"Clean Coal" PR Catching On

The unfortunate political reality of the climate bill suffering in the Senate is that nothing will happen unless democrats embrace "clean coal" and nuclear energy as significant parts of our "green" future. We've written a lot about the president's misguided embrace of nuclear energy. But last week, his administration fulfilled another campaign promise to push for a massive expansion of largely untested "clean coal" tactics like carbon storage and sequestration (CSS).

After announcing that the Department of Energy would allocate $154 million to a Texas utility to develop a carbon storage facility, energy secretary Steven Chu said "advancing our carbon capture and storage technology will create new jobs in America and reduce our carbon pollution output."

Carbon storage is essentially the process of transforming carbon dioxide to a liquid and pumping it deep underground for storage. The idea has picked up a lot of steam in Washington, but is a difficult sell in communities that aren't thrilled about storing a potentially dangerous chemical under their towns. But a study released last week by the University of Calgary concluded that CSS is technologically possible and safe. Noting that the process still involved risks, the study's manager Rob Lavoie said "if you do it properly the CO2 is not going to leak." He added that, although there's still no scientific consensus on CSS, scientific certainty on any subject is rare. "It's a business of making the best educated guess you can make."

But even if CSS is up to technology and safety standards, it's still not financially feasible, the report concludes. In Canada, the Alberta province currently charges large carbon emitters $15 per tonne. For CSS to become make any sense financially, said Lavoie, that tax would have to rise to $50 or $60 per tonne. "It's a lot of dough, but still ends up being cheaper than other techniques because this can be scaled up to very large scale."

Expect to hear a lot more about clean coal techniques like CSS while the Obama administration and Senate Democrats try to hammer a climate compromise through Congress. In fact, the $154 million guaranteed in Texas is only a fraction of the $2.4 billion Chu has already promised for CSS. But while our elected representatives attempt to rebrand the country's most abundant natural resource, which is the source of 40 percent of our electricity, it will be telling to see how environmentalists, generally foes to coal, react.

Some have already started warming to the idea. The Natural Resources Defense Council "believes that a technology known as carbon capture and storage for coal plants should be included in the (climate) bill," said Frances Beinecke, president of the NRDC's New York City chapter. "We don't think that term is appropriate, but the technology really will reduce global warming pollution from power plants."

Photo credit: Duncan Harris