An engineering and economic evaluation of CO2 removal from fossil-fuel-fired power plants

The feasibility of significantly reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuel-fired power plants has recently been investigated by Fluor Daniel for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the International Energy Agency (IEA). The evaluation assessed the incremental cost and performance impact of reducing CO2 emissions by nominally 90% for a pulverized coal-fired (PC) power plant and a coal-gasification-combined-cycle (GCC) power plant. The study demonstrated that, although removal, recovery, and disposal of CO2 is technically feasible, it is an expensive method of reducing this greenhouse gas emission. Based on the costs developed in the EPRI/IEA study, its full-scale implementation would result in increasing the cost of coal-fired power by factors of up to 2.6 and 1.7 for PC and GCC plants, respectively.