Pleasant Prairie experiment: Subtracting carbon from coal

From a post by Tom Content on JS Online:

The carbon dioxide catch-and-release experiment in Pleasant Prairie, which started last year, is getting some more attention today.

The We Energies power plant is the site of a project funded in part by the Electric Power Research Institute and the French company Alstom. Alstom has built a system at the state's largest coal-fired power plant that uses chilled ammonia to separate the carbon dioxide that's heads out into the atmosphere.

If all goes well with this test, the utility industry is planning a bigger demonstration of this technology at a coal plant in West Virginia.

Whatever technological change is forced on utilities, it won't come cheap, Wall Street Journal Environment Editor Jeffrey Ball writes in his column today.

"Whatever the truth about 'clean coal,' consumers will be paying for it one way or another," Ball writes.

The test is one way that the utility sector is preparing for regulation of greenhouse gases at some point by Congress. That's significant for Wisconsin given how much we rely on coal for power.