Those who seek to keep a fossil fuels in the mix--even in a carbon-free energy future--have pointed to Carbon Capture and Sequestration/Storage (CCS) as technology that will make coal a "clean" fuelstock. Along with these appeals come calls for tax reforms and other federal "investment" in the technology.
Witness this post from the Great Plains Institute, in which a CCS project is touted:
Therefore, current efforts in Congress to reforming the 48A tax credit are critical. In addition to correcting design flaws, enactment of the bipartisan Carbon Capture Modernization Act would free up an estimated $1.7 to $2 billion in available funding for tax credits, allowing US power companies to pursue multiple additional carbon capture projects and build on the success of NRG Energy’s world-class Petra Nova project at a power plant near Houston.
There's Project Tundra, for example, detailed in the West Dakota Fox article, Project Tundra gets go-ahead with $15 million from the Lignite Energy Council. It may sound like cold-war espionage out of a Bond movie, but it's this:
The Lignite Energy Council is funding its biggest project yet. At Thursday’s council meeting, Minnkota Power Cooperative was approved for $15 million to fund a new gas capture system. The council has just over $16 million in funds, meaning the project will nearly deplete its account. But officials says they've been working toward funding big projects like this for a while.
The total project cost is just over $31 million, and when it's all completed, it's expected to be worth more than $45 million. Project officials say the annual tax and revenue will generate more than $46 million each year and more than 2,700 jobs are expected to be generated during construction. The project looks to solve one of the coal industry's biggest problems.
Plans for a project to implement a 95-percent carbon capture and preserve the use of lignite coal are in the works. It's dubbed Project Tundra, and it's for a FEED study, or a front end engineering design for a carbon capture system.
The project would be installed at the Milton R Young unit 2 near Center. On top of $15 million in funding from the energy council, a little over $1 million will be coming from partners, and then the group will be requesting $15 million from the Department of Energy. If they don't get the DOE funds, they say they'll re-assess. Project leaders say it'll put the state at the forefront of post-combustion carbon capture. . .
“This is one of the first large cracks at solving one of the significant problems for the coal industry in North Dakota,” said Jason Bohrer, Lignite Energy Council president and CEO.
The Lignite Council reported in a May 1, 2019 post, Governor Burgum Signs Legislation to Incentivize Carbon Capture:
The top legislative priority for the Lignite Energy Council in the 2019 Legislative Session was House Bill 1439. The bill creates a tax exemption for the use of lignite-based carbon dioxide in the process of enhanced oil recovery or secure geologic storage. On Wednesday evening, the governor signed the legislation into law.
Burgum’s office released the following statement to the press:
“Gov. Doug Burgum today signed legislation providing an economic incentive to use carbon dioxide captured from North Dakota’s coal-fired power plants for enhanced oil recovery by injecting the carbon dioxide underground.
Under House Bill 1439, incremental oil produced by injecting coal-generated carbon dioxide will be exempt from oil extraction taxes. Incremental oil produced from the Bakken or Three Forks formations will be exempt for a period of 10 years, and incremental oil produced from other formations will be exempt for a period of 20 years.
The legislation supports initiatives such as Project Tundra, which proposes to use technology developed with the Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks to capture up to 95 percent of the carbon dioxide from MinnKota Power’s Milton R. Young power plant near Center. The captured gas would be used to extract oil that would otherwise remain stranded in rock formations. The EERC estimates an additional 1 billion barrels of oil can be produced from older “legacy” oil and gas fields outside the Bakken using carbon for enhanced oil recovery.
“This is a win-win for North Dakotans,” Burgum said. “Our coal industry, partnering with the EERC, has been leading the charge in capturing carbon dioxide emissions. By providing the economic incentive needed to transform these emissions into a valuable commodity, we will continue to be a nationwide leader in environmental stewardship while simultaneously increasing our energy production and strengthening our economy.” . . .
Read the rest at the lignite coal industry website.
That's a lot of praise and we're sure it makes the heart of climate change deniers like Minnesota state representative Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe, race with all that clean coal technology, regardless of the government grants, as well as federal and state tax credits.
