Friday, 23 July 2010
CO2 CAPTURE MAKES ELECTRICITY UP TO 80% DEARER
According to this article fitting so-called 'carbon capture' to coal-fired power stations would make electricity up to 80% more expensive. This is from a new US government report. Surely the Senate will not vote for such a scheme as carbon trading knowing that these costs will cause a fatal blow to both private consumers and industry.
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Hello from Norway.The Norwegian government has been experimenting with carbon capture and sequestration for many years. Calculations in Norway points to a possible doubling of the electricity price from a huge gas power plant (we have three large ones out of which one has been chosen for building this kind of capture and sequestration technology - google for Mongstad if you wish).
ReplyDeleteAdd to this that the doubling is quite near official, and when politicians are faced with it, they don't deny it, they just go on with their message about saving the world.
Add to this that earlier this year, it was calculated (and published) that the carbon tax on electricity in Norway amounted to, on average, a 50% tax ON TOP of the rest - including all kinds of taxes to the government such as energy production tax and VAT.
This 50% carbon tax will of course be added UPON the rising cost of producing electricity from capture and sequestration-fitted plants.
For the one plant at Mongstad there is widely varying reports on how much it has cost so far and how much it will cost in the end just for the capture and sequestration part - the oil and energy minister has said it has cost 1 billion US dollars so far and will be at 4-5 billion dollars before it has been finished. For this plant alone.
Don't fool yourself into believing that politicians shudder about sums such as these, at taxes such as these. I wrote in our local daily newspaper about these things, I even got the leading articles, but no other newspaper picked up anything about the carbon tax at 50%, although it actually came as far as being a nationwide event with regards to the cost of the capture etc at Mongstad - the opposition demanded that the oil and energy minister should leave his post, not because of the cost, but because the government postponed the date of when the plant would be fully fitted, which in effect would say that they didn't believe in the whole project while spending billions on it.
You can read more here:
ReplyDeletehttp://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/5/3/carbon-dioxide-capture-and-cancer-full-stop-at-mongstad.html
but be aware that the huge costs connected to this were not available at the time the blogpost was written.
Hi, and thanks for your information. It is most welcome.
ReplyDelete