NY Times Story Suggests Opportunity for Cleaner Coal
by Evergreen Energy on Fri 30 May 2008 01:40 PM MDT | Permanent Link
by Kevin Collins
President & CEO
The stark realities reported in today’s New York Times story about the challenges confronting “clean coal” plants bode well for Evergreen. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a leapfrog technology that's decades from commercial deployment. Do we pursue it? Yes, but it's unrealistic to shut down existing coal plants or halt new coal power plant construction until CCS is perfected. Heck, if we had waited for Henry Ford to develop the air bag we would all still be riding horses.
The Times story underscores the fact that we're hitting a brick wall: liquefied natural gas terminals and tankers sitting empty in Louisiana; natural gas prices on the rise, long lead times and high capital costs for nuclear power; regulatory uncertainty and high costs associated with clean coal technologies, marginal capacity contributions from alternatives and renewables, and new polls showing little consumer tolerance for higher electric rates in the name of carbon constraints.
Given this gridlock, a fair conclusion from today’s Times story is that we will continue with today’s coal infrastructure for some time to come. If that’s so, what are the bridging technologies that get us to "cleaner" coal while we wait for "clean coal" to arrive, especially when coal keeps the lights on 12 hours a day? How can we make today's coal infrastructure at least marginally better? Europe is returning to coal in the face of no other options. With our back to the wall, is that about to happen here? Why is the consumer council in Colorado suddenly urging a local utility to abandon plans to mothball coal plants? Why are social action groups representing the poor actively opposing higher electric rates in the name of carbon constraint?
The answer is that whether it is in Europe or Colorado, people are waking up to the realities of coal’s crucial role in our energy supply, notwithstanding the rhetoric from some strident environmental groups.
There is opportunity for Evergreen’s pre-combustion technology in the midst of this gridlock. Evergreen’s technology improves today’s coal infrastructure. It removes mercury and, through better efficiency, reduces sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions on a per-kilowatt-hour basis by significant amounts. With our enhanced plant design from Bechtel Power Corporation in hand, Evergreen’s level of business development activity is stronger than ever, and we continue to focus on very real opportunities in Asia and the Midwestern United States.
One by one, circumstances and realities will force policy makers and others to realize that the clean coal of tomorrow begins with the cleaner coal of today, and Evergreen with its enhanced plant design from Bechtel Power will be ready.
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