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$50 per tonne? A coal plant produces about a tonne of CO2 for every MWh produced. Industrial electricity price might be $50 per MWh. So just paying for the carb

$50 per tonne? A coal plant produces about a tonne of CO2 for every MWh produced. Industrial electricity price might be $50 per MWh. So just paying for the carbon capture doubles your electricity price? $100 carbon capture charge would triple it. I can't see how this could be competitive. We have an excellent carbon storage technology, it's called coal. And what's best, it's already there, underground, very safely, proven for millions of years! With no cost! But we're still building new coal plants in many places. In some places, coal plants and steel factories have shut down, but it's often because industry has been offshored to a place that uses coal, or they're replaced with natural gas, only a somewhat better alternative. So if leaving coal unused can't be made to work, then more inefficient and thus expensive methods of carbon avoidance likely can't either. It's like working hard in the car wash for the whole day and then at the end of the day, spending all the money you just earned on having your car washed. It's a bad strategy - you would have spent a lot less time and effort if you had just washed your car yourself. When the coal and natural gas plants have been shut down, then carbon capture might have a role. Nice page about world coal usage: https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-information-overview https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-information-overview

7952 6y ago
Co2 pricing is not the only way though. You could give co2 capturing gas peakers a strike price in the same way as renewables. Or have a capacity market that is only open to carbon capturing energy sources.
tjoff 6y ago
Double the price of coal sounds like an excellent thing! Still very cheap. Promotes better sources of energy.
- javajosh 6y ago
  Indeed. The fact is that coal energy externalities have been ignored, artificially depressing the cost. Increasing the cost of a product to reflect those externalities is not a "blow to the industry", but rather the first time in history coal's price will reflect its externalities. Nope, it's not a great time to be a coal-miner, but I hear Biden is trying to spend $4T on infrastructure so maybe some of those miners can buy a truck and form a road maintenance company instead!
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    The issues with coal mining are (a) it sucks and is dangerous, (b) therefore, people who do it, or whose families have done it, feel a lot of pride about it, (c) in the US, it's typically located in parts of states that don't have a lot of other employment (Wyoming, Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia). If you're serious about getting rid of coal in the US, it needs to start with "We appreciate your and your family's work over the years, and here's a truckload of money and economic development for your region so that you can lay down that burden." Nobody reacts favorably to doing a hard job, every day, and then listening to someone tell them they're killing the planet.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      > (a) it sucks and is dangerous, (b) therefore, people who do it, or whose families have done it, feel a lot of pride about it We really need to get rid of that “proud to kill myself to make my employer richer” trait. > "We appreciate your and your family's work over the years, and here's a truckload of money and economic development for your region so that you can lay down that burden." It’s only fair.
      - gfodor 6y ago
        They’re not proud because they’re killing themselves for their employer, they’re proud for killing themselves to feed their families, and perhaps because they are creating energy for others to use.
        rbanffy 6y ago
        Nobody should have to choose between living a healthy life and feeding their family.
        ByteJockey 6y ago
        Ok, but people did. And there's a certain amount of pride in that struggle.
DennisP 6y ago
It certainly makes no sense to capture CO2 from burning coal. But lots of industries are harder to decarbonize than electricity production. On top of that, we're past the point where just stopping emissions is enough; we have to draw CO2 levels back down.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Capturing CO2 from burned biomass (or waste) would provide a CO2-negative energy source. Not enough to run the world, but nice to have.
khuey 6y ago
> I can't see how this could be competitive. It can't. Coal plants are dinosaurs that need to be shut down. Charging a carbon price is one way to make that happen faster.
8note 6y ago
The government will pay for it so they can keep a few coal workers in business and get their influencial votes
ehnto 6y ago
It doesn't have to be competitive, it has to be regulated. If coal plants and CO2 emissions heavy processes aren't viable once the cost of sequestering the carbon is charged to the people emitting the carbon, then they should give way to processes that do (or be expensive enough that they're only used when necessary) We can't solve the crisis by trying our best not to disturb the status quo, things are going to get shaken up a bit.
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  Yes, though even now it's already possible to price CO2, yet somehow it doesn't factor in significantly in the price of goods produced with coal heavy electricity.
lenkite 6y ago
How does one leverage this excellent carbon storage technology ? Plant fast-growing trees/crops, cut them upon maturity and bury them underground ?
- thatcat 6y ago
  The closest thing we have to coal creation is biochar, so you plant the trees and then anaerobically pyrolyze the material and put it underground.
- headsupernova 6y ago
  Simple - don't light it on fire.
namibj 6y ago
Be aware that capturing exhaust CO2 of coal plants is about the cheapest source of CO2 for capturing, as you just need to pre-enrich the air in oxygen to get nearly-pure CO2 exhaust. This expensive part is for capturing CO2 out of ambient air, where you only get like 0.04%.
scsilver 6y ago
If coal plants produce 50$ in unaccounted externalities for every 1MWh they produce, is it fair to any of us to allow them not to have to pay for it's mitigation?
- DesiLurker 6y ago
  thats a good point, I'd argue given that CO2 concentration in atmosphere is a public bad (as in taking ability to sustain life out of 'common biosphere'), the cost to remove it on a per unit basis represents a good measure of externalized costs of unmitigated pollution (just co2, ignoring other pollutants for the moment). this is doubly good because it provides a great incentive for the free market to minimize the costs of CO2 sequestration and hopefully will let us hit the knee of the optimization curve asap.

