The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule on power plants relies heavily on an old idea that’s getting a new push — capturing planet-warming carbon pollution before it enters the atmosphere.
POLITICO’s Energy Summit on May 18 will discuss the new energy world order with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi, White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, members of Congress and industry executives.
As for why the concept is getting so much attention now, the main answer is that the world is running short on time and options for slowing the Earth’s warming. According to the Global CCS Institute, a project called Huaneng Longdong CCS in China is under construction at a power plant and scheduled to be operational this year. In a recent study, the institute said it is “widely anticipated to be the world’s largest coal power CCUS project.”
“For a long time, it was a difficult industry because you were capturing something that was free to emit. It is always more expensive to capture CO2 than release it,” said Adam Goff, senior vice president for strategy at 8 Rivers Capital, a developer of CCS technologies. “There wasn’t really a business case.”
That law increased the value of the main CCS tax credit, which now amounts to $85 for each metric ton of carbon dioxide captured from power plants or industrial facilities and stored in geological formations. That’s up from the previous $50 per metric ton. “Particularly given long lead times, limited experience, and the potential for CCS projects to crowd or defer more effective alternatives, regulators should be extremely cautious about power sector CCS proposals,” wrote Emily Grubert, who was deputy assistant secretary at DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management before taking on a faculty position at the University of Notre Dame last year.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department is moving forward with CCS funding authorized by the 2021 infrastructure law. Its Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations isin grants to boost CCS deployment at both power plants and in the industrial sector. That funding is aiming to help underwrite new research and development that could bring costs down substantially.