6 ms·

DoE spent $1.1B to build carbon capture demos

39 points by algo_trader 5y ago

morninglight 5y ago
It would be interesting to know exactly where the funding went. Who were the prime contractors and their sub-contractors?
thghtihadanacct 5y ago
Cant say we didnt try to make coal clean. Turns out its more expensive than its worth and commercial operations dont see any benefit. Time for Manchin and his constituents to read the writing on the wall and get over coal.
- dnautics 5y ago
  The thing is "clean coal" is not totally crazy, there's no scientific reason you couldn't separate hydrocarbons from coal and create a fuel that emits only CO2 -- it's just as an engineering, technical and economic task it turns out it really doesn't make sense, for the particular coal deposits that exist on the earth and/ot are economical to mine. At some level you could argue it wasn't unreasonable to give it 'the old college try'.
  - pas 5y ago
    So burning coal and then pumping back everything into the ground that would come out of the smokestacks is not possible or it's just not economical?
    - dnautics 5y ago
      I don't think clean coal generally claimed to be carbon neutral.
      - pas 5y ago
        I thought it meant CCS (capture and sequestration), but I have no idea about claimed efficiency.
titzer 5y ago
Just to be clear (because I didn't realize this until earlier this year), but Carbon Capture generally refers to capturing CO2 emissions at the source, like coal-fired power plants. It does not generally refer to extracting CO2 from air at large. As such, they are, in all reality, a bullshit boondoggle invented by the fossil fuel industry as a bandaid for business as usual. I am not surprised that this $1.1B basically bought nothing. It's just more Pollyanna BS that keeps the current freight train barreling along at full speed.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  I find it kind of funny that people are quick to hate on technologies that could enable reduced emissions while continuing to burn fossil fuels. It's as if the goal all along wasn't to actually reduce emissions, but to destroy Oil and Gas. Reactions similar to yours abound, and they are antithetical towards the goal of solving climate change. Of course, not saying that this technology in particular can achieve net zero emissions by any means, but if it could in a more cost effective manner, it would be more societally beneficial than the alternative of overhauling the entire energy production infrastructure.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - titzer 5y ago
    > it would be significantly more cost effective (thus societally beneficial) than to overhaul the entire energy production infrastructure. Citation needed on that cost effectiveness estimate, but regardless, all infrastructure is incrementally rebuilt and replaced over the years. So instead of eventually building replacement coal [1] plants with fancy (and leaky) CC, we could as well build different plants that don't emit any CO2. [1] or natural gas, which is what's been happening over the past 10-15 years in the US, primarily because natural gas became cheaper. Those natural gas plants produced less CO2 than coal, which has primarily driven any reduction in the US's CO2 output. But natural gas still produces huge amounts of CO2 and will never be carbon neutral.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hsavit1 5y ago
Please watch this video from Juice media on how carbon capture technologies are a complete sham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8&ab_channel=thejuicemedia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8&ab_channel=theju...
literallyaduck 5y ago
Claw it back and refund the taxpayers. Bipolar red and blue government wastes everyone's time and money with policy oscillation. Instead of pulling the cart back and forth let's find a peaceful, democratic legal separation of the ideological incompatible.
shantanubala 5y ago
I feel like I'm reading the same article, but drawing very different conclusions from other commenters. I might be missing something - of eleven projects, three were reasonably successful implementations of an improvement to existing infrastructure that can slow climate change. Not terrible for new technology. Although there is likely a better allocation of $1.1B in isolation, that is not the world in which this investment was made - $1.1B amounts to <5% of the annual DOE budget. It also does not include comparisons to other investments e.g. over $1B goes towards electric vehicle tax rebates every year [1]. Build Back Better proposed $555B of federal spending for renewable energy. Are we going to discuss budgets in absolute dollar amounts, or discuss them as portfolios? I will simultaneously applaud efforts to develop electric vehicles while applauding efforts to increase the MPG rating of an ICE vehicle. The same way, I'll applaud any serious effort to reduce our emissions at coal power plants that do indeed help load balance our somewhat fragile power grid - a fragility we need to address while also ensuring our existing infrastructure serves us well. [1] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11017.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11017.pdf
- iamthemonster 5y ago
  It's not completely unheard-of for $1bn to be spent on oil and gas projects that never actually get sanctioned.
- GoodJokes 5y ago
jcpham2 5y ago
I used to work at one of these as it was being thought up - boots on the ground so to speak, straight out high school. Both my father and grandfather were union pipefitters, welders. They mixed the coal with asphalt in a big ole mixer. Bulldozers push coal into a hopper, conveyors take the coal up a few stories and it falls down a Shute and gets mixed with asphalt prior to being burned in the coal fired steam plant. We had four large towers of asphalt holding tanks, they had to be climbed regularly to check to make sure we didn’t overflow them while pumping off tankers. I don’t know how this is supposed to reduce CO2 emissions or how to capture it on the back end, but that’s the beginning stage of making coal more environmentally friendly. You mix the coal with something else and have to create an entirely new mountain pile of mixed coal and you burn that. The logistics of mixing coal with asphalt - not so easy. I read the GAO 33 page report to make sure my local power company is listed, yep. Southern Company shut down the operation. They’ve had DOE signs at the entrance for 20 years at least.
solotronics 5y ago
It's called a tree.
- chikipowpow 5y ago

