Department of Justice opens investigation into failed carbon-capture plant
Source: Ars Technica
Department of Justice opens investigation into failed carbon-capture plant
The project received hundreds of millions in grants and may now be scrapped.
MEGAN GEUSS - 5/2/2019, 6:36 PM
Earlier this week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) notified Southern Company that it is opening an investigation "related to the Kemper County energy facility," according to Southern's most recent financial statement (PDF).
The Mississippi-based facility had received $387 million in federal grants to build a state-of-the-art coal gasification and carbon-capture power plant (otherwise known as an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, or IGCC, plant). But in 2017, Southern's subsidiary, Mississippi Power, decided to scrap the cutting-edge tech and only use the power plant to burn cheaper natural gas, in a major blow to the proponents of carbon capture.
Bad timing
Kemper was a complicated project. It was located near a lignite coal mine, which was intended to serve Kemper exclusively. Lignite is a low-grade coal compared to the anthracite and bituminous coal that's found in Wyoming and Montana, so Kemper planned to synthetically transform the plentiful local coal to gas. The plant would then burn the syngas in a turbine, strip the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the power plant's flue, and send that CO2 through a pipeline to an oilfield where it would be used for enhanced oil recovery. (That is, CO2 is forced down into an oil well to increase the pressure of the well so more oil can be recovered.)
In theory, Kemper's complicated process was supposed to help it compete with other nearby coal plants because it could use lower-grade local coal, and the captured carbon would be used to increase oil field returns.
But in practice, Kemper proved to be an expensive boondoggle. It came online just as natural gas prices were falling to a point when burning natural gas was simply cheaper than relying on any type of coal, local or not. The plant ran more than $4 billion over budget before the Mississippi Public Service Commission made clear to the company that Kemper would need to pursue a more affordable solution for Mississippi customers.
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Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/department-of-justice-opens-investigation-into-failed-carbon-capture-plant/
