U.S. Utility Giants Pour Cold Water On Biden EPA’s ‘Carbon Capture’ Dreams

Written by Nick Pope on July 18, 2023. Posted in Current News

Utility companies operating most of the U.S.’s power plants are not widely adopting an expensive technology promoted by the EPA to clamp down on carbon dioxide emissions, E&E News reported Tuesday

Most of the country’s 10 largest utility companies have not yet made plans to roll out the ‘carbon’ capture and storage (CCS) technology within the timeframe the EPA has set, even as the Biden administration has made available tax credits and other subsidies to incentivize CCS deployment, according to E&E News.

The EPA touts “carbon capture” technology as an effective means to reduce power plant ‘carbon’ emissions by 90 percent by 2038, a standard it would in effect impose upon coal- and gas-fired power plants using a May 2023 emissions proposed rule.

CCS technology theoretically reduces carbon emissions by capturing, compressing, and then burying the emissions or using them for manufacturing, according to the International Energy Agency.

The EPA promotes CCS technology as a way to substantially reduce emissions while minimizing the chances that their rules force conventional power plants into retirement, according to its website.

The electricity that power plants retrofitted with CCS technology produce can cost up to twice as much as current alternatives, according to a March 2023 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“This is an industry that is not generally incentivized to work with emerging technologies,” Emily Sanford Fisher of the Edison Electric Institute said, according to E&E News.

The technology has not yet developed at the scale that would be necessary “in order for the industry to rely on it in a really substantial way,” she added.

“One of the challenges with CCS is to make it economically viable at a large scale,” Scott Blake of the Ohio-based utility company American Electric Power said, according to E&E News.

“Regulatory and economic factors” have contributed to the slow uptake of CCS technology in American plants, Blake added, according to E&E News.

Various utility companies have canceled five CCS installation projects in the past 15 years, according to E&E News.

Coal-fired power plants would have until 2040 to either implement the technology or shut down under its emissions reduction rule, according to the EPA.

The agency estimates that the emissions rule and CCS push will cost the power industry between $10 billion and $14 billion.

Of the seven total CCS projects undertaken so far by the country’s 10 largest utility companies, only three attempts operated without direct government subsidy, according to E&E News.

Numerous energy sector experts have said that the EPA’s plan to rely on CCS installation will likely prove to be ineffective, uneconomical, or both.

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