AEP puts carbon capture on hold

• 12 years ago (2011-07-15)
• David Flin

North America 998

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American Electric Power (AEP) said it was putting a hold on its plans for a commercial-scale CO2 capture and storage project in West Virginia, USA because of uncertainty surrounding US climate policy and what the company described as a weak economy.

Michael Morris, Chairman and Chief Executive of AEP, said that continuing to build the project at AEP’s coal-fired Mountaineer power plant no longer made economic sense. He said: “We are placing the project on hold until economic and policy conditions create a viable path forward.”

Both demand and prices for electricity are currently low, and this has affected the commercial viability of the carbon capture scheme. When the project was first planned, it was believed that national policy makers would soon limit the amount of CO2 that power companies could emit. This would have made a carbon capture system valuable, especially for AEP, where coal-fired plants account for two-thirds of its capacity.

Moore said: “We are clearly in a classic ‘which comes first?’ situation.” He explained that while the technology was vital to comply with potential future climate regulations, it was difficult to recover costs without federal requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in place.

The project was due to begin commercial operation in 2015, and would have captured about 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 emitted from the plant each year and stored it underground.