Options for the Future
Jeff Phillips is EPRI Senior Program Manager for Advanced Fossil Generation. Abhoyjit Bhown is EPRI Technical Executive for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage.
Is coal dead? No, but it's facing an uphill battle in the U.S., according to EPRI's Jeff Phillips, senior program manager for advanced fossil generation. And so began a thought-provoking conversation about where we are today, and the innovation needed to make fossil fuels relevant in the future.
Phillips pointed out it will be difficult to justify building new coal-fired power plants in the United States, where natural gas prices have fallen seventy-five percent since 2008. However, coal is still an abundant resource around the globe.
For this reason, and because of the continuing concern over carbon dioxide emissions from all fossil fuels, Phillips and his colleagues are looking ahead at advanced technologies that could support fossil fuels at home and abroad.
"The best possible option is to come up with new technology that will allow us to unlock the energy in fossil fuels without putting enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," he said.
A significant amount of EPRI's advanced fossil generation research is focused on carbon capture and storage, and the effort to make it a viable, cost-effective option for fossil power plants.