Dishing the dirt on ‘clean coal’

‘Clean coal’ plays a crucial role in the UK government’s recently unveiled energy strategy, and four new CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) power stations are set to have their CO2 emissions stored in empty oil and gas fields under the North Sea, with all new plants thereafter fitted with the technology.

But whether we are right to put our faith in this new solution is another matter.

The phrase itself seems an oxymoron: as the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel on the planet, accounting for almost 40 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, it’s hard to see how coal can be anything other than dirty. Of course, with coal-fired power stations accounting for 41 percent of the world’s electricity, the need to somehow remedy our existing coal-powered energy infrastructure is a matter of urgency – especially considering that the amount of energy generated from coal from now until 2030 is set to rise by 23 percent in the US, 172 percent in China and a staggering 258 percent in India.

‘Clean coal’ utilises the technology Carbon Capture and Storage – a process whereby CO2 emissions from power plants are chemically diverted – before they have a chance to escape into the atmosphere – then safely stored as liquid. Find out more about the technology itself in Eric Payne's article (url – edition no. 3, 2008).

Yet the scale of the storage problem is daunting to say the very least, plus questions remain unanswered about just how stable the CO2 would be underground – of course, it goes without saying that a susceptibility to leakage would defeat the whole purpose. But assuming that the technology does work – and its feasibility has been demonstrated (Norway’s state oil company has successfully stored CO2 in deep, offshore aquifers since 1996, for example), the big issues are still time and cost.

Firstly, time. This is not a quick fix: even the supporters of CCS don’t expect it to be commercially viable until 2020 – parties with less to lose from coal being scaled down from the energy mix say that it's more likely to be 2030 before it’s fully on-line.

Secondly, cost: CCS, itself, is a process that requires energy – a quarter of the energy (in first generation plants, at least) will be used up in the process of scrubbing, compression and transport. On top of this, the cost of retro-fitting old power stations in the US and Europe will be colossal – although, admittedly, there's more hope for those new plants in China and India. But still, the plants will be less efficient, the electricity produced significantly more expensive.

We need to remain wary not to fall back on coal and CCS as sustainable solutions to our energy crisis and environmental problem, respectively. The power from the sun, wind and tide is infinite, whereas fossil fuels such as coal are limited, however plentiful the supply might be at this moment in time. And as the resource itself becomes more scarce and more difficult to access, so too will suitable underground geological formations that can easily be used for safe storage.

It is clearly the politics of recession that has revived interest in clean coal, yet this is hardly a solution: it is a distraction from finding a sustainable energy source and the cause of an evident re-prioritisation away from truly clean energy. Testimony to this is the on-going Vestas debacle in the Isle of Wight, whereby the country's only wind turbine component manufacturer has effectively been allowed to fold by a government that promotes green energy and jobs as one of its flagship stimulus strategies.

Criticism from Sir Jonathon Porritt, the government’s own outgoing advisor on sustainable development, who accused it of failing to develop a green economy for the 21st century, and said that it was intent on pursuing a Thatcherite economic model that was “hostile to sustainable development”, merely compounds this sentiment and further endorses how the urgency of the climate crisis seems to be so woefully lost on the government.

Irrespective of the forecasts that suggest the UK will continually miss its benchmarks in 2010, 2015 and 2020 (both for renewable-energy generation and slashing its carbon dioxide emissions); rather than investing in truly sustainable and proven renewables, it appears that financial support will instead be diverted towards ‘clean coal’ – the savvy re-branding of an irremediably dirty source of energy.

You are not currently signed in, please sign in or register to post a comment