Carbon storage could net Utah 5,000 jobs

SALT LAKE CITY — A recent study indicates that deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies at advanced coal facilities would create or support nearly 5,000 jobs in Utah and more than 150,000 jobs nationally.

The study was conducted for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity by BBC Research & Consulting. It provides a state-by-state breakout of economic opportunities associated with commercial deployment of CCS projects at U.S. coal-based power plants. The original 2009 study estimated the capital, operating and maintenance costs, jobs and other economic benefits associated with the deployment of advanced coal generation with CCS. This new study provides a more detailed look at where these jobs will be located.

The study found that construction of six advanced coal facilities with CCS in Utah would support a total of 165,923 "job years" — a job year being one job for a one-year period — and $7.9 billion in labor income between now and 2025 in various sectors. Upon completion, the new facilities would create approximately 1,348 permanent direct jobs, 4,952 total jobs and $1.2 billion in total economic output in the state. The study does not take into account jobs that could be lost as a result of climate-change legislation or regulation.

Nationally, about 1.7 million direct job years would be necessary to construct 124 new facilities by 2025. Those facilities would then create and support more than 150,000 permanent jobs, according to the report.

Details are available at www.americaspower.org/ccs-state-jobs.