39 points by algo_trader 5y ago

It would be interesting to know exactly where the funding went. Who were the prime contractors and their sub-contractors?

thghtihadanacct 5y ago

Cant say we didnt try to make coal clean. Turns out its more expensive than its worth and commercial operations dont see any benefit. Time for Manchin and his constituents to read the writing on the wall and get over coal.

dnautics 5y ago
The thing is "clean coal" is not totally crazy, there's no scientific reason you couldn't separate hydrocarbons from coal and create a fuel that emits only CO2 -- it's just as an engineering, technical and economic task it turns out it really doesn't make sense, for the particular coal deposits that exist on the earth and/ot are economical to mine. At some level you could argue it wasn't unreasonable to give it 'the old college try'.
- pas 5y ago
  So burning coal and then pumping back everything into the ground that would come out of the smokestacks is not possible or it's just not economical?
  - dnautics 5y ago
    I don't think clean coal generally claimed to be carbon neutral.
    - pas 5y ago
      I thought it meant CCS (capture and sequestration), but I have no idea about claimed efficiency.

titzer 5y ago

Just to be clear (because I didn't realize this until earlier this year), but Carbon Capture generally refers to capturing CO2 emissions at the source, like coal-fired power plants. It does not generally refer to extracting CO2 from air at large. As such, they are, in all reality, a bullshit boondoggle invented by the fossil fuel industry as a bandaid for business as usual. I am not surprised that this $1.1B basically bought nothing. It's just more Pollyanna BS that keeps the current freight train barreling along at full speed.

adam_arthur 5y ago
I find it kind of funny that people are quick to hate on technologies that could enable reduced emissions while continuing to burn fossil fuels. It's as if the goal all along wasn't to actually reduce emissions, but to destroy Oil and Gas. Reactions similar to yours abound, and they are antithetical towards the goal of solving climate change. Of course, not saying that this technology in particular can achieve net zero emissions by any means, but if it could in a more cost effective manner, it would be more societally beneficial than the alternative of overhauling the entire energy production infrastructure.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- titzer 5y ago
  > it would be significantly more cost effective (thus societally beneficial) than to overhaul the entire energy production infrastructure. Citation needed on that cost effectiveness estimate, but regardless, all infrastructure is incrementally rebuilt and replaced over the years. So instead of eventually building replacement coal [1] plants with fancy (and leaky) CC, we could as well build different plants that don't emit any CO2. [1] or natural gas, which is what's been happening over the past 10-15 years in the US, primarily because natural gas became cheaper. Those natural gas plants produced less CO2 than coal, which has primarily driven any reduction in the US's CO2 output. But natural gas still produces huge amounts of CO2 and will never be carbon neutral.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hsavit1 5y ago

Please watch this video from Juice media on how carbon capture technologies are a complete sham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8&ab_channel=thejuicemedia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8&ab_channel=theju...

literallyaduck 5y ago

Claw it back and refund the taxpayers. Bipolar red and blue government wastes everyone's time and money with policy oscillation. Instead of pulling the cart back and forth let's find a peaceful, democratic legal separation of the ideological incompatible.

shantanubala 5y ago

I feel like I'm reading the same article, but drawing very different conclusions from other commenters. I might be missing something - of eleven projects, three were reasonably successful implementations of an improvement to existing infrastructure that can slow climate change. Not terrible for new technology. Although there is likely a better allocation of $1.1B in isolation, that is not the world in which this investment was made - $1.1B amounts to <5% of the annual DOE budget. It also does not include comparisons to other investments e.g. over $1B goes towards electric vehicle tax rebates every year [1]. Build Back Better proposed $555B of federal spending for renewable energy. Are we going to discuss budgets in absolute dollar amounts, or discuss them as portfolios? I will simultaneously applaud efforts to develop electric vehicles while applauding efforts to increase the MPG rating of an ICE vehicle. The same way, I'll applaud any serious effort to reduce our emissions at coal power plants that do indeed help load balance our somewhat fragile power grid - a fragility we need to address while also ensuring our existing infrastructure serves us well. [1] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11017.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11017.pdf

iamthemonster 5y ago
It's not completely unheard-of for $1bn to be spent on oil and gas projects that never actually get sanctioned.
GoodJokes 5y ago

jcpham2 5y ago

I used to work at one of these as it was being thought up - boots on the ground so to speak, straight out high school. Both my father and grandfather were union pipefitters, welders. They mixed the coal with asphalt in a big ole mixer. Bulldozers push coal into a hopper, conveyors take the coal up a few stories and it falls down a Shute and gets mixed with asphalt prior to being burned in the coal fired steam plant. We had four large towers of asphalt holding tanks, they had to be climbed regularly to check to make sure we didn’t overflow them while pumping off tankers. I don’t know how this is supposed to reduce CO2 emissions or how to capture it on the back end, but that’s the beginning stage of making coal more environmentally friendly. You mix the coal with something else and have to create an entirely new mountain pile of mixed coal and you burn that. The logistics of mixing coal with asphalt - not so easy. I read the GAO 33 page report to make sure my local power company is listed, yep. Southern Company shut down the operation. They’ve had DOE signs at the entrance for 20 years at least.

solotronics 5y ago

It's called a tree.

chikipowpow 5y ago