Coal must be going out of date as a result of renewable power is becoming cheaper, however the US authorities is retaining it afloat with the promise of capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground. Now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has mentioned that federal companies spent $684 billion on coal plant carbon seize and storage (CCS) tasks which have principally failed, Gizmodo has reported. It additionally spent $438 million on different three CCS industrial tasks, two of which have been cancelled.
“DOE [Department of Energy] provided nearly $684 million to eight coal projects, resulting in one operational facility,” in keeping with the GAO report. “DOE’s process for selecting coal projects and negotiating funding agreements increased the risks that DOE would fund projects unlikely to succeed.”
DOE’s course of for choosing coal tasks and negotiating funding agreements elevated the dangers that DOE would fund tasks unlikely to succeed.
Not solely did the Department of Energy use a “high-risk selection” technique to decide on tasks, it negotiated and funded them too expeditiously, in keeping with the report. Coal negotiations lasted simply three months as an alternative of the standard yr “based on DOE’s desire to begin spending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds quickly.” On prime of that, it bypassed the standard price controls and supported tasks “even though they were not meeting required key milestones.”
The DOE lately mentioned that it desires to dramatically cut back the price of carbon seize expertise through a program referred to as Carbon Negative Shot. The purpose is to take away CO2 instantly from the air and sequester it underground at a value of lower than $100 per ton, deploying it on the gigaton scale.
However, the simplest and most cost-effective technique to lower gigatons of emissions could be to retire pricey coal vegetation utterly, in keeping with a report last year the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). That’s as a result of the prices of renewable power have plunged within the final decade, making them successfully cheaper than coal. And after all, including CCS tech to coal would enhance prices significantly. All that mentioned, coal and fossil fuels are a charged political subject within the US, regardless of the worldwide dangers of local weather change.
In the top, the GAO beneficial extra congressional oversight for DOE expenditures on CCS. “Absent such a mechanism, DOE is at risk of expending significant funds on CCS demonstration projects that have little likelihood of success.”
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