Carbon Capture, Utilization, and SequeStration: Technology and Policy Status and Opportunities

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners |  November 5, 2018 – Kiera Zitelman, NARUC and James Ekmann, John Huston, and Pradeep Indrakanti, Leonardo Technologies, Inc.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies constitute an important opportunity for coal. Decades of public and private research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) have led to crucial breakthroughs in CCUS on coal-fired power plants. Although CCUS is confined to a handful of power plants and faces barriers to widespread adoption in the power sector, CCUS has shown promising results in industrial uses, and results from power sector applications have been encouraging. CCUS is an exciting technology area with the potential to deliver environmental benefits, improved reliability, and increased economic activity. These broad benefits have attracted support for CCUS from a wide range of stakeholders. With thoughtful policies at the federal, state, and local levels and continued investment in RD&D, the deployment of CCUS technology could be increased to improve the environmental performance of coal-fired power plants and other industrial processes. Such action could enable coal to deliver the benefits the industry cites while improving environmental performance—making coal a more robust clean energy competitor.