Coal: Still not cheap

The cost of the FutureGen 'clean coal' plant doubles

Posted by Sean Casten (Guest Contributor) at 12:43 AM on 13 Nov 2007

Read more about: energy | coal | greenhouse-gas emissions | climate

This from Greenwire today ($ub req'd): "The DOE FutureGen program has announced that their "clean coal" plus carbon sequestration is checking in at $1.8 billion for a 275 MW plant, or $6500/kW."

OK, so it's at an early stage, but even if you cut that cost in half, it still doesn't pencil out. How long before we get over the illusion that coal is cheap?

Story below the fold. (Note that I have given them the benefit of the doubt that their description of the plant as a "275 watt" facility was a typographical error.)

The cost of a federal project aimed at demonstrating the viability of cleanly burning coal and sequestering carbon dioxide emissions has nearly doubled to $1.8 billion, the Energy Department said in a report released Friday.

Publication of the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for FutureGen is scheduled to be announced in the Federal Register on Nov. 16, starting a 30-day public comment period after which the department is expected to give the go-ahead for each of the four sites examined -- Mattoon and Tuscola in Illinois, and Jewett and Odessa in Texas.

The FutureGen Alliance, an association of coal companies and electric utilities that have joined DOE to design and build the 275-watt power plant, will then make the final site selection, with an announcement expected in December.

The finalized EIS updates the project's price tag. In March 2004, DOE told Congress it would cost $950 million in 2004 dollars -- a cost to be shared between the department and the FutureGen Alliance, with government paying 74 percent and industry paying 26 percent. The final EIS updates the total bill to $1.757 billion in as-spent dollars, with additional adjustments expected as work unfolds.

When operational, the plant is projected to generate $300 million from electricity sales over an unspecified time period, which DOE says will yield a net cost of $1.456 billion.

The EIS, which incorporates comments from the public and stakeholders, follows publication of a draft assessment in May (Greenwire, May 25). A major conclusion of that study was that risks associated with malfunctions of surface equipment like pipeline ruptures and wellhead leaks outweigh those linked to possible leakage of buried carbon dioxide.

A set of comments on the draft submitted jointly by advocacy groups Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council urged DOE to prepare a supplemental analysis with additional information on the geologic formations at each site and the decisionmaking process for selecting a site for underground injection of CO2. In its response, DOE said a supplemental statement would not be issued at this time but could be appropriate if new information becomes available.

Lawmakers from Illinois who have supported the project welcomed the announcement that all four of the proposed sites remain under consideration.

"We remain optimistic that when all factors are objectively and impartially considered, Illinois will prevail," Republican Rep. Tim Johnson said in a statement.

Members of the FutureGen Alliance praised DOE for quickly finalization of its assessment. "The DOE issued the EIS in record time," said group CEO Michael Mudd in a statement. "We will continue to work together to move FutureGen forward at a fast pace to develop this much-needed, first-of-a-kind research and development program," he said.

DOE says that when it becomes operational, slated for 2012, FutureGen will be the cleanest fossil fuel-fired power plant in the world.

For story: Coal: Still not cheap
16 Comments | Post a Comment

clean air and coal

I used to work in an office building where a co-worker complained of constant respiratory problems. She searched high and low for the cause. Our building was inspected numerous times because of her complaints. But just outside...if you looked straight up the railroad tracks, right on the Potomac River just a mile upstream from our office in Quantico was a huge coal-fired plant. It was the single largest point source for a huge number of pollutants anywhere near us. We've got to kick this fossil fuel habit. Get those lobbyists off the hill!

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

by John former Marine at 9:34 AM on 13 Nov 2007

More than Nuclear

Wow, that's a huge capital cost -- much more than nuclear. I think I'd rather deal with solid nuclear waste than sequestered CO2 as well.

Compared to solar, you could certainly get more nameplate capacity for less. Solar is still around 4500 $/kW. The drawback is the 20 % capacity factor compared to perhaps 75 % for coal. The benefit is no fuel costs, trivial maintenance, and no unaccounted liabilities.

This does seem to suggest that advocating coal with sequestration is a great way to improve the market penetration of renewable energy sources.

-- entropyproduction.blogspot.com

by rmcleod at 10:48 AM on 13 Nov 2007

For Reference

For some reference:

$6500/KW : Future Gen New Projections (!!?!?!¿)
$4000/KW : Small Scale Hydropower
$3900/KW : Parabolic Trough Solar Thermal w/ 6 hour thermal storage
$3000/KW : Coal IGCC
$3000/KW : Geothermal - Binary Steam
$2750/KW : Geothermal - Dual Flash
$2500/KW : Biomass Combustion Boiler
$2400/KW : Nuclear
~~$2050/KW : Coal IGCC~~
$2145/KW : My Estimate on LuzII Solar Thermal
$1500/KW : In-Conduit Hydropower
$1900/KW : Utility Wind
SOURCE: For all the other listings

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 2:08 PM on 13 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

Ah yeah

And $4500/KW for silicon solar panels.

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 2:09 PM on 13 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

In the interests of full disclosure...

We should note that this is a demo plant, and shouldn't presume that this is the permanent price, impossible to reduce with process advancement.

That said, even if they can strip 50% off the price (e.g., make it almost competitive with the current price of Clean Air Act-compliant, but without CO2 sequestering coal), it still doesn't pencil.

But the silver (soot soaked, but I swear, silver underneath) lining is that if we ever build something this foolish, it will increase local power prices so much that all the clean stuff GreyFlcn describes comes on line, competes against it and drives massive equity losses to the IGCC investors. Or, we could just start with the smart stuff.

by Sean Casten at 2:49 PM on 13 Nov 2007

Perhaps, But.

