Skip to content
  • About the Project
  • Meet the Team
  • Partners
Support Us
  • Support Us
  • Inside Energy
  • Inside Energy
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Data
  • Educators
  • IE Questions
  • IE Investigations
    • Energy According To Trump
    • Protesting The Pipeline: Standing Rock And The Dakota Access Pipeline
    • Your Natural Gas Boom Is Leaking
    • Feasting On Fuel
    • Reclamation Blues: The Lingering Legacy Of Fossil Fuels
    • Blackout: Reinventing The Grid
    • Denmark’s Road To Renewables
    • The Future Of Coal
    • The Fallout From Falling Oil Prices
    • The Oilfield Spill Problem
    • Energy And The New Congress
    • Boom 2.0
    • Dark Side Of The Boom
    • The Solar Challenge
    • The Pipeline Network
    • Coal Watch
  • Newsletter
  • Support Us
  • Get To Know Us
    • About the Project
    • Meet the Team
    • Partners

Inside Energy - Bringing energy reporting down to Earth

Inside Energy (https://insideenergy.org/2014/08/22/sci-fi-carbon-capture-technology-not-ready-for-primetime/)

  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Data
  • Educators
  • IE Questions
  • IE Investigations
    • Energy According To Trump
    • Protesting The Pipeline: Standing Rock And The Dakota Access Pipeline
    • Your Natural Gas Boom Is Leaking
    • Feasting On Fuel
    • Reclamation Blues: The Lingering Legacy Of Fossil Fuels
    • Blackout: Reinventing The Grid
    • Denmark’s Road To Renewables
    • The Future Of Coal
    • The Fallout From Falling Oil Prices
    • The Oilfield Spill Problem
    • Energy And The New Congress
    • Boom 2.0
    • Dark Side Of The Boom
    • The Solar Challenge
    • The Pipeline Network
    • Coal Watch
  • Newsletter
carbon dioxide

Sci-Fi Carbon Capture Technology Not Ready For Primetime

By Leigh Paterson | August 22, 2014
More
  • More on carbon dioxide
  • Subscribe to carbon dioxide

Sustainable Energy Solutions

Small-scale demonstration of Cryogenic Carbon Capture. August, 2013

Small-scale demonstration of Cryogenic Carbon Capture. August, 2013

Sustainable Energy Solutions

Small-scale demonstration of Cryogenic Carbon Capture. August, 2013

 

Larry Baxter of Sustainable Energy Solutions explains Cryogenic Carbon Capture as “the biggest, worst blizzard you’ve ever been in.  CO2 flakes everywhere.”

It’s a type of carbon capture technology, still in the research phrase, that separates out carbon dioxide or CO2 from carbon emissions by cooling the gas down to -135 degrees celsius.  That’s when the snow storm starts.

All sorts of science fiction-y research was on display at the University of Wyoming’s Clean Coal Technology Fund Research Symposium this week.  The Wyoming State Legislature has put over $40 million into this fund but, since its creation in 2007, very little of the technology developed by the 49 research projects involved has been built on a commercial scale.

Carbon capture, a potentially big part of clean coal innovation, isn’t just struggling to take hold in Wyoming.  Though it is a well-researched method, currently there aren’t any commercial-scale carbon capture facilities at any US coal-fired power plants. China, however, is home to one of the most advanced carbon capture systems in the world, a gigantic power plant called GreenGen, profiled earlier this year in Wired.

American coal could really use this some innovation right now. Both consumption and production are down nationally.  And this week, an export terminal that would have enabled US producers to export coal to Asia via Oregon, was shot down by a state agency.

According to Larry Baxter, it is all about funding.  “The scale of operation means it takes a couple of billion dollars to build a modern coal-fired power plant.  And our process is a significant add on to that plant.  Its hundreds of millions of dollars and the equipment is large and expensive. Getting to the point where people have the confidence to build technology that is that expensive and that large and try it on such a large scale is a huge  barrier.

During the forum, Baxter asked the keynote speaker, Jeane Hull, Executive Vice President at Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company and the only American with a share in China’s GreenGen facility, how coal can have a future when funding and interest in clean coal projects has been waning in recent years. Her answer: there is no silver bullet.

 

 

 

More
  • More on carbon dioxide
  • Subscribe to carbon dioxide
Tags
  • Inside Energy News
  • Making Energy
  • carbon dioxide
  • Carbon Emissions
  • China
  • Coal
  • funding
  • Inside Energy Now
  • research
  • Wyoming

About Leigh Paterson

Leigh Paterson is a reporter for Inside Energy, based in Wyoming.

  • More by Leigh

Read Next

  • Living With Uncertainty: An Inside Energy Podcast Special

    Is having oil and gas development nearby bad for your health? In this story, we’re going to dig into what is known and what is unknown about these dangers and why those unknowns still exist, as more and more wells are drilled. We’re going to meet different people with different perspectives, who are all gathering data or studying it. They’re looking for answers and living with unknowns.

Previous Post
In Wyoming, Coal Culture Is Everywhere
Next Post
The Solar Challenge Part 3: An Edison V. Westinghouse Rematch
Inside Energy is a collaborative journalism initiative of partners across the US and supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
  • Inside Energy
  • About The Project
  • Meet The Team
  • Newsletter
  • Contact Us
  • Terms Of Use

Search This Site

Browse Archives

© Copyright 2023, Inside Energy

Inside Energy is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