Wyoming Infrastructure Authority

Federal Task Force Sends Recommendations to President on Fostering Clean Coal Technology/Interagency report marks an important step forward on administration priority

Release date: 08/12/2010

Contact Information: EPA: 202-564-7873 DOE: 202-586-4940

WASHINGTON – President Obama’s Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), co-chaired by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), delivered a series of recommendations to the president today on overcoming the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years. CCS is a group of technologies for capturing, compressing, transporting and permanently storing power plant and industrial source emissions of carbon dioxide. Rapid 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. The report concludes that CCS can play an important role in domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions while preserving the option of using coal and other abundant domestic fossil energy resources.

In February 2010, the president charged the task force with proposing a plan to overcome the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of carbon capture and storage within 10 years, with a goal of bringing five to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016.

Charting the path toward clean coal is essential to achieving the administration’s clean energy goals, supporting American jobs and reducing emissions of carbon pollution. Already, the United States has made the largest government investment in carbon capture and storage of any nation in history, and these investments are being matched by private capital. DOE is currently pursuing multiple demonstration projects using close to $4 billion in federal funds, matched by more than $7 billion in private investments, which will begin to pave the way for widespread deployment of advanced CCS technologies within a decade. Ongoing EPA efforts will clarify the existing regulatory framework by developing requirements tailored for CCS, which will reduce uncertainty for early projects and help to ensure safe and effective deployment.

“If we can develop the technology to capture the carbon pollution released by coal, it can create jobs and provide energy well into the future,” President Obama told the nation’s governors when establishing the task force, co-chaired by Energy Secretary Steven Chu and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

“These recommendations mark an important step forward in combating climate change and strengthening our economy through green jobs - top priorities for this administration,” said EPA Administrator Jackson. “Consistent with these recommendations, EPA is proactively developing regulations tailored to carbon storage technology that will reduce uncertainty for early projects and help to ensure safe and effective use of the technology. By encouraging efforts to develop clean coal technology we will obtain new tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs, and make our nation more competitive in the global race for clean energy technology.”

“Around the world countries are moving aggressively on investing in clean energy,” said Energy Secretary Chu. “The U.S. has the ability to develop clean energy innovation here at home. Rather than sending billions overseas to pay for clean technologies, we should invest these dollars here - in America’s workers, industries, and innovations.”

“A diversified energy portfolio, which includes coal, is important for a strong 21st century American economy,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “These recommendations move us toward bringing safe and deployable CCS technologies to the marketplace to help us meet the goal of reducing harmful carbon emissions while continuing to use this energy source.”

The report reflects input from 14 federal agencies and departments as well as hundreds of stakeholders and CCS experts. It addresses the incentives for CCS adoption and any financial, economic, technological, legal, institutional, or other barriers to deployment. The task force also considered how best to coordinate existing federal authorities and programs, as well as identify areas where additional federal authority may be necessary.

The report’s main findings and recommendations include:
•CCS is Viable: There are no insurmountable technical, legal, institutional, or other barriers to the deployment of this technology.
•A Carbon Price is Critical: Widespread cost-effective deployment of CCS is best achieved with a carbon price, but there are market drivers and actions that can and are taking place now, which are essential to support near-term CCS demonstration projects that will pave the way for broader deployment after a carbon price is in place.
•Federal Coordination should be Strengthened: With additional federal actions and coordination, the task force believes our nation can meet the president’s near-term goal and get 5-10 commercial demonstration CCS demonstration projects online by 2016. The report recommends the creation of a standing federal agency roundtable and expert committee to facilitate that goal.
•Recommendations on Liability: The task force conducted an in-depth analysis of options to address concerns that long-term liability could be a barrier to CCS deployment. It concluded that open-ended federal indemnification is not a viable alternative but that four approaches merit further consideration: relying on existing frameworks, limits on claims, a trust fund, and transfer of liability to the federal government (with contingencies). Efforts to improve long-term liability and stewardship frameworks led by EPA, DOE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) will continue in order to provide evaluation and recommendations in these areas by late 2011.

Additional recommendations include setting up an effort by DOE and EPA – in consultation with other agencies – to track regulatory implementation for early commercial CCS demonstration projects and consider whether additional statutory revisions are needed. The report also encourages leveraging existing efforts among federal agencies, states, industry, and NGOs to gather information and evaluate potential key concerns about CCS in different areas of the United States and develop a comprehensive outreach strategy that would include: (1) a broad plan for public outreach targeted at the general public and decision makers; and (2) a “more focused engagement with communities that are candidates for CCS projects, to address such issues as environmental justice.”

