Now if you think CO2 is bad then you probably disagree with me. That said even if you think CO2 is a bad thing; this technology (as it is currently envisioned) is unlikely to scale economically. More over, Coal power plants would likely not see any changes in their life expectancy or air permits from the EPA.
Original story is below
Calpine to receive up to $270M from DOE for carbon capture at Baytown power plant
Houston Chronicle – 12/15/23
by Claire Hao
Via Dow Jones Factiva
Licensed Text: Hearst Communications, Inc.
The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding up to $270 million in a cost-sharing agreement for a new carbon capture and storage project in Baytown to be built by Calpine, a power generation company based in Houston.
The project would capture carbon dioxide emissions from Calpine’s 896-megawatt natural gas power plant in Baytown, which provides power to the Texas electric grid as well as steam and power to the adjacent Covestro chemicals facility, according to a company’s statement. One megawatt can power about 200 Texas homes, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator.
Calpine’s Baytown carbon capture project would capture and store approximately 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, the company said. Carbon capture equipment will reduce the intensity of emissions at two of the plant’s three combustion turbines at a design capture rate of 95%, the statement.
The captured carbon dioxide is to be transported and stored in saline storage sites on the Gulf Coast, according to the DOE. The project might also use greywater, wastewater from showers, tubs, bathroom sinks and washing machines, for cooling the power plant instead of freshwater, according to the DOE.
“Facilities like Baytown will be part of our energy infrastructure for the foreseeable future, and now with (carbon capture and storage) technology, we can decarbonize them,” Caleb Stephenson, Calpine’s executive vice president of commercial operations, said in the company’s statement.
The Baytown cost-sharing agreement is one of three carbon capture projects receiving up to $890 million from the DOE as part of the agency’s Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program. The others are a Calpine natural gas power plant in California and a coal-fired power plant in North Dakota being developed by Minnkota Power Cooperative.
As of September, the only utility-scale carbon capture facility affixed to an electricity-generating plant in the country was the Petra Nova project attached to NRG’s WA Parish Plant southwest of Houston.
The DOE’s Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program aims to advance commercial demonstration of advanced carbon capture technologies, which the agency calls “critical to addressing the climate crisis.”
The power sector is the second-largest contributor of greenhouse gases in the U.S., according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.