(KCPW News) The United States will remain dependent on fossil fuels for at least the next 50 years but there's a dearth of new power plants, says coal scientist Tom Sarkus with the U.S. Department of Energy.
"We need to build additional power generation capacity to sustain a growing economy and we need to build additional power generation lines. We can't keep planning them and talking about them," Sarkus says. "The Next Gen Energy Council did a study predicting a shortfall in the western states predicting a shortfall of about 40,000 megawatts of electricity by the year 2016."
Sarkus advises the state to invest in demonstration and pilot projects for new coal technologies, including carbon capture and sequestration. He urged Utah lawmakers yesterday to make sure the policies they create don't discourage the innovations needed for the next phase of clean coal technologies.
"Controlling CO2 is going to cost money. So you can't have your DEQ coming in and saying, you can't build a plant unless you address carbon capture, and then the public service commission saying, well you can't build this plant because it's too expensive with the carbon capture," Sarkus says. "All that will lead to is gridlock and an extension on this moratorium on building plants."
Adding carbon capture and storage technology to existing power plants could double the cost of electricity, Sarkus says. In comparison, building new plants equipped with the technology is less expensive, boosting electric bills by 20 to 30 percent, he says.
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