William Larsen

Duke Energy: Clean Coal Technology

Duke Energy’s CEO was interviewed on 60 minutes Sunday Night. Duke operates over 25 coal fired plants. The CEO stated Duke has not invested one cent in clean coal technology. The one plant that supposedly is operating would cost over $4 billion to implement the clean coal technology per coal fired plant. I believe there are over 400 coal fired plants in the US. The CEO wants to partner with the Federal Government (US taxpayer) in implementing Clean Coal technology. The company envisions keeping coal and transforming the plants to clean coal by 2050. Duke is breaking ground on two coal fired plants now.

Instead of spending trillions on clean coal technology and getting no value added in terms of cost from the electricity, I say let’s spend the $trillions on wind power which is cheaper than dirty coal now. How inefficient does wind power have to be to be more costly than clean coal?

Duke CEO brought up Yucca Mountain and the thirty years to get it to where it is today only to have Obama shut its door. Nuclear power is doable, but there is no place to store the wasted which means it is dead in the water. Even if there were storage sites available, it is twice the cost of wind power. Clean Coal Technology will double the cost of building a coal fired plant. Stop subsidizing coal and let the best energy source win!

posted by William Larsen @ 1:01 AM