Utahns push incentives for clean-coal technology

WASHINGTON — Congress needs to create incentives to make it financially feasible for companies to move forward on clean coal technology, a panel of experts — including two from Utah — told the Senate Finance Committee Energy Subcommittee on Thursday.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a senior member of the committee, said the point of the meeting was to start collecting ideas for what Congress might do on clean coal technology, but the costs associated with such technology are high.

As coal is burned to generate electricity or heat, it emits carbon dioxide, which some experts have pointed to as the main culprit behind global warming. Researchers are trying to come up with the best way to use coal with fewer emissions, while companies want to use the technology but not lose money in the process.

William Townsend, chief executive officer of The Blue Source Companies in Holladay, said the main reason only 5 percent of the projects his company has evaluated in the last 10 years have gone to the construction phase is because "the projects typically still yield a lower-than-acceptable investment return, though higher crude oil prices in recent years have certainly helped."

Blue Source is the leader in greenhouse gas emission reduction offsets in North America, Townsend told the senators, and is in the process of looking at 13 different projects to keep carbon dioxide out of the air.

Townsend said estimates show there are 100 to 150 new coal plants that can be built in the United States during the next 10 years to meet electricity demand, but they can be built better than ones that exist today.

"Carbon dioxide emissions from these new coal-based plants could be reduced or eliminated by constructing power generation capable of producing higher-purity carbon dioxide emissions that can be separated and captured and made ready for transportation to geologic sequestration," according to Townsend's testimony. "Carbon dioxide separation, capture and storage technology for new and existing coal-based power generation is presently expensive and in some cases untested."

Townsend said the "significant problem" is the estimated 40-year gap between current — and any future carbon emissions — and developing cost-effective carbon technology.

"Legislated financial incentives and regulatory relief could hasten the bridging of the remaining gap and accelerate the carbon dioxide infrastructure needed to effectively manage the growth of carbon dioxide emissions in the next 20 years."