Obama wastes $450 million on Texas carbon capture plant

A ridiculous amount of money to capture a trivial amount of CO2 with no guarantee that the CO2 will stay where stored.

Climatewire reports,

The Department of Energy announced yesterday that a Texas-based utility will buy power from one of the largest planned carbon capture plants in the United States, giving the project an important boost.

Under the finalized agreement, San Antonio-based utility CPS Energy said it would purchase approximately 200 megawatts of power from the $2.4 billion Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), which, if built, would involve capture of 90 percent of its carbon dioxide from an advanced coal-fired power plant.

It is the first planned purchase of power by a utility from a commercial coal-fired power plant equipped with carbon capture, the department said…

About a quarter of the plant’s cost — or $450 million — came from the Department of Energy, with about half of that from the stimulus package…

In addition to the need for $600 million in investor dollars, the federal tax code allows for taxation of grant money to limited liability companies (LLCs), explained Miller yesterday during a visit to Washington, D.C. That language will cost the company more than $70 million in taxes this year on the DOE grant, and some $150 million overall, she said.

Summit Power Group is speaking with federal lawmakers to have the federal code changed for LLCs, most likely through a federal tax bill, she said.

“It’s a big deal for us,” she said.

If constructed, TCEP would sit about 15 miles west of Odessa, Texas, and lead to capture of approximately 3 million tons of carbon dioxide per year for use in enhanced oil recovery in the Texas Permian Basin. It would be an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant that turns coal into synthetic gas before combustion.

For more on Carbon capture and storage, read Steve Milloy’s Investor’s Business Daily column, “Climate bill is built on ‘clean coal’ myths.”