Mountaineer Coal Plant, New Haven, W. Virginia, Photo Copyright, NY Times.
According to Kevin Riddell, in the New York Times, (click here for article) the 20 MW carbon sequestration subsystem at the Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, West Virginia, will cost “well over $100 million.” Ridell says:
American Electric Power is spending $73 million on the capture and storage effort, which includes half the cost of the factory. Alstom, the manufacturer of the new equipment, paid for the other half of the factory, hoping to develop expertise that will win it a worldwide market. Alstom would not say what it spent, but public figures indicate that the two companies are jointly spending well over $100 million.
I pulled out my trusty pencil and paper, and did some calculations. If “half the cost” of the facility is $73 million, then the other half is also $73 million. That “well over $100 million” adds up to about $146 million. For a 20 mw facility, that means $7.3 million per mw. It’s not clear from the article whether this is the cost of the carbon sequestration facility or the costs of the turbine plus the carbon sequestration facility. The article also mentions that the energy costs of the carbon sequestration operation are projected at 15% to 30% of the plant’s output. “More expensive than solar or nuclear.” Utility scale Solar is $6.5 billion per mw, 89.0% of the cost of this facility, even before you factor in the costs of fuel, mining, and clean-up.