Coal

[andygates]

So, the gov say "moar coal!" - BOO! - and they stitch carbon-capture requirements to it.  YAY?  Or not yay?

On the one hand, shoveling cash at the tech will get it developed faster than the market would do -- the market will definitely not save our arses, it doesn't respond fast enough.  So we have a good chance of getting industrial-scale CCS and a stack of British expertise to flog to India, China and the USA.  This is good.

On the other hand, the string connecting the new plants to the CCS isn't as tight as I'd like - it really needs to apply to all of the plant's emissions and be a requirement before the plants go live. It's a gamble on future-tech, which makes me twitchy.

I sense two strategies for making this work, other than just lots of boffins brainstorming in their thinking pits:  First, before CCS is properly born, direct action will slow down plant construction to a crawl.  Swampy in Kingsnorth, so to speak.  Second, the big green lobbies ought to be able to get all legal on the generators and compel them to apply the capture tech to the whole plant - you don't put a cat on just one cylinder of your car, the idea is absurd.

So overall, a guarded welcome, with plenty of sceptical eyes out for welshing.  Thoughts?

Time for a heated debate!

Comments

[simoneck.livejournal.com]

My prediction....they'll build the plants and realise that the capture technology doesn't work very well if at all.
But by that time it'll be 2015 - 2020, and we'll be having power outages / running other plants way past their sensible life expectancy.
And when given the choice between no power and CO2 releasing power the majority of the population will let the government do what ever it takes to just get these new powerstations up and running. Protesters be damned.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

We won't have outages. That's a scare to gin up the sense of urgency*: faced with outages, old kit would be refurnished one boiler and one turbine at a time in a rolling programme of work.

I agree though that if it doesn't work, they'll try to bring the plants online anyway. That's why it's really important for the official, respectable end of the green lobby to compel 'em not to, and for the crusty end of the lobby to make it impossible.

The *only* acceptable new coal is fully captured coal.

Slack is allowed for a development plant, of course, but four sites isn't a plant, it's a tranche.



* Either legitimate eco-woes, or various lobbies trying to push their stuff through without full consideration: choose your villain.

[despaer.livejournal.com]

Have to agree with Simon here. Nothing like a recession and the prospect of some genuine hardship to make all our big ideals go flying out of the window. They'll try to get the carbom capture right, they really will, but if it gets expensive or hard then it'll just go with the rest of it.

Remember, economic levers at all times. This problem will go away when, and only when, the generation of clean power becomes economically attractive, either because the tech gets good enough, someone taxes the shit out of all the dirty sorts or (most likely) the cost of carbon based power skyrockets in a few years when the recession ends.