July 1, 2009

Carbon Control: The Long Road Ahead

Angela Neville, JD

The industry is preparing for carbon legislation by exploring options for dealing with CO₂. But even if the technical issues are resolved, actually sequestering CO₂ poses a number of other daunting challenges.

In the U.S., climate change has gone from being an obscure topic to the subject of household discussions in the matter of a few short years. Reflecting the growing impact that carbon constraint issues have had on the electric utility industry, this year’s ELECTRIC POWER conference offered a session titled "CO₂ Control Policy Alternatives and Implications," which featured two insightful presentations about this complex topic. The two speakers, Block Andrews, PE, with the Strategic Environmental Solutions Division of Burns & McDonnell Engineering, and Steven M. Carpenter, director of carbon management at Marshall Miller & Associates Inc., took a balanced look at both the progress achieved so far and the technical challenges ahead related to implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS).

"It is likely that some form of global warming legislation will be enacted within the next two years, and the electric utility sector is certain to be impacted," said Andrews. "The legislation could take the form of a carbon emissions tax, taxes on fuels, a cap-and-trade program, or other hybrid combination of programs. The reduction levels that will be required and the timeframe to achieve the reductions are still unknown. With all these uncertainties, utilities still have to provide adequate, reliable, low-cost power to their customers" (Figure 1).



1.    Looking ahead. This Electric Power Research Institute chart shows projected 2030 targets for certain practices that would affect carbon emissions. Source: EPRI

Several of the current CO₂ -capture projects that will utilize the greenhouse gas for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) are progressing and are pushing the "commercialization" of several promising CO₂ -capture technologies, according to Andrews (Figure 2).


2.    A trio of CO₂ capture technologies. Currently, integrated gasification combined-cycle technology is the most likely to become commercially viable within the next six years. Courtesy: Burns & McDonnell