Clean Coal – Oxymoron

I wrote a blog post on “Energy Central” last week on clean coal, referring to it as an “oxymoron,” and a “seedy PR ploy.” And a few moments after the post went up, some guy told me, “take your silly invective elsewhere.”

Ouch, pal!

But I note that many of those who know ten times more about this than I have reached the same conclusion I did. In particular, I read an excerpt from SRI Consulting’s (SRIC) techno-economic report Advanced Carbon Capture that examines in detail three post combustion scrubbing technologies: conventional monoethanolamine (MEA), advanced amine, and chilled ammonia. They note that all three of these processes have technical and economic issues that must be overcome before they can be implemented at scale.

“On a levelized cost basis with 90% CO₂ capture and compression, MEA scrubbing adds 4.5¢/KWh, while the advanced amine and chilled ammonia processes each add 4.1¢/KWh to the cost of power generation.” Noted author Michael Arné at SRIC commented, “The scale of the process equipment needed for power plant applications is remarkable. All three processes covered in this report require Gulliver-like equipment that will have its own challenges such as proper liquid distribution, pressure drop, and structural issues in the construction of such large equipment items. For example, for a plant producing 550 MW net power output, each of the processes analyzed will require two absorbers roughly 40 feet in diameter by 100 feet tall.”

I honestly don’t think my “invective” was all that “silly.”