The utilities that control most of the country’s power plants aren’t rushing out to install carbon capture, even as the Biden administration offers the technology as a lifeline for fossil fuels.
The administration has boosted tax credits for companies that store carbon dioxide, launched large-scale pilot programs and proposed pollution standards that would allow utilities to avoid closing some fossil fuel plants if they employ carbon capture. All are aimed at promoting carbon capture and storage — or CCS — as part of the transition to a zero-carbon grid.
But those efforts haven’t yet spurred utilities to take the leap on installing the technology, which is more costly for the power sector than it is for other industries like ethanol.
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E&E News contacted the 10 companies that control the largest coal and gas fleets in the U.S. to ask about their CCS plans. While a few pointed to active research projects, most said they do not have near-term plans for deployment on the timeline laid out in EPA’s draft rule to limit carbon pollution from power plants.
With a mandate to keep the lights on and keep rates as low as possible, “this is an industry that is not generally incentivized to work with emerging technologies,” said Emily Sanford Fisher of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents U.S. investor-owned electric utility companies. “Our regulatory structure does not love the risk involved in new technology.”
Fisher, EEI’s executive vice president for clean energy and general counsel, said that even after decades of research, the pieces of technology that would allow utilities to efficiently trap carbon pollution from power plants and store it underground haven’t yet come together “in order for the industry to rely on it in a really substantial way.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has used its heft to raise concerns about the cost of electricity for businesses, said in a report last month that carbon capture was not ready for prime time.
Saying that it has been one of the “loudest voices urging Congress” to adopt CCS, the Chamber