The Value of Post-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Technologies in a World with Uncertain Greenhouse Gas Emissions Constraints
By analyzing how the largest CO2 emitting electricity generating region in the United States, the East Central Area Reliability Coordination Agreement (ECAR), responds to hypothetical constraints on greenhouse gas emissions, the authors demonstrate that there is an enduring role for post combustion CO2 capture technologies. The utilization of pulverized coal with carbon dioxide capture and storage (PC+CCS) technologies is particularly significant in a world where there is significant uncertainty about the future evolution of climate policy and in particular uncertainty about the rate at which the climate policy will become more stringent. The paper’s analysis shows that within this one large, heavily coal-dominated electricity generating region, as much as 20-40 GW of PC+CCS could be in operation before the middle of this century. Depending upon the state of PC+CCS technology development and the evolution of future climate policy, the analysis shows that these CCS systems could be mated to either already existing PC units or PC units that are currently under construction, announced and planned units, as well as PC units that could continue to be built for a number of decades even in the face of a climate policy. In nearly all the cases analyzed here, these PC+CCS generation units are compliments to a much larger deployment of CCS-enabled coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants. The analysis presented here shows that the combined deployment of PC+CCS and IGCC+CCS units within this one region of the U.S. could result in the potential capture and storage of between 3.2 and 4.9 billion tones of CO2 before the middle of this century in the region’s deep geologic storage formations.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 949898
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-61195; AA1520151; TRN: US200909%%531
- Journal Information:
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 3(1):39-48, Vol. 3, Issue 1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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