In large industrial experiments across the globe, factories and power plants are trying to capture the carbon dioxide that streams out of their flues in order to bury it deep underground. Researchers believe the greenhouse gas will stay put for thousands of years and therefore won’t contribute to global warming, but the costs and long-term effects of the procedure are still unclear. The experiments currently underway are expected to determine whether carbon capture and storage will allow nations to continue burning fossil fuels for energy without ill effects.

In France this month, the first retrofitted power plant will begin to use its new carbon capture and storage technology. The system used by the natural gas-burning power plant will transport and store 60,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year in the nearby depleted gas field at Rousse – once the biggest onshore natural gas field in Europe, but which is now almost empty [The Guardian]. The carbon dioxide will flow through existing pipelines that once brought natural gas to the power plant. While the first new power plant using carbon capture and storage opened last year in Germany, some environmentalists say that the French plant’s retrofit is an important example of how existing industries can be adapted to a future that requires clean energy.

(more…)

The Obama administration is moving ahead with the development of the “clean coal” technology of carbon capture and storage, even though experts say that the technology’s high costs will prevent it from being widely adopted for decades. Carbon capture and storage requires that carbon dioxide emissions be captured in the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants and factories, and then converted into a liquid and pumped into reservoirs deep in the earth. “I won’t be surprised if we have some of these [systems] in place in the 2020 to 2030 decade, but … it’s going to be on the margins, just because it costs so much” [Reuters], says energy consultant Bill Durbin.

In 2008 the Bush administration canceled the flagship clean coal project, called FutureGen, which called for the construction of a near zero-emissions coal power plant that would test carbon capture and storage technology. The project’s costs had escalated to $1.8 billion by the time it was canceled, but new Energy Secretary Steven Chu has indicated that he may revive at least parts of the project, saying, “We are taking, certainly, a fresh look at FutureGen, how it would fit into this expanded portfolio” [Greenwire].

(more…)

It may be a platitude that fresh, clean air is good for you, but now researchers have quantified how much cleaning up air pollution has improved the public health: It has boosted the lifespan of the average American city-dweller by five months.

Coauthor Majid Ezzatin explains that when his team examined three decades of health data from 51 U.S. cities, researchers found that people are living about three years longer than they did before. Controlling for changes in income, education, demographics and smoking, about five months of that can be chalked up to air improvements…. “Rather than just saying pollution is bad for health,” he said, “we can say that regulations are good for health” [Wired News].

(more…)

As the cleanup continues of the billion gallons of ash that spilled out of a reservoir at a Tennessee coal-fired power plant two weeks ago, nearby residents continue to worry about the long-term health and environmental effects of the waste material. Residents of Kingston, Tennessee, say they’ve gotten conflicting messages regarding the gray sludge that poured into the Emory River and coated their fields and roads. Meanwhile, other coal-burning power plants around the country are inspecting their own waste storage systems for weaknesses.

Preliminary results from water samples taken in the spill area show no unsafe levels of toxins, said Leslie Sims, on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. The testing includes municipal supplies and private wells, he said. However, samples of the fly ash scooped up along roadsides and river banks show elevated levels of arsenic that normally would trigger an EPA response, Sims said. “These are levels that we consider harmful to humans,” he said [CNN]. But the EPA is not responding because the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, is already working on cleaning up the pollution, Sims said.

(more…)

American voters may have enthusiastically chosen to send Barack Obama to the White House as the next president of the United States, but the Bush Administration still has 76 days in office and seems to be making the most of that time by passing a host of so-called “midnight regulations.” Many of these last-minute rule changes relax environmental regulations, and watchdog groups say these controversial changes may be difficult for the incoming president to undo.

Some of the rule changes would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms. Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining [Washington Post]. If the rules take effect before inauguration day, the incoming Obama Administration would have to begin a long and complicated regulatory process to reverse them.

(more…)

A British jury has cleared six Greenpeace activists of causing criminal damage when they vandalized a power plant last year in a protest over global warming, based on the defense attorneys’ argument that the protesters were trying to prevent even worse damage from climate change. Yesterday’s verdict is expected to embarrass the government and lead to more direct action protests against energy companies [The Guardian].

Last October, the Greenpeace protesters scaled the smokestacks of a coal-fired power plant as a publicity stunt to protest the United Kingdom’s continued reliance on coal-fired power plants, which emit large amounts of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. The protesters were halfway through painting a slogan on the side of one smokestack (“Gordon, bin it,” a British way of asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to chuck coal), when the police served the activists an injunction by helicopter and forced them to stop. They were charged with causing more than $50,000 in damages based on the cost of removing the paint. E.ON, which owns the power plant, said that the company was in a state of shock over the verdict [The Times].

(more…)

Next week, German officials will flip the switch and turn on the world’s first coal-fired power plant to use carbon capture and storage technology, in which carbon dioxide is stripped out the plant’s emissions and pumped deep underground. This “clean coal” technology has been hailed as a possible way to get cheap energy without further contributing to global warming. The 30 megawatt Schwarze Pumpe power station, built and operated by Swedish power company Vattenfall, will produce power along with 10 tons of highly concentrated CO2 an hour. The CO2 will be loaded onto tankers and taken to a nearby gas field for sequestration [Earth2Tech].

The new Vattenfall plant is a relatively small pilot project intended to test the viability of carbon capture and storage; these technologies have yet to be deployed in full-scale commercial plants, which typically generate hundreds of megawatts of power. The technologies are currently expensive, partly because capturing and compressing carbon dioxide into liquid requires a good amount of energy. Critics also have questioned their effectiveness in keeping emissions sealed underground [GreenTech Media]. For all these reasons, some experts have wondered whether clean coal plants are a realistic option for large-scale energy production.

(more…)

In a national first, a judge in Georgia blocked a proposed coal-fired power plant based on concerns over global warming. The state judge denied the $2 billion power plant’s air pollution permit because it didn’t set limits for its emission of carbon dioxide. Both opponents of coal use and the company that wants to build the plant said it was the first time a court decision had linked carbon dioxide to an air pollution permit [The New York Times].

The energy companies plan to appeal the decision to the Georgia Supreme Court, and some experts say the ruling is likely to be overturned. But the Sierra Club, which was one of the plaintiffs in the case, pronounced itself thrilled with the judge’s decision. “We think this is the beginning of the end of conventional coal-fired power plants, because of the enormity of their emissions,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s national campaign against coal. Of the 80 coal plants in the permitting process nationwide, about 30 are in active litigation, Nilles said [Atlanta Journal-Constitution].

(more…)