Contemporary Coal Power plant

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James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Space Institute, has recommended that no further coal plants be built that do not capture their carbon dioxide emissions, and has further recommended that all coal emissions be phased out by 2025 in the developed world and by 2030 in the developing world.[1] According to Hansen, the consequence of emissions continuing beyond that time is increasing risk of passing "tipping points" and "points of no return."[2]

Hansen's recommendation consists of two parts:

* Moratorium on new non-sequestering plants.
* Phase-out of existing plants.

The first recommendation, a coal moratorium, has been the subject of widespread citizen organizing, state-level legislation, and proposed national legislation.

The second recommendation, a phase-out of existing plants, has received less attention. To date, no scenarios have been published recommending specific steps to implement the recommendation of a coal plant phase-out.

MAJOR CONSIDERATION IN COAL PHASE OUT

Phasing out existing coal plants will require consideration of a number of issues:

* Age of existing coal plants
* Timeline and comparative costs for alternatives to replace existing coal-fired generation
* Timeline for efficiency and conservation to offset existing coal plant power production
* Land requirements of alternative sources such as concentrating solar power
* Job losses in coal plants and coal mines; policy options for offsetting such losses
* Effect of pending policy proposals such as carbon trading or carbon taxes on the existing coal fleet
* Policy options for scheduling and enforcing coal plant shut-downs
* Requirements and for new transmission lines
* Secondary environmental and health benefits from phasing out coal plants, such as reductions in mercury and sulfur dioxide emissions, and ending mountaintop removal mining

Retrofitting Existing Coal Plants for Carbon Capture

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, it is not economical to retrofit existing coal plants with carbon capture technology:

Existing CO2 capture technologies are not cost-effective when considered in the context of large power plants. Economic studies indicate that carbon capture will add over 30 percent to the cost of electricity for new integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) units and over 80 percent to the cost of electricity if retrofitted to existing pulverized coal (PC) units. A recent study from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) confirms that additional alternatives need to be pursued to bring the cost of carbon capture down. In addition, the net electricity produced from existing plants would be significantly reduced - often referred to as parasitic loss - since 20 to 30 percent of the power generated by the plant would have to be used to capture and compress the CO2.[8]