A $25 million project at a Calpine Corp. power plant near San Francisco will test a technology that could capture 95% of a plant’s carbon emissions, a process California officials say is critical to the state’s climate fight.

Carbon capture technology provokes fierce criticism from many environmentalists who consider it a license to keep burning fossil fuels rather than switch to cleaner energy sources. But at the unveiling of the Calpine project Friday, California’s top climate change regulator said some fossil fuel plants will still be needed to keep electricity service reliable as the state moves to eliminate its net carbon emissions by 2045.

“Capturing that carbon, starting as soon as possible, will allow us to stop emitting in situations where we absolutely need these plants for reliability,” said Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board.

The pilot project at Calpine’s Los Medanos Energy Center in Pittsburg, California, will use a chemical solvent developed by ION Clean Energy Inc. to bind with carbon dioxide in the plant’s flue gas. ION, based in Colorado, says its process should be both more effective and cheaper than previous carbon capture technologies. Funded in part with a $19 million federal grant, the project will not store the captured carbon, instead releasing it back into atmosphere. In future plants, the carbon dioxide could be pumped underground for permanent storage.

Calpine bills itself as the nation’s largest generator of electricity from natural gas and Chief Executive Officer Thad Hill said carbon capture will be critical for the company. “For us, it represents the energy transition and natural gas’s role in it,” he said.

Author: David R. Baker