Efficiency and CCS

Another member of my group at Imperial College, has just sent me her opinion of the refit of a british coal powerstation.

She says "Seems like a pretty sensible decision from an Eon perspective - not least given how much hassle they're getting around Kingsnorth etc?!

On the point about sub-crit plant, there are reasons to worry about them. From a climate change perspective they aren't necessarily a big problem as long as they can be retrofitted with CCS. What matters is the %C from fossil fuels that ends up in the ground, not the efficiency with which you burn the coal. Of course, you can make different arguments if you come with different perspectives.

Ratcliffe-on-soar isn't the easiest site ever but I'm pretty sure that at least some of the units can be retrofitted (based on DTI project 407). People have complained about likely low efficiencies of retrofits making them impossible. They may have a point but the argument is probably overstated for various reasons".

She's right ofcourse - being good engineers we should worry about the efficiency, but in this day and age, we also need to worry about the carbon emitted to atmosphere.