coal is feasible to mine. The Demonstrated Reserve Base2 is the sum of coal in both measured and indicated resource categories of reliability, representing 100% of the in-place coal that could be mined commercially at a given time. EIA estimates the Demonstrated Reserve Base to measure 489 billion short tons.
# "Estimated Recoverable Reserves" include only the coal that can be mined with today’s mining technology, after accessibility constraints and recovery factors are considered. EIA estimates there are 263 billion short tons of U.S. recoverable coal reserves, about 54% of the Demonstrated Reserve Base.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/08/peak-coal/

WSJ front-page shocker: “U.S. Foresees a Thinner Cushion of Coal,” warns rosy U.S. coal estimates “may be wildly overconfident”
June 8, 2009

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http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/06/are-we-approaching-peak-coal-part-1/
Are we approaching peak coal? Part 1
January 6, 2009

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The National Research Council’s Committee on Coal Research, Technology, and Resource Assessments to Inform Energy Policy wrote in a 2007 report:

Present estimates of coal reserves are based upon methods that have not been reviewed or revised since their inception in 1974, and many of the input data were compiled in the early 1970s. Recent programs to assess reserves in limited areas using updated methods indicate that only a small fraction of previously estimated reserves are economically recoverable.

The NRC, however, decided not to seriously downgrade the very optimistic estimates still out there, certainly not by as much as the 2008 USGS report suggests may be warranted. Its press release states:

March 24, 2010

New CO2 “scrubber” from ingredient in hair conditioners

SAN FRANCISCO, March 24, 2010 — Relatives of ingredients in hair-conditioning shampoos and fabric softeners show promise as a long-sought material to fight global warming by “scrubbing” carbon dioxide (CO2 ) out of the flue gases from coal-burning electric power generating stations, scientists reported today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Their report, the first on use of these so-called aminosilicones in carbon dioxide capture, concluded that the material has the potential to remove 90 percent of CO2 from simulated flue gas. The new “scrubber” material may be less expensive and more efficient than current technologies for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main“greenhouse” gas linked to global warming, the scientists say.

Robert Perry, Ph.D., and colleagues pointed out that coal-burning electric power plants are a major source of the carbon dioxide that has been building up in Earth’s atmosphere. An estimated 2.8 billion tons of the gas enters the atmosphere each year from the 8,000 coal-fired power plants in the United States alone. Those are among 50,000 coal-fired generating stations worldwide. Perry cited a critical need for practical technology to remove carbon dioxide from flue gases before it enters the atmosphere. The new scrubber material would meet the goal of the U.S. Department of Energy, which funded the research, of developing carbon capture technologies with at least a 90 percent CO2 capture efficiency.

“We’re very excited about this technology that may pave the way for a new process for carbon dioxide capture,” Perry said. He is with GE Global Research in Niskayuna, N.Y. “The development of a low-cost solution for CO2 capture would go a long way in helping to address our clean energy goals. In the future, the gases that come out of power-plant smokestacks will be virtually free of carbon dioxide emissions.”

Perry and colleagues hope to overcome the high costs and inefficiency of current CO2 capture methods with a new type of aminosilicone, a group of materials widely used in fabric softeners, hair conditioners, and flexible high-temperature plastics. In laboratory-scale tests using a device to simulate flue gas conditions of continuously streaming gas and relevant temperatures, the new material captured more than 90 percent of the CO2 added to the system.

If future tests at the pilot-scale in a power plant prove successful, the material would be used as part of a larger, active absorber system. In this scenario, the liquid aminosilicone solvent will absorb CO2 and be transferred to a desorption unit where CO2 would be removed from the aminosilicone and sequestered. The aminosilicone solvent would be recycled to react with more CO2-rich flue gas.

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UCLA chemists create synthetic 'gene-like' crystals for carbon dioxide capture

By Stuart Wolpert February 11, 2010

UCLA chemists report creating a synthetic "gene" that could capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans.

The research appears in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science.

"We created three-dimensional, synthetic DNA-like crystals," said UCLA chemistry and biochemistry professor Omar M. Yaghi, who is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the UCLA–Department of Energy Institute of Genomics and Proteomics. "We have taken organic and inorganic units and combined them into a synthetic crystal which codes information in a DNA-like manner. It is by no means as sophisticated as DNA, but it is certainly new in chemistry and materials science."

The discovery could lead to cleaner energy, including technology that factories and cars can use to capture carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

"What we think this will be important for is potentially getting to a viable carbon dioxide–capture material with ultra-high selectivity," said Yaghi, who holds UCLA's Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and is director of the CNSI's Center for Reticular Chemistry. "I am optimistic that is within our reach. Potentially, we could create a material that can convert carbon dioxide into a fuel, or a material that can separate carbon dioxide with greater efficiency."

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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
February 03, 2010

Presidential Memorandum -- A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon Capture and Storage

MEMORANDUM FOR  THE SECRETARY OF STATE
   THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
   THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
   THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
   THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
   THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
   THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
   THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
   THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
   THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT
      AND BUDGET
   THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL
      PROTECTION AGENCY
   THE CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY
      COMMISSION
   THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND
      TECHNOLOGY POLICY
   THE CHAIR OF THE COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL
      QUALITY

SUBJECT: A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon
Capture and Storage

For decades, the coal industry has supported quality high-paying jobs for American workers, and coal has provided an important domestic source of reliable, affordable energy. At the same time, coal-fired power plants are the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and coal accounts for 40 percent of global emissions. Charting a path toward clean coal is essential to achieving my Administration's goals of providing clean energy, supporting American jobs, and reducing emissions of carbon pollution. Rapid commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS), will help position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy race.

My Administration is already pursuing a set of concrete initiatives to speed the commercial development of safe, affordable, and broadly deployable CCS technologies. We have made the largest Government investment in carbon capture and storage of any nation in history, and these investments are being matched by private capital. The Department of Energy is conducting a comprehensive clean coal technology program including research, development, and demonstration of CCS technologies and is pursuing important international cooperative initiatives to spur demonstration and deployment of CCS. The Environmental Protection Agency is developing regulations that address the safety, efficacy, and environmental soundness of injecting and storing carbon dioxide underground. The Department of the Interior is assessing, in coordination with the Department of Energy, the country's geologic capacity to store carbon dioxide and promoting geological storage demonstration projects on public lands. All of this work builds on the firm scientific basis that now exists for the viability of CCS technology.

To further this work and develop a comprehensive and coordinated Federal strategy to speed the commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, I hereby establish an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (Task Force). You shall each designate a senior official from your respective agency to serve on the Task Force, which shall be Co Chaired by the designees from the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Task Force shall develop within 180 days of the date of this memorandum a proposed plan to overcome the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years, with a goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016. The plan should explore incentives for commercial CCS adoption and address any financial, economic, technological, legal, institutional, social, or other barriers to deployment. The Task Force should consider how best to coordinate existing administrative authorities and programs, including those that build international collaboration on CCS, as well as identify areas where additional administrative authority may be necessary. The Co Chairs shall report progress periodically to the President through the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.

Ultimately, comprehensive energy and climate legislation that puts a cap on carbon pollution will provide the largest incentive for CCS because it will create stable, long-term, market-based incentives to channel private investment in low carbon technologies. My Administration's new CCS strategy will pave the way for this energy transition by identifying and removing barriers to rapid commercial deployment and by providing greater legal and regulatory clarity. This will help to spur private investment in CCS in the near term -- investment that will create good jobs and benefit communities.

This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The Secretary of Energy is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.



BARACK OBAMA