How Much Does Clean Coal Cost?

Max Dunn — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:07:00 -0700

So how much does it cost to clean the CO2 from a coal-fired electricity power plant? The numbers of FutureGen’s clean-coal project at the 275 MW Matoon Illinois plant gives an indication. The DOE pulled back on the project last December over the concerns of cost overruns that would likely propel FutureGen’s $1.5 billion cost estimate to $1.8 billion or higher.

Let’s look at the numbers here to see how much this carbon capture would cost. Over a 30 year lifetime, if the plant was operating 80% of the time, it would log 210,000 hours (24 * 365 * 30 * 0.8). So the 275 MW (megawatt) plant would produce 58 billion kWh of electricity over this time. (275,000 * 210,000). So the $1.8 billion cost would add about $0.03 to each kWh of electricity produced (1.8 / 58). Since a coal power plant produces electricity at about $0.03 to $0.04 per kWh, this would effectively double the cost of the electricity it produces. And this doesn’t take into account any ongoing costs of sequestering the carbon.

So with all this talk about clean-coal, we have yet to see an implementation of it at a utility scale power plant and it appears that the cost of carbon capture at a coal-fired power plant using today’s technology would make it uneconomical.

"How Much Does Clean Coal Cost?" by Max Dunn

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:24:13 -0800

To put this in cost per ton of CO2, a coal-fired power plant produces about 2 lbs of CO2 emissions for every kWh of electricity produced. So at an extra cost $0.03 per kWh to capture all CO2 emissions, that would work out to $30 per ton of CO2.

Eschew Obfuscation: How Much Does Clean Coal Cost?

How Much Does Clean Coal Cost?

"How Much Does Clean Coal Cost?" by Max Dunn