Dr. Brian Moench: CCS is a dangerous waste of tax money
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- After refusing to soberly address our energy or climate predicament under the guise of "we can't afford it," several senators from coal states, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., have the audacity to now ask for billions in public funding for research into carbon capture and sequestration from coal plants. It seems like a drunkard father telling his family there's no money for food and then taking out a loan to go buy himself more booze.
CCS is little more than outrageously expensive lipstick on a pig that is destroying house and home. And speaking of pigs, it is also the worst of federal pork -- a coal industry government bailout pushed by many of the same people who are still squealing about all the previous bailouts.
Now, more than ever, tax money is limited and must be spent responsibly. Because we developed the technology to put a man on the moon doesn't mean we can afford to put every man on the moon. Likewise, proving that we can store carbon from one plant doesn't mean it is feasible to do that industry wide. The huge transportation, pipeline and storage infrastructure required to actually sequester all that CO2 from coal plants would be prohibitively expensive. To quote Energy Secretary Steve Chu, "The scale of CCS needed to make a significant dent in worldwide carbon emissions is staggering."
A recent Harvard study suggests how staggering -- about $150 a ton of CO2 or about $300 billion a year for the United States alone. There is simply not enough money to do extensive CCS and extensive renewables, as well. Every public or private investment in "cleaner" coal is money that is no longer available for the kind of renewable energy that really can save our future -- wind, solar, geothermal, etc.
CCS requires about 30 percent more coal to be burned to produce the same amount of electricity. Furthermore, most CCS designs will not capture all of the CO2, only some of it. If you have to burn 30 percent more coal to capture 50 percent of the carbon, then what is the point?
If pumped into underground geologic formations, we must hope and pray that the CO2 won't leak out. Realistically the chance that there will be no leaks or ruptured injection wells is zero. If the leaks are significant, we will have spent enormous amounts of money and energy and accomplished nothing. It could take decades of widespread implementation before we know what the leak rate is and what the unintended consequences might be.
Fugitive emissions from such storage formations could acidify and alter the mineral content of critical aquifers, or leak out under intense pressure such that people living on the surface could be killed from asphyxiation. All the recent problems from the gas-drilling technique of "fracking" suggest that is possible, if not likely.
Because 30 percent more coal has to be burned, CCS also would increase all the well-recognized public health consequences of coal pollution. The common refrain that coal is cheap is only the result of deliberately blindfolded accounting. A recent state-funded study calculated that, even in our sparsely populated state of Utah, the health consequences of our coal power plant pollution include over 200 extra deaths a year and cost a minimum of $1.6 billion dollars annually, an amount equal to the cost of generating the electricity itself. Newer information suggests the total health costs are much higher.
Of course, by increasing the amount of coal burned, CCS will only make the widespread environmental devastation of mountaintop removal and storage of coal combustion waste that much worse.
We hear repeatedly that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal. In fact, evidence is mounting that our domestic supply of reasonably accessible coal is only a few decades of current use, far less than advertised. That alone is reason enough not to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into an industry wide CCS infrastructure.
This is a government bailout with no up side. Not just a waste of money, CCS is a parasite that will suck financial resources away from real solutions to the most serious problem we have ever faced. Given the overwhelming scientific evidence, accumulating almost daily, that continued reliance on coal is tantamount to climate suicide, spending more and more public funds in pursuit of better ways to burn coal is a tragic and possibly lethal detour from the road to a livable future for subsequent generations.
Moench is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- After refusing to soberly address our energy or climate predicament under the guise of "we can't afford it," several senators from coal states, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., have the audacity to now ask for billions in public funding for research into carbon capture and sequestration from coal plants. It seems like a drunkard father telling his family there's no money for food and then taking out a loan to go buy himself more booze.
CCS is little more than outrageously expensive lipstick on a pig that is destroying house and home. And speaking of pigs, it is also the worst of federal pork -- a coal industry government bailout pushed by many of the same people who are still squealing about all the previous bailouts.
Now, more than ever, tax money is limited and must be spent responsibly. Because we developed the technology to put a man on the moon doesn't mean we can afford to put every man on the moon. Likewise, proving that we can store carbon from one plant doesn't mean it is feasible to do that industry wide. The huge transportation, pipeline and storage infrastructure required to actually sequester all that CO2 from coal plants would be prohibitively expensive. To quote Energy Secretary Steve Chu, "The scale of CCS needed to make a significant dent in worldwide carbon emissions is staggering."
A recent Harvard study suggests how staggering -- about $150 a ton of CO2 or about $300 billion a year for the United States alone. There is simply not enough money to do extensive CCS and extensive renewables, as well. Every public or private investment in "cleaner" coal is money that is no longer available for the kind of renewable energy that really can save our future -- wind, solar, geothermal, etc.
CCS requires about 30 percent more coal to be burned to produce the same amount of electricity. Furthermore, most CCS designs will not capture all of the CO2, only some of it. If you have to burn 30 percent more coal to capture 50 percent of the carbon, then what is the point?
If pumped into underground geologic formations, we must hope and pray that the CO2 won't leak out. Realistically the chance that there will be no leaks or ruptured injection wells is zero. If the leaks are significant, we will have spent enormous amounts of money and energy and accomplished nothing. It could take decades of widespread implementation before we know what the leak rate is and what the unintended consequences might be.
Fugitive emissions from such storage formations could acidify and alter the mineral content of critical aquifers, or leak out under intense pressure such that people living on the surface could be killed from asphyxiation. All the recent problems from the gas-drilling technique of "fracking" suggest that is possible, if not likely.
Because 30 percent more coal has to be burned, CCS also would increase all the well-recognized public health consequences of coal pollution. The common refrain that coal is cheap is only the result of deliberately blindfolded accounting. A recent state-funded study calculated that, even in our sparsely populated state of Utah, the health consequences of our coal power plant pollution include over 200 extra deaths a year and cost a minimum of $1.6 billion dollars annually, an amount equal to the cost of generating the electricity itself. Newer information suggests the total health costs are much higher.
Of course, by increasing the amount of coal burned, CCS will only make the widespread environmental devastation of mountaintop removal and storage of coal combustion waste that much worse.
We hear repeatedly that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal. In fact, evidence is mounting that our domestic supply of reasonably accessible coal is only a few decades of current use, far less than advertised. That alone is reason enough not to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into an industry wide CCS infrastructure.
This is a government bailout with no up side. Not just a waste of money, CCS is a parasite that will suck financial resources away from real solutions to the most serious problem we have ever faced. Given the overwhelming scientific evidence, accumulating almost daily, that continued reliance on coal is tantamount to climate suicide, spending more and more public funds in pursuit of better ways to burn coal is a tragic and possibly lethal detour from the road to a livable future for subsequent generations.
Moench is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.
