Carbon capture and storage not a solution

Another report is reminding us that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is not a reasonable solution to our global climate change crisis, and that state officials are not looking out for the best interests of Kentuckians when they throw hundreds of millions of dollars down that hole.

False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate, released this morning by Greenpeace USA called CCS from coal-fired power plants "unproven and expensive.â€ The technology "has not been successfully tested at a scale necessary for application to full size power plants." Even coal industry advocates admit that CCS on a commercial scale is at least 20 years away, and Greenpeace cites the year 2030 before potential commercial feasibility. That’s 15 years after 2015, the year the world’s climate experts say greenhouse gas emissions must start showing a decline.

Carbon capture also uses tremendous amounts of energy (as much as a fifth of that which the particular power plant produces) and would raise the cost of electricity from 21% to 90%. Carbon storage is iffy and Greenpeace says if just 1 percent of stored carbon leaks out it will negate the positive effects of CCS.

Closer to home, Kentuckians know what happens when attempts are made to regulate the coal industry — it doesn’t work. Given the industry’s history, no one could reasonably expect that CCS could be done in a way that would actually protect people instead of expose us to more harm.

The Climate Security Act now before the U.S. Senate would give a half trillion dollars for CCS experimentation. A better path toward a sustainable and survivable energy future would be to "invest in the technology that’s already there for the production of power on a large scale with solar, geo-thermal, water and wind," said KFTC's Mary Love. "The technology for renewables is there and proven; we should invest in something that has been proven."

She reminded us that this issue is an economic one for Kentucky and many coalfield communities, not just an environmental one. "We should be investing now in the new energy economy so that we are prepared to make the transition rather than being caught totally unprepared. It’s a matter of economic survival.â€

Read the full Greenpeace report here.