Urgent Q: Capital cost of coal plant CCS refit?

[Jasper Sky]

Hi all, 
In prep for a meeting, I urgently need an estimate of the refit cost of a typical coal or gas thermal power plant with CCS equipment. Not an estimate of the LCOE increase per MWh of power generated - I've found plenty of those - but rather, the upfront CAPITAL EXPENDITURE needed to add a CCS facility to a typical large coal or gas fired power plant. 

Can anyone help me out?
If you can point me to a suitable reference doc, all the better - but even just your best guesstimate would be a start.
Many thanks!
Jasper

[Renaud de RICHTER]

Have you looked at the CCS Institute? CCS Organisation? CCS Coalition?

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[Ronal Larson]

Jasper, Renaud, list(s):

I hope you’ll also instigate the possibility of switching from coal-or-gas to biomass in and biochar out.  Carbon credits could make the difference and the produced char should come about sooner and with fewer problems.  There are a good many existing plants making biochar; likely some were retrofits.

Ron 

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[Jeff Suchon]

The best answer is don't supply CCS to a plant that should be closed down by the time it takes to retrofit CCS. Stop wasting dollars .. oh and lives on madness :)

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[Jasper Sky]

Thanks, Kim, those links from "Perplexity" are just what I needed!

On Sun, Feb 25, 2024, 19:55 Kim Chaffee <kim.ch...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Jasper,

I recently read an article in The NY Times that ranked Perplexity above all the other AI platforms for answering questions like this.  It is less likely to provide false information that appears real (hallucinating) and it provides references for all its information.  When I asked it the following question, this was its reply.  I don’t know whether it will help or not.  

Kim

Question:  What is the estimated upfront CAPITAL EXPENDITURE needed to add a Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Unit to a typical large coal or gas fired power plant?

 

Answer:  The estimated upfront capital expenditure needed to add a Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) unit to a typical large coal or gas-fired power plant can vary significantly based on different factors. According to the available information, the capital cost of CCS facilities is in the order of billions of dollars, making them seem excessive by many orders of magnitude

4

. The total capital expenditure for CCS projects can range from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, depending on the specific project scope, technology used, and other factors

2

. The Levelised Cost of Captured CO2 (LCOCC) for a CCS plant capturing 85% of emissions from a coal-fired plant could be around $131 per tonne of CO2

1

. However, the cost estimates for CCS projects can be influenced by various factors such as project lifespan, working capital requirements, tax rates, and financing costs

1

. It is essential to conduct a detailed feasibility study and cost analysis specific to the project requirements to determine the exact upfront capital expenditure needed for adding a CCS unit to a power plant.

Here are the references:

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[Jasper Sky]

I agree that refitting coal power plants with CCS is almost certainly a pointless waste of money in every case compared to the obvious alternative, which is to use the money to pay for a conversion (replacement) of the generating capacity with renewable energy plus energy storage, instead. That's why I want those upfront capital cost numbers: to make exactly that point.

[Jasper Sky]

Where's that biomass meant to come from?

As far as I can tell, there are dozens of higher priority and better uses for biomass than burning it in a refitted coal power plant. BECCS doesn't scale and doesn't make sense in light of those higher uses. It also doesn't make sense in light of the energy costs of growing, harvesting/collecting, transporting, and processing the biomass before burning it (at low efficiency, maybe 25% to 30% of electricity output to primary energy input) in a thermal power plant. 

As for biochar, small modular distributed biochar making equipment (farm-scale) may be better than transporting huge masses of biochar long distances to a refitted central coal fired power station and then trucking the biochar back out to farmers' fields, no?

[Hawkins, David]

While I strongly agree that it is better to close existing coal plants and replace them with zero-emitting resources, it is important to consider the significant number of "young" coal units (eg, ones that have started up in the last decade).  If policies can be adopted promptly to shut down those units in the near future, that would be great.  

But what if that does not happen?  The cumulative emissions from letting those units operate for another 20-30 years will be huge.

Better to push for policies that prioritize replacement but require 90% + capture for any unit that operates longer than, say, 5-10 years from now.  If adopted, that would drive a lot of shut downs and spur replacements.

David

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From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jasper Sky <jasp...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2024 12:18 PM
To: Jeff Suchon <ecom...@gmail.com>
Cc: Ronal Larson <rongre...@comcast.net>; Renaud de RICHTER <renaud.d...@gmail.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com>; Biochar.groups.io <ma...@biochar.groups.io>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Urgent Q: Capital cost of coal plant CCS refit?

 

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[jamesmat...@gmail.com]

Hi Jasper - DOE's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations just announced awards for commercial scale, post-combustion retrofits of coal (Project Tundra) and two NGCC facilities (both owned by Calpine). Still in negotiations so I don't think most details are out yet, but Calpine is a public company so you could look at their 10K for numbers. Roughly speaking, the capex of the retrofits is in the ballpark of power plant cost. Contrary to others on this thread who call this a "waste of money", the economic math is a bit complicated but definitely clears infrastructure investment hurdle rates. 

1) You get 12 years of 45Q. Given the huge quantities of CO2, geologic storage is quite economical. Due to recent inflation, the headline value of $85/ton has increased.

2) Many of these projects are owned by co-ops or other entities that are eligible for direct pay, so they get the full value of 45Q. No need for tax equity or transferability.

3) since 45Q more than covers the cost of capture (at least that's the theory), the cost of power actually goes down a bit. So when bidding into a merchant/wholesale market these plants can bid lower and disbatch more. So some of the economics for the CCS retrofit are from increased dispatch and more power sales.

4) I would expect these projects to get a 'clean premium' from their offtaker/PPA. Like it or not, there aren't a lot of 24/7 near-zero power solutions today. These facilities are MUCH cheaper on an LCOE basis than, say, renewables+batteries.

5) From the plant owner perspective, you have to evaluate these against a baseline. For merchant gas especially, their dispatch has been declining. If CCS can put you at the top of the loading order and boost your dispatch then there's a ton of value to the owner in that (again, compared to the base case).

6) CCS qualifies for various tax-advantaged debt, such as Private Activity Bonds. Like any fully-contracted infrastructure project, these projects will use a lot of debt (a good thing, because debt is cheaper than equity).

Hope that helps,

~Matt