Emerging Value of Carbon Capture for Utilities

摘要

For decades, carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS), a technology that captures emissions and sequesters them into geologic reservoirs or products, has been heralded as a means to clean up power plants and decarbonize emission-heavy industrial processes that lack clean substitutes. However, development of CCUS for commercial power has been minimal due to policy risk, lack of economic incentives, and uncertainty of competing technology evolution. Recently, expanded tax incentives have rekindled interest in CCUS. Under some circumstances, these can improve the economics to the point where carbon capture does not impose net incremental costs. However, retrofitting coal remains less cost-effective today than replacing the aging fossil fleet with new renewables and storage in most circumstances. This has led to carbon capture being sometimes regarded as the ugly duckling of emission reduction technologies, viewed by detractors as a technology for bailing out fossil interests rather than expanding our portfolio of clean technologies.