CARBON MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR EXISTING U.S. GENERATION CAPACITY: A VINTAGE-BASED APPROACH

摘要

This paper examines the existing stock of fossil-fired power generation capacity in the United States within the context of climate change. At present, there are over 1,337 fossil-fired power generating units of at least 100 MW in capacity, that began operating between the early 1940's and today. Together these units provide some 453 GW of electric power, and simply retiring this stock early or repowering with advanced technology as a means of addressing their greenhouse gas emissions will not be a sensible option for them all. Considering a conservative 40-year operating life, there are over 667 fossil-fired power plants, representing a capacity of over 291 GW, that have a minimum of a decade's worth of productive life remaining. This paper draws upon specialized tools developed by Battelle to analyze the characteristics of this subset of U.S. power generation assets and explore the relationships between plant type, location, emissions, and vintage. It examines the economics of retrofit capture technologies and the proximity of these existing power plants to geologic reservoirs with promise for long-term storage of CO_2. The average costs for retrofitting these plants and disposing of their CO_2 into nearby geologic reservoirs are presented.