Jeffrey N. Phillips

Jeffrey N. Phillips is the Senior Program Manager at the Electric Power Research Institute.

Promoting Carbon Capture and Storage
In a May 2010 presentation to the the Obama administration's Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage, he argued that while there are "no obvious insurmountable technical barriers to CO2 capture" that there are "lots of potential challenges" which it won't be possible to assess how significant they are until "we address them at full scale". As with other presenters to the Task Force, Phillips identified the cost of the technology as "a major barrier to widespread deployment" especially since developing countries "can’t be expected to implement this technology at current costs" and that the "U.S. government's available resources will limit the number of projects that can be subsidized." The path to lowering the costs of the technology, he argued, was "additional R&D".

In his presentation Phillips stated that "up to half of the steam flowing through the steam turbine will have to be diverted to the solvent regenerator to release the captured CO2". He also noted that there is a "need to know what purity will be compatible in pipelines" and that the "ability to vent CO2 during peak power demand and pipeline or storage outages needs to be ensured."

Phillips also argued that Obama's proposed six trial CCS projects would not be enough as it is "not certain all six will move forward." He also argued that "none of the projects will demonstrate post-combustion capture at full scale", "none of the projects will demonstrate higher firing temperature gas turbines" which is "critical for lower costs", that "none of the projects will demonstrate oxy-combustion" and that "some newer capture technologies are not yet ready for large demonstrations but offer lower costs." Making progress, he argued, would require additional funding.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in the United States

Presentations by Phillips

 * Jeffrey N. Phillips, "Barriers to Widespread Deployment of CO2 Capture in the Electric Power Sector", Proceedings of the public meeting of Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage, Washington D.C., May 6, 2010.