Reply #9: Did you read the reference I pointed you to?

[kristopher]

The costs associated with this technology is extremely high, and it still considered an experimental technology.

The carbon capture promised is, as you said, pie in the sky. When the entire point of altering our infrastructure is justified by the effort to reduce greenhouse gases, it makes little sense to invest massive amounts of money in new infrastructure that simply does not do the job.

The money is much more effectively spent investing in renewable infrastructure. Not only are the carbon reduction vastly larger, over the long term renewables offer much better energy return for the energy invested. The energy costs of coal are already pretty high, and the process of gasification further increases the energy investment required to extract each kilowatt.

Before I sent you to the Delaware Public Service Commission's website, which probably was too much to wade through. Try this report by an independent consultant hired by the PSC. The report is a direct comparison of the costs and benefits of offshore wind, gas generation, and coal gasification. You can find a copy of the report here http://www.ocean.udel.edu/windpower/#DERFPHere
the title is "Interim Report on IRP in Relation to RFP"
The "Final Staff Recommendation" is also a good source.


The bottom line is, if you look at the total amount of coal we consume, a large investment in coal gasification represents a business as usual approach to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. It is important to remember that the extraction of coal is an ongoing carbon intensive endeavor and that with everything we learn about the impact of introduction of greenhouse gases, the degree of urgency regarding reduction of those gases is growing, not shrinking. Shaped largely by political pressure from the US, the report of the IPCC is extremely consensus of the Panel was a very conservative statement.