7952 6y ago

Co2 pricing is not the only way though. You could give co2 capturing gas peakers a strike price in the same way as renewables. Or have a capacity market that is only open to carbon capturing energy sources.

tjoff 6y ago

Double the price of coal sounds like an excellent thing! Still very cheap. Promotes better sources of energy.

javajosh 6y ago
Indeed. The fact is that coal energy externalities have been ignored, artificially depressing the cost. Increasing the cost of a product to reflect those externalities is not a "blow to the industry", but rather the first time in history coal's price will reflect its externalities. Nope, it's not a great time to be a coal-miner, but I hear Biden is trying to spend $4T on infrastructure so maybe some of those miners can buy a truck and form a road maintenance company instead!
- ethbr0 6y ago
  The issues with coal mining are (a) it sucks and is dangerous, (b) therefore, people who do it, or whose families have done it, feel a lot of pride about it, (c) in the US, it's typically located in parts of states that don't have a lot of other employment (Wyoming, Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia). If you're serious about getting rid of coal in the US, it needs to start with "We appreciate your and your family's work over the years, and here's a truckload of money and economic development for your region so that you can lay down that burden." Nobody reacts favorably to doing a hard job, every day, and then listening to someone tell them they're killing the planet.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > (a) it sucks and is dangerous, (b) therefore, people who do it, or whose families have done it, feel a lot of pride about it We really need to get rid of that “proud to kill myself to make my employer richer” trait. > "We appreciate your and your family's work over the years, and here's a truckload of money and economic development for your region so that you can lay down that burden." It’s only fair.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      They’re not proud because they’re killing themselves for their employer, they’re proud for killing themselves to feed their families, and perhaps because they are creating energy for others to use.
      - rbanffy 6y ago
        Nobody should have to choose between living a healthy life and feeding their family.
        ByteJockey 6y ago
        Ok, but people did. And there's a certain amount of pride in that struggle.

DennisP 6y ago

It certainly makes no sense to capture CO2 from burning coal. But lots of industries are harder to decarbonize than electricity production. On top of that, we're past the point where just stopping emissions is enough; we have to draw CO2 levels back down.

pfdietz 6y ago
Capturing CO2 from burned biomass (or waste) would provide a CO2-negative energy source. Not enough to run the world, but nice to have.

khuey 6y ago

> I can't see how this could be competitive. It can't. Coal plants are dinosaurs that need to be shut down. Charging a carbon price is one way to make that happen faster.

8note 6y ago

The government will pay for it so they can keep a few coal workers in business and get their influencial votes

ehnto 6y ago

It doesn't have to be competitive, it has to be regulated. If coal plants and CO2 emissions heavy processes aren't viable once the cost of sequestering the carbon is charged to the people emitting the carbon, then they should give way to processes that do (or be expensive enough that they're only used when necessary) We can't solve the crisis by trying our best not to disturb the status quo, things are going to get shaken up a bit.

Gravityloss 6y ago
Yes, though even now it's already possible to price CO2, yet somehow it doesn't factor in significantly in the price of goods produced with coal heavy electricity.

lenkite 6y ago

How does one leverage this excellent carbon storage technology ? Plant fast-growing trees/crops, cut them upon maturity and bury them underground ?

thatcat 6y ago
The closest thing we have to coal creation is biochar, so you plant the trees and then anaerobically pyrolyze the material and put it underground.
headsupernova 6y ago
Simple - don't light it on fire.

namibj 6y ago

Be aware that capturing exhaust CO2 of coal plants is about the cheapest source of CO2 for capturing, as you just need to pre-enrich the air in oxygen to get nearly-pure CO2 exhaust. This expensive part is for capturing CO2 out of ambient air, where you only get like 0.04%.

scsilver 6y ago

If coal plants produce 50$ in unaccounted externalities for every 1MWh they produce, is it fair to any of us to allow them not to have to pay for it's mitigation?

DesiLurker 6y ago
thats a good point, I'd argue given that CO2 concentration in atmosphere is a public bad (as in taking ability to sustain life out of 'common biosphere'), the cost to remove it on a per unit basis represents a good measure of externalized costs of unmitigated pollution (just co2, ignoring other pollutants for the moment). this is doubly good because it provides a great incentive for the free market to minimize the costs of CO2 sequestration and hopefully will let us hit the knee of the optimization curve asap.