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5ConclusionEven if we could manage to systematically injectsome quantity of CO2 into the ground for a criticalmajority of power plants world-wide, it would greatlyexacerbate other extremely destructive impacts ofmining, processing, transporting, and burning coal.This report has shown how even the most ambitiousplans for CCS would not help avert the worstimpacts of climate change. The IEA CCS roadmapwill one day live in infamy as it continues to supportthe diversion of money and political will from realclimate solutions, such as the development ofrenewable energy. So too will the EPA rule for newpower plants unless the agency revises the rule todrop any validation that CCS is a good investment.The Obama administration seems partly drivenby faith in a technology that was supposed tosequester pollution from the atmosphere. The biggerreason, perhaps, is reflected in the mindset communicatedby agencies across the administration,whether it comes to the KXL tar sands pipeline,selling taxpayer-owned coal and oil, or drilling in theArctic.Some CCS supporters claim that oil produced withCO2 injection is going to get produced somewhereelse anyway, and therefore would actually be ‘green’oil because it keeps CO2 from a coal plant from enteringthe atmosphere. Is this “clean coal” for “greenoil”? This sounds confusing because it makes nosense – for the obvious reason that injected CO2comes back up the well with the oil.The Obama administration view appears to bethat fossil fuel projects never contribute to climatechange. Every federal agency has an excuse forwhy its okay to support new coal, oil and gas supplyprojects. For example:• The US State Department analysis concludedthe KXL pipeline won’t contribute additionalcarbon pollution – because it means other oiltransport methods won’t be used. 150• The Bureau of Land Management auctionsoff taxpayer-owned coal and discounts anyCO2 created by burning that coal – becauseit means coal in some other part of the worldwon’t get mined. BLM says the same regardinggas extraction projects on public land. 151• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Managementzeros out CO2 from burning oil extracted in theArctic – because this means Arctic oil will simplydisplace oil on the international market. 152• EPA’s proposed carbon rule reflects this logictoo, by promoting oil production with CO2injection without accounting for any of the CO2injected, nor created by burning the oil later.We hope EPA will rethink its proposed rule andcome up with a final policy that acknowledges fossilfuel-fired power plants, not to mention fossil fuelextraction, are not the future of energy investment.Solar and wind are, as the Greenpeace Energy [R]evolution analysis has predicted more accuratelythan most. 153Human-caused global climate disruption is certainlya politically difficult problem. Many politicians,namely climate deniers, have simply chosen to lookaway or became willful allies of big climate polluters.However, many of the rest of our elected decisionmakersdesperately search for a climate solutionthat will alienate as few of their powerful fossil fuelconstituents as possible. Unfortunately, there is noviable solution for both supporting the use of fossilfuels and the climate simultaneously. True climateleaders have no option but to tackle the damagingeconomic entrenchment of the coal, oil and gasindustry. Climate leadership means opposing carboncapture and storage. Real climate solutions likebuilding renewables, developing a smarter electricgrid, energy efficiency, and reforestation are alreadyworking, but we need our decisionmakers to helppick up the pace.Page 26
AppendixMethodology for Calculating ‘Costof Avoided Emissions per EIA’(kilograms per kilowatt hour)The basis of the calculations is EIA projections forcosts of new energy sources entering service in2019. This short term projection makes it an estimateof new sources proposed today, since electricitygenerating units (EGUs) can take a few years fromproposal to coming on line. EIA data is using 2012dollars and megawatt hours (MWh). We used EIA datathat excluded subsidies for system-wide, levelizedcost. Therefore, this cost should include all variableand fixed costs, including fuel inputs and managementof outputs like pollution abatement. It includesmaintenance costs and should include the total costof necessary infrastructure. This also accounts forcapacity factor of each energy source, which is theaverage percentage of time the energy source isgenerating at full potential. For example, a coal plantis assumed to be at full production potential 85% ofthe time. On-shore wind capacity factor is 35% andSolar-PV is 25%. We converted EIA projections forsystem-wide, levelized costs into cents per kilowatthour (kWh).We used EIA data also for point-source CO2 emissionsfactors for various energy sources per kWh.This is the CO2 created by combustion of the fuelbased on average heat rate of each fuel. EIA data is inpounds per kwh, which we converted into kilogramsper kwh. We assumed bituminous coal is used. Onaverage, bituminous coal has about 4.6% feweremissions than lignite (brown coal) and 3.7% feweremissions than sub-bituminous coal.For upstream emissions of coal, such as emissionsdue to mining and transportation, we used analysisfrom Jaramillo, et al. This analysis was assessingcomparative life-cycle emissions of coal with varioustypes of domestic methane gas used in electricityproduction. They relied on a 100-year time horizonfor methane, which is a significant component ofupstream coal emissions related to mining. Given thatavoiding catastrophic climate change requires drasticclimate pollution reductions within the next twodecades, it is better to use the 20-year time horizon inwhich case methane is at least three times as potenta greenhouse gas. Therefore, for this reason alone,we consider this life cycle emissions estimate to