Science targets coal impact

Brigham Young University scientist Larry Baxter concedes that carbon sequestration will make electricity more expensive and power plants less efficient. Yet because of global warming concerns, the technology may be required. If it is, he may have developed better sequestration technology.

In addition, he and his team at the Provo university have improved coal gasification techniques, another way to reduce humanity's carbon footprint. A professor of chemical engineering at BYU, he earlier worked with Sandia National Laboratories.

Interest in both sequestration and coal gasification stems from concern about global warming. Burning carbon fossil fuels, particularly coal, releases a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide pollution, the "greenhouse gas" most blamed for global warming. Also, the pollution itself is harmful, with or without warming.

According to Baxter's calculations, as posted on one of his Web pages at BYU, electrical power generation is responsible for about one-third of the total carbon dioxide released in the U.S. and coal produces more than 80 percent of the CO2 released by power generation. About 1 billion tons of coal are burned every year by 1,200 power plants, his site adds.

Two of the most promising ideas about stemming the flood of CO2 emissions are carbon sequestration and coal gasification.

Carbon sequestration

The idea is to remove carbon dioxide from the gas streams of power plants and other stationery sources before they can escape into the atmosphere. Sequestration envisions safely disposing of CO2; some suggestions for disposal involve pumping the gas under pressure into geological formations deep underground.

Sequestration necessarily reduces plant efficiency and increases the cost of electricity.

Removing carbon dioxide under current known systems would cut plant capacity by 25 percent to 30 percent, Baxter said in a telephone interview.

Besides the plant's loss in efficiency, more costs would come from investing in the technology.

Baxter estimated that the cost to build a new coal-fired power plant with today's technology would raise the cost of electricity to 6 cents per generated kilowatt-hour. (Rocky Mountain Power, using plants that were constructed during periods of lower inflation, produces electricity at about 3.5 cents per generated kilowatt-hour.)

If the currently-envisioned sequestration technology is added, the expense of the equipment would increase the cost of power from a new plant to 11 cents per generated kilowatt-hour, he said. Power bills would skyrocket faster than recent jumps in the price of gasoline.