Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
I were on a technical panel recommending what to do,
I would say that CCS is not ready today for large-
scale use.
What the EPA should be doing
first is aggressively
enforcing their limits on mercury emission from power
plants that were imposed in
. Those standards will be
phased in over the next three or four years and should
force the dirtiest of the old coal-
red power plans to shut
down by requiring expensive new technology. The oldest
of the coal-
red plants were exempted from the emission
regulations for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and so
have no scrubbers. It is very expensive to install them, so
those plants will all close. The newer plants already have
scrubbers that can be tweaked to take care of mercury, but
the worst of the emitters of both mercury and CO
will
shut down.
Next, the administration should get serious about regu-
lating emissions from existing plants. Tests of CCS at an
appropriate scale need to be done, and if it works, it
should be required at existing coal plants. This will fur-
ther increase the cost of electricity from them so more of
them will close down too.
Finally, the Administration, Congress, and the public
should read the National Academy of Sciences
study
Hidden Cost of Energy [
] which estimates that environmen-
tal effects including public health effects from coal-
red
power plants cost the nation about
billion per year.
There is no excuse for the continued use of coal to generate
electricity that costs too much and is a health hazard to
everyone who lives anywhere near a coal-
$
red power plant.
first edition is still
correct today: test CCS at the appropriate scale in deep
The conclusion of this section in the