bevery generous in favor of coal.For the life cycle CO2 emissions of solar, windand geothermal, we relied on analysis provided bySovacool, et al. CO2 emissions associated with solar,wind and geothermal are largely due to production ofinfrastructure and components.To calculate the cost per kilogram of avoided CO2,we first had to choose a baseline for emissions to beavoided from new energy sources. For this baselinewe referenced the emissions from a coal plant withoutcarbon capture that is burning bituminous coal.To calculate total emissions of each energy source,we added together all the point source emissionswith additional life cycle GHGs, as well as theemissions associated with additional coal needed tooperate carbon capture (i.e., the energy penalty ofCCS). This energy penalty for CCS we assumed is20%, although it could be as high as 40%. We alsoassumed the coal plant with CO2 capture is the mostmodern, efficient integrated gasification combinedcycle technology.To calculate kilograms of avoided emissions, wesubtracted the total emissions from each energysource from the emissions of the baseline. Forexample, the total emissions of the IGCC plant withCO2 capture was 0.18956 kilograms per kwh, whichwas subtracted from 1.015 kilograms per kwh for thebaseline coal plant, resulting in 0.82544 kilograms ofavoided CO2 pollution.Finally, for each energy source we divided the totalsystem-wide cost per kwh by the total for avoidedemissions per kilogram.Page 27
- Page 2 and 3: Greenpeace is an independentcampaig
- Page 5 and 6: CCS Is A Costly Distraction1That Ca
- Page 8 and 9: “If our nation is to benefit from
- Page 10 and 11: Petra Nova (NRG Energy and JX Nippo
- Page 12 and 13: “[I]n Pennsylvania, that’s a li
- Page 14 and 15: Figure 2: Cost of Avoided Emissions
- Page 16 and 17: “The advancement of CCS technolog
- Page 18 and 19: Oil companies have turned to EOR to
- Page 20 and 21: Sequestration is a Bad Bet;People -
- Page 22 and 23: Figure 6: Potential Sites for CO2 S
- Page 24 and 25: CO2 Capture Will Increase theEnviro
- Page 28 and 29: References1“Quick-Change Planet:
- Page 30 and 31: 56”Parish Power Plant takes steps
- Page 32 and 33: 112”Leakages in the Utsira format
- Page 34: Greenpeace is an independentcampaig
5ConclusionEven if we could manage to systematically injectsome quantity of CO2 into the ground for a criticalmajority of power plants world-wide, it would greatlyexacerbate other extremely destructive impacts ofmining, processing, transporting, and burning coal.This report has shown how even the most ambitiousplans for CCS would not help avert the worstimpacts of climate change. The IEA CCS roadmapwill one day live in infamy as it continues to supportthe diversion of money and political will from realclimate solutions, such as the development ofrenewable energy. So too will the EPA rule for newpower plants unless the agency revises the rule todrop any validation that CCS is a good investment.The Obama administration seems partly drivenby faith in a technology that was supposed tosequester pollution from the atmosphere. The biggerreason, perhaps, is reflected in the mindset communicatedby agencies across the administration,whether it comes to the KXL tar sands pipeline,selling taxpayer-owned coal and oil, or drilling in theArctic.Some CCS supporters claim that oil produced withCO2 injection is going to get produced somewhereelse anyway, and therefore would actually be ‘green’oil because it keeps CO2 from a coal plant from enteringthe atmosphere. Is this “clean coal” for “greenoil”? This sounds confusing because it makes nosense – for the obvious reason that injected CO2comes back up the well with the oil.The Obama administration view appears to bethat fossil fuel projects never contribute to climatechange. Every federal agency has an excuse forwhy its okay to support new coal, oil and gas supplyprojects. For example:• The US State Department analysis concludedthe KXL pipeline won’t contribute additionalcarbon pollution – because it means other oiltransport methods won’t be used. 150• The Bureau of Land Management auctionsoff taxpayer-owned coal and discounts anyCO2 created by burning that coal – becauseit means coal in some other part of the worldwon’t get mined. BLM says the same regardinggas extraction projects on public land. 151• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Managementzeros out CO2 from burning oil extracted in theArctic – because this means Arctic oil will simplydisplace oil on the international market. 152• EPA’s proposed carbon rule reflects this logictoo, by promoting oil production with CO2injection without accounting for any of the CO2injected, nor created by burning the oil later.We hope EPA will rethink its proposed rule andcome up with a final policy that acknowledges fossilfuel-fired power plants, not to mention fossil fuelextraction, are not the future of energy investment.Solar and wind are, as the Greenpeace Energy [R]evolution analysis has predicted more accuratelythan most. 153Human-caused global climate disruption is certainlya politically difficult problem. Many politicians,namely climate deniers, have simply chosen to lookaway or became willful allies of big climate polluters.However, many of the rest of our elected decisionmakersdesperately search for a climate solutionthat will alienate as few of their powerful fossil fuelconstituents as possible. Unfortunately, there is noviable solution for both supporting the use of fossilfuels and the climate simultaneously. True climateleaders have no option but to tackle the damagingeconomic entrenchment of the coal, oil and gasindustry. Climate leadership means opposing carboncapture and storage. Real climate solutions likebuilding renewables, developing a smarter electricgrid, energy efficiency, and reforestation are alreadyworking, but we need our decisionmakers to helppick up the pace.Page 26
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