Many experts consider CCS an important option as part of a portfolio of strategies – including increased efficiency and greater use of low-carbon energy resources — to help mitigate growing atmospheric CO2 emissions from human sources. It can play a major role in reducing GHG emissions globally. However, widespread cost-effective deployment of CCS will occur only if the technology is commercially available at economically competitive prices and supportive national policy frameworks, such as a cap on carbon pollution, are in place. The administration’s policy and technology initiatives are intended to address these needs.

The full report and the presidential memorandum establishing the task force: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/policy/ccs_task_force.html and http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/sequestration/ccs_task_force.html

Greenwire

Colin Sullivan, E&E reporter

California’s largest utility is pressing for changes to a 33 percent renewable portfolio standard that lawmakers in Sacramento had hoped to pass by the end of August, when the state’s legislative session ends.

With the clock ticking on the session and the pressure mounting, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Democratic leaders over the weekend that outlines several points of opposition to S.B. 722, which would enact a 33 percent RPS.

The bill, which would codify a 33 percent standard by 2020 via an executive order issued by Schwarzenegger last year, would mandate that at least 75 percent of new renewable power come from within California with the rest imported from neighboring states. But PG&E wants that number lowered to 60 percent while increasing access to renewable energy credits to 20 percent.

Compared to a 33 percent RPS that Schwarzenegger vetoed last year, this year’s bill “actually places more restrictions on the ability to procure renewable resources across the West,” wrote Edward Bedwell, PG&E’s vice president of government relations, in the letter.

Schwarzenegger has also come out against the bill on the grounds that it does not do enough to expedite renewable energy projects facing an arduous permitting process. The governor has said he will oppose the measure unless it is changed and recently asked the state’s Air Resources Board to postpone a final vote on his executive order to wait for the legislative process to play out (Greenwire, June 21).

Sen. Joe Simitian, the Silicon Valley Democrat who authored the bill, has insisted that the 75 percent threshold is workable. A recent editorial in The Sacramento Bee urged lawmakers to get behind Simitian to get a deal this year to help create more jobs in California, where unemployment has passed 12 percent.

“There is no reason to bypass California entrepreneurs for energy producers from Montana and other states,” the editorial stated. “California has its own sources of renewable power.”

PG&E in the letter also asked lawmakers to adopt a “step-stair approach” in the new RPS, which would replace the current standard requiring investor-owned utilities to get 20 percent of their power from renewables by the end of 2010. The step-stair method would set interim targets in 2013, 2016 and 2020.

Sullivan reported from San Francisco

(AP) – August 13, 2010

DENVER — Xcel Energy is proposing to spend $1.3 billion to convert coal-fired power plants to natural gas and close a plant to comply with a new Colorado law aimed at cutting pollution from power plants.

Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electric utility, said the plan released Friday will help meet statewide goals of reducing emissions of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. The company said it will also save $225 million compared to installing pollution-control equipment.

Gov. Bill Ritter campaigned for the law encouraging the use of natural gas to cut pollution and Xcel Energy supported it. The Minneapolis-based utility said switching to natural gas is expected to raise customers’ bills on average by 1 percent annually.

State regulators will consider the company’s proposal.

Dick Kelly, Xcel Energy’s chairman and chief executive, said the company expects the Environmental Protection Agency over the next several years to require a series of mandates “unprecedented in the history of the Clean Air Act.”
“We believe our proposal is the best way to meet new environmental requirements in a manner that preserves reliability and minimizes customer costs,” Kelly said.

Xcel Energy plans to reduce emissions by closing a 186-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Boulder by the end of 2017 and switching all four units at its Cherokee plant in Denver to natural gas. New pollution-control equipment would be installed in other coal plants.

The utility’s proposal drew praise from Ritter and environmentalists. Ritter called it the “first major milestone” for Colorado’s plan to replace old, inefficient coal-fired power plants with new, cleaner plants.

“Clean air is not a partisan political issue and this effort is the proof-in-the-pudding,” said Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters. “Diverse stakeholders, from industry to conservation groups, from Republicans to Democrats, all came together to create this framework for change — and it’s time for Washington to take notice.”