In the interests of full disclosure...
We should note that this is a demo plant, and shouldn't presume that this is the permanent price, impossible to reduce with process advancement.

Perhaps, but all-things-being-equal thats true of all of those technologies.

So it's not much an argument to use ;D

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 3:29 PM on 13 Nov 2007

GreyFlcn

Just looking out for our friends in the coal sector. Lord knows they need it. : )

by Sean Casten at 3:32 PM on 13 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

Solar Maintenance

Just a note for rmcleod - solar plant maintenance is not trivial. The figures I have seen from the California SEGS units indicate the maintenance cost is significant. I surveyed a number of operating and proposed installations and found that maintenance cost amounted to 20% to 50% of the cost of electricity production.

by KenG at 5:01 PM on 13 Nov 2007

Sounds a bit high.

Just a note for rmcleod - solar plant maintenance is not trivial. The figures I have seen from the California SEGS units indicate the maintenance cost is significant. I surveyed a number of operating and proposed installations and found that maintenance cost amounted to 20% to 50% of the cost of electricity production.

Sounds a bit high.

But then again, rmcleod was talking about silicon solar panels.

You're talking about solar thermal.
You're also talking about SEGS, which is relatively ancient solar thermal.
http://www.luz2.com/apage/12219.php

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 12:38 AM on 14 Nov 2007

Solar Maintenance

I guess he was talking about photovoltaic but at over 4000/kw and low capacity factor, it isn't even in the game. Currently, the O&M costs at SEGS are 100% of the electricity cost. After the bankruptcy, the capital costs were fully written off. SEGS now makes a small profit based on tax credits balancing the O&M costs.

Things don't seem to have improved much for solar thermal. Here is proposed project in New Mexico that projects about 50% O&M costs.

http://www.sriglobal.org/suncone_04.html

by KenG at 5:52 AM on 14 Nov 2007

Egad

Consider the obvious with regards to photovoltaics: no fuel costs.

For the clean coal plant, 1 kW at 75 % capacity factor for a year is 31.5 GJ of energy. Coal is about 21 GJ/short ton, or at 30 % burning efficiency produces 6.4 GJ electricity/ton. Say $40/ton for bituminous stuff. That works out to about $200 per year per kW of electrical capacity, just in the cost of coal. Personal and maintenance are on top of that, let's say double.

Everyone knows that PV is front-loaded in the capital costs. It's just they work for 25 years, guaranteed. As long as the contacts don't corrode out, they should still be working in forty years.

Given the above numbers, over the cource of 25-years, PV is $22,500/kW delivered (capital divided by capacity factor $4500 / 0.2 [/kW]).

If we consider coal maintenance roughly double fuel, or $400/kW then over 25-years of operation that 'clean coal' plant will require ($6500 + $400/year*25year) / 0.75 [/kW] = $22,000/kW.

That's basically saying that only the cost of borrowing money is putting 'clean coal' ahead of PV, and we're not assigning coal any future liabilities.

If this is the 'future of coal', then coal has no future.

-- entropyproduction.blogspot.com

by rmcleod at 11:15 PM on 14 Nov 2007

IGCC is 60% efficient

Rmcleod wrote: Coal is about 21 GJ/short ton, or at 30 % burning efficiency produces 6.4 GJ electricity/ton.

IGCC is 60% efficient.
world-nuclear.org/info/inf83.html

Overall thermal efficiency for oxygen-blown coal gasification, including carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, is about 73%. Using the hydrogen in a gas turbine for electricity generation is efficient, so the overall system has long-term potential to achieve an efficiency of up to 60%.

by Nucbuddy at 4:33 AM on 15 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

IGCC Numbers

Nucbuddy:

You are mis-reading that particular section, and it's thermodynamically impossible anyway.

Look up in the heading "Storage & sequestration of CO2":

"Currently IGCC plants have a 45% thermal efficiency."

That 45 % figure is without the energy cost for sequestration, which, as the article discusses, is currently very high (and frankly not likely to decline as much as they would like). I have some grave doubts regarding some of the numbers that article throws around with regards to sequestration numbers, I would have to check the sources. I suspect they aren't based on real-world tests.

The 73 % figure you list is simply for the gasification of the pyrolyzed coal to carbon monoxide and hydrogen and then a pure hydrogen stream. It covers the liquid oxygen plant, etc., not the combustion of the hydrogen. By my reading it does not cover the pyrolysis (i.e. burning off the hydrogen in the coal to be left with coke) either.

They seem to be implying that the efficiency of burning hydrogen is 73 % / 60 % = 82%!!! I know of no thermal cycle that achieves 82 % efficiency. It's likely past Carnot cycle theoretical limits, or the Gibb's free energy formulation of the same for fuel cells.

-- entropyproduction.blogspot.com

by rmcleod at 9:00 AM on 15 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

44% overall efficiency for IGCC

Rmcleod,

Thank you for catching my error.

73% ("overall thermal efficiency for oxygen-blown coal gasification, including carbon dioxide capture and sequestration") x 60% hydrogen-turbine combustion efficiency = 44% overall system efficiency.

by Nucbuddy at 10:41 AM on 15 Nov 2007

Still too much.

So lets see.
$6500 * (30%/44%) = $4432/KW

Even if they could achieve that big efficiency gain, thats still too expensive to be even considered.

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 10:51 AM on 15 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

n

GreyFlcn wrote: So lets see.
$6500 * (30%/44%)

Wherefrom did you get those figures? What are you trying to calculate?

by Nucbuddy at 11:06 AM on 15 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

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