AP PHOTO/U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
THE CARBON QUANDARY
carbon dioxide is then relatively
simple, but creating a pure oxygen environment is not cheap.
Of course, that’s the challenge
with all of these techniques. Each
has advantages and disadvantages, depending on the application,
but no matter the method, adding the CO₂-removal process to
a power plant significantly saps
its energy output, and that adds
dearly to the cost of electricity
production. Estimates of this socalled CCS energy penalty vary
widely, ranging from 10 percent
to 40 percent of total output.
As such, CCS remains prohibitively expensive. In a 2010 report, the Department of Energy
estimated that CCS technologies
would make the construction of
a new, conventional coal plant —
which can cost as much as $2 bil-
HUFFINGTON
09.15.13
lion even without CCS — as much
as 80 percent more expensive.
Newer data from the Energy I