Critics, which included some GOP lawmakers, objected to the law’s preference for natural gas and questioned the effect on rates because of the volatility of gas prices.

With information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

TCE Today 8/9/2010
FutureGen 2 to showcase low-emission coal
Oxyfuel retrofit rather than IGCC wins the day

by Claudia Flavell-While

SEVEN years after the original FutureGen clean coal demonstration plant was announced in the US – and three years after it was effectively abandoned – the US government has g iven the go-ahead for FutureGen 2, its rather less revolutionary successor.

The project, which will receive $1b from the Department of Energy, will see an existing coal-fired power plant – a 200 MW unit at Ameren Energy Resources’ Meredonisa power plant in the US state of Illinois – retrofitted with oxyfuel technology. This will require a new boiler, air separation unit, CO2 purification and a gas compression unit, the partners say. The project will be designed to accommodate a broad range of different types of coal and operating conditions.

Burning pulverised coal in an oxygen/ CO2 atmosphere will produce a stream of almost pure CO2, which can then be captured and sequestered. Oxyfuel combustion also removes almost all of the mercury, SOx, NOx, and particulates from the plant’s emissions. Overall, FutureGen II is expected to capture 90% of the CO2 it produces. In addition, performance and emissions data from the plant will help set up operating and maintenance regimes for future large-scale commercial projects.

The project also includes designing and establishing a regional CO2 storage site in Mattoon, Illinois and a CO2 pipeline network from Meredonisaa to Mattoon that will transport and store more than 1m t/y of captured CO2. The partners hope that this will lay the foundation for a regional CO2 network. Meanwhile, researchers will study the Mattoon site and gather data on site characterisation, injection and storage, and monitoring and measurement.

The plant will be the world’s first oxyfuel plant at commercial scale, says the US energy secretary Stephen Chu. Partners in the project are Ameren Energy Resources and Babcock & Wilcox, and Air Liquide Process & Construction is to build the plant.

Experts say that FutureGen 2 is more appropriate than its short-lived predecessor, which the US government effectively shut down in 2007 after costs escalated from $1b to $1.8b. The first FutureGen project would have showcased near-zero emission coal-fired power using integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology. But while few doubt the efficiency of the process, it is only suitable for new build power plants. With a substantial number of coal-fired power plants currently in operation and only limited plans to build new ones, many experts believe that emissions can be cut more effectively by retrofitting existing power plants with carbon capture technology.

By The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 12:59 PM MDT

CHEYENNE — A state team released new recommendations Tuesday for preserving sage grouse in Wyoming, including adding more land that’s designated as protected habitat for the birds.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal formed the Sage Grouse Implementation Team in 2007 as part of Wyoming’s effort to stave off a federal decision to list the birds as a threatened or endangered species. In March, he asked the team for an updated assessment.

“We hope these recommendations will be the guide for the next five years, which is what they figure it’s going to take to kind of get things stabilized in the core areas as well as get some other research done,” Freudenthal said.

The new recommendations add about 300,000 acres of “core population area” in Wyoming. The core areas now cover about a quarter of the state and include about 83 percent of the grouse population in the state, according to the team. The new core area maps are scheduled to be posted on the Wyoming Game and Fish Department website on Wednesday. (The new Core Area Map is available here

Freudenthal issued an executive order in 2008 restricting any new development in core population areas without proof that the development wouldn’t hurt sage grouse numbers.

Freudenthal pointed out Tuesday that enforcement of the new stipulations will be depending on whoever succeeds him as governor in November.

The sage grouse team consists of representatives of federal and state agencies, conservation groups, the energy industry and landowners. Its recommendations include stipulations meant to limit the effects of oil and gas drilling, mining, road building, overhead lines and other activity in core areas. The new report presumes wind development is “not compatible” with sage grouse.

Wyoming is working to avert federal listing for sage grouse — a bird whose historic range covers 80 percent of the state — because the resulting restrictions on energy development and agriculture would be disastrous for the state’s economy.

The state won a victory in March when the U.S. Department of Interior concluded that listing the chicken-sized bird as threatened or endangered is warranted but precluded by higher priorities. Environmental groups are challenging that decision in court.

Freudenthal said Tuesday’s report demonstrates the state’s dedication to practical protections for sage grouse.
“You have to have a strategy that lasts and is sufficient to withstand litigation,” he said.