Will Project Tundra lead to carbon emission reduction? A reader sent us an article on the Scott Madden site, Billion Dollar Petra Nova Coal Carbon Capture Project a Financial Success But Unclear If It Can Be Replicated, which noted in its last bullet point:
However, considering the emissions of the gas-fired turbine that powers the carbon capture system and the emissions from the additional petroleum products resulting from EOR, the total impact of the carbon capture system is actually an estimated 2% increase in CO2 emissions.
Carbon capture that releases more carbon? We wondered how the energy industry management consulting firm arrived at that conclusion and reached out for the answer. Scott Madden Marketing Manager Mary Tew sent the answer in an email today:
In response to your question, we determined through our own analysis that carbon capture & utilization (CCU) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) results in a net CO2 emissions increase, at least in the operations as reported at this facility. In other words, the emissions from the gas turbine powering the system plus the eventual emissions from the marginal increase in oil recovery is greater than the CO2 captured and utilized: (CCU system CO2 + EOR CO2) > CCU capture CO2
Will Project Tundra's technology include a gas-fired turbine like the system at Petra Nova? Could those "eventual emissions from the marginal increase in oil recovery" in North Dakota's oil industry be tied to The politics of methane detailed by the Brookings Institution?
There's this in the May 2019 article by James MacPherson in the Los Angeles Times, North Dakota oil producers are wasting billions of cubic feet of natural gas:
North Dakota oil drillers are falling far short of the state’s goals to limit the burning of excess natural gas at well heads, five years after the state adopted rules to reduce the wasteful and environmentally harmful practice.
The industry has spent billions of dollars on infrastructure but is at least two years from catching up, and regulators are projecting that the state’s increasing gas production will still outstrip that new capacity. . . .
Flaring is the practice of burning off natural gas that is produced as a byproduct of oil drilling. It’s a picturesque feature of the oil patch, especially at night, but it means wasted money and unnecessary carbon dioxide emissions that worsen global warming.
In 2014, when more than one-third of that gas was being burned off, North Dakota began requiring oil companies to limit flaring to no more than 15% by 2016, and to 10% by 2020. The national average for flaring is less than 1%.
Oil companies endorsed the rules but struggled to meet them from the start. Most have often missed them. . . .
Does EOR in the West Ranch Oil Field, served by the Petra Nova project, flare any gas? If not, how much more CO2 would be released by the fracking in North Dakota? Would the increase in CO2 be even greater in North Dakota's oil fields? How much would it cost to solve this North Dakota problem?
Inquiring minds might expect CCS in a coal plant to actually reduce carbon emissions, but maybe Bluestem is just picky.
UPDATE 7/25/2019: David B. Knox, NRG Energy, Senior Director, External Communications has responded to this post. In the interest of fairness, please read the comment. [end update[
Photo: Workers tend to oil pump jacks behind a natural gas flare near Watford City, N.D., in October 2015 (Eric Gay / Associated Press,via LA Times).
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 33166 770th Ave, Ortonville, MN 56278) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.
Petra Nova is the largest carbon capture system in the world and the only commercial scale carbon capture project in America.
It captures over 90% of the CO2 in the processed flue gas, a quantity of flue gas equal to a 240 MW coal plant. That represents a reduction of over 5,000 tons of CO2 emissions per day.
It does use a natural gas plant to provide the needed steam and power for the system. When you include the CO2 emissions from the gas plant, the net capture is still over 70%.
While you can make a case for adding the CO2 emissions from the produced oil, there is an important fact that that simple math leaves out. Through the CO2 from Petra Nova, we are increasing the supply of domestic oil production. We are not increasing the consumption of oil. So we are reducing the amount of oil being imported into America. We are not increasing the CO2 footprint of America. Essentially, that oil was going to be consumed regardless and the CO2 release is irrelevant of what Petra Nova does so to say that we are increasing CO2 emissions is to be selective in the facts one is considering and is overall, incorrect and misleading.
One could make the case that if we had enough Carbon Capture increasing the oil supply that we reduced the cost of oil, that could actually increase the consumption of oil but we are nowhere near that today and to reduced that much CO2 from America’s electrical generation portfolio would actually be a good problem to have.
Posted by: David Knox | Jul 25, 2019 at 11:22 AM