Now is perfect time to demo carbon capture

This is the perfect time to demonstrate a technology for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from the San Juan coal plant and sending the greenhouse gas by pipeline to the Permian Basin to boost the recovery of oil and natural gas.

Given that fossil fuels continue to dominate energy production, supplying nearly 80 percent of the world’s energy, carbon capture could be the technology that makes a real difference in the battle against global warming.

During his eight years in office, President Obama regularly included what’s known as carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) technology among the ways to reduce carbon emissions to safe levels, along with renewables and other low-emission energy sources. But the technology has never been demonstrated at a large coal facility like the 847-megawatt San Juan plant in the Four Corners area.

Yes, shutting down the San Juan plant appears to be a done deal. A number of major coal companies have gone bankrupt and the coal industry itself is in serious trouble. The outlook for New Mexico’s energy future is further clouded by the Navajo Transitional Energy Company’s questionable push to purchase the Montana and Wyoming assets of the bankrupt Cloud Peak Energy Company.

Nevertheless, an opportunity to demonstrate CCUS technology at a critical juncture in the battle against global warming is worth considering.

President Trump, who seems less worried about the dangers of global warming, is much more concerned about the loss of jobs from the shutdown of coal plants and mines. Instead of shutting down the San Juan plant, which would result in the loss of 1,600 direct and indirect jobs and millions of dollars in revenue, demonstrating CCUS technology would enable the coal facility to stay in operation beyond 2022, when it’s scheduled to close.

With CCUS, coal plants capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks before it is emitted and then send it by pipeline to where it can be used for enhanced oil recovery or pumped underground for long-term isolation.

The Environmental Protection Agency says this technology can be made ready for large-scale use.

I believe we cannot emphasize bluntly enough that the successful demonstration of CCUS technology at the San Juan plant depends on money. And it is encouraging that the project is being pursued in collaboration among the city of Farmington, Enchant Energy, which is seeking to acquire a 95 percent stake in the plant, and a hedge fund.

Investing in CCUS technology, while allowing the continued use of coal, is not only logical but might produce the solution to global warming the world needs.

A CCUS strategy would punish free-riding by other coal-rich countries that are doing little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions, encouraging them to adopt CCUS technology. It would send a powerful signal to countries like China and India to reduce their carbon footprints.

But getting other countries to replicate a successful carbon-reduction strategy is going to require demonstrating a CCUS system at a large coal plant, along with some technological breakthroughs.

To be successful, enhanced oil recovery must help pay for the cost of installing the CCUS technology, along with a pipeline to transport the carbon dioxide to an oil field.

Currently, several smaller coal plants in the U.S. and Canada are being used for enhanced oil recovery, but with mixed success. A government tax credit pays part of the cost in the U.S.

What’s needed is to demonstrate the use of CCUS technology at a large coal plant to show the full power of the system, and its efficiency and safety.

The idea of enhanced oil recovery to correct a problem like carbon emissions is an old one, with wide support among oil companies. But it is our unique political moment, combined with the appeal of national and global use, that may turn the concept of using CCUS at the San Juan coal plant into reality.

Environmental groups should like the long overdue commitment to CCUS, which has great potential value. Ideally, CCUS could be adapted for production of petrochemicals and plastics at a profit. MIT and other research centers are trying to develop a breakthrough technology to do this.

Shutting down coal plants serves neither the interests of New Mexico nor the interests of global carbon mitigation. A renewables-only strategy would fail, because baseload power from coal plants is essential for electricity reliability in New Mexico and nationally and nearly 80 percent of global energy demand is met with fossil fuels.

If we do nothing other than close coal plants that provide reliable energy, we will squander the opportunity to demonstrate technologies that other countries could actually use to reduce emissions. An integral part of such a strategy is access, particularly in developing countries, to CCUS.

Jim Constantopoulos is a geology professor at Eastern New Mexico University. Contact him at:

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