DOE Timelines Show "Clean" Coal Will Be a Long Time Comin'

With the cancellation of US Department of Energy Funding for FutureGen -- the "demonstration" zero-emissions coal plant plagued by cost overruns -- it looks like the promise of clean coal has suffered a major setback.

But a look at the DOE's Carbon Sequestration Technology Roadmap and Program Plan (2007) reveals that the technology -- even with FutureGen -- was not going to be ready any time soon anyway. Certainly not before today's first graders finish high school, probably college, and quite possibly graduate school.

Here's what the DOE has to say quite explicitly on page 9:

As a technology and a research discipline, carbon sequestration is in its infancy.

Would you trust the future of the planet to an infant? How certain can we be that this child will grow up to be a sustainable citizen, given its parentage? When will we have an idea? Here's the timeline DOE has provided that tracks when it expects carbon sequestration to grow up.

The first chronology of note is on page 7 of the report, pictured here (probably too small to read.) It doesn't have the years marked, but it shows the progression of the DOE's carbon sequestration program from Core R&D to Demonstration and Deployment, all feeding in to FutureGen, which was expected to be the single field laboratory for ongoing R&D.

The R&D has three components, broadly speaking.

1. CO2 Capture

This is the most expensive part of the clean coal process. Right now, capyturing CO2 from existing coal plants adds 65% to the cost of electricty produced. DOE says it's identified potential cost reductions of 30-35% for CO2 capture. But have a look at the timeline on page 16. It says that 10 years from now, in 2018, DOE plans to:

Initiate large-scale field testing of promising novel CO2 capture technologies.

2. CO2 Storage

The holy grail is geologic sequestration -- injecting the CO2 deep into rock formations that will contain it, essentially, forever. It is a complicated endeavor. There are seven regional efforts underway to do tests in all kinds of conditions. Most promising theoretically are deep deposits of organic shales and volcanic basalts, but DOE says this research is -- also -- in its "infancy." The timeline for development of storage technology and certainty is also very long:

2011: Initiate at least one large-scale demosntration of CO2 storage in a geologic formation

2016: Initiate at least one demonstration in which CO2 is sequestered in a saline formation

2020: Initiate a field demonstration of at least one technology for enhancing the rate of CO2 mineralization in situ.

3. Monitoring, Mitigation and Verification (MM&V)

MM&V research is designed to assure that we know carbon sequestration is really doing its job, and provide the tools for environmental monitoring and regulatory oversight. This includes the ability to: measure the amount of CO2 at storage sites; monitor for leaks; track the spread of CO2 underground; make sure it is not contaminating ground water; and that it is stored permanently. There's only one milestone on the timeline:

Develop MM&V protocols that enable 99% of stored CO2 to be credited as net emissions reductions.

There is no further comment on when the ability to implement the protocols will be realized.

Beyond FutureGen

In making its announcement on a "restructured FutureGen approach", DOE said it intends to have multiple, commercial-scale clean coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration technology operational by 2015 or 2016. Each of the plants would be capable of sequestering 1 million tons of CO2 a year.

It's a nice press release, but an awfully big departure from DOE's 2007 Roadmap. Looks like carbon sequestration is now definitely off-road and growing up a lot faster than any infant should be expected to.

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