Vattenfall Promises More Carbon Capture At German Coal Plants

Vattenfall Promises More Carbon Capture At German Coal Plants

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is fraught with so many difficulties, not least of which is its time frame, that it's hard to know whether the technology could be a real part of meeting global warming CO2 reduction goals, or whether it is simply a huge greenwash effort by investors in coal in order to keep investing in coal. Sweden's state-owned Vattenfall is almost as eager as Norway's state-owned energy monopolies to see CCS accepted as a bona fide fix for CO2 belching on the part of both coal-fired and gas-fired plants. Vattenfall said it would build a demonstration 250 MW CCS at one block of the 3,000 MW brown-coal Jänschwalde plant, to be ready by 2015. The cleaned-up CO2 would be piped to a nearby empty natural gas field. The CCS will be built on the so-called oxyfuel technique, which Vattenfall is also using at its CCS demonstration pilot at the Scwarze Pumpe plant. Schwarze Pumpe's 30 MW installation is estimated to cost 70 million Euros, and is set to open this summer. Jänschwalde's price tag: 1 billion Euros ($1.57 billion). Internally, Vattenfall hopes to halve its CO2 emissions by half by 2030. Via ::Newsdesk.se See also: EU To Pump Up Hot Air Capture, and Scientists Develop Low-Cost Version of Carbon Capture And Storage