Duke Energy CEO sees carbon sequestration worth pursuing

Carbon capture and sequestration could fill a key role in the development of carbon-free electricity in the coming years, but the technology still has a long way to go before it becomes more than a bit player in the climate-change discussion, Lynn Good, chairman and CEO of Duke Energy said during a recent appearance in Washington.

Good told the Center for Strategic & International Studies in a wide-ranging interview on June 21 that the carbon capture and sequestration process was not ready for prime time despite its potential for keeping fossil fuels in the power-generation mix. “It is an important area for research and development,” she said.

Duke, which recently completed a study looking out to 2050, concluded that renewables could require what Good termed “load-following, carbon-free generation” that would provide a steady stream of electricity at night, in the gloomy depths of Winter, or at times when the wind wasn’t blowing. “Solar produces a lot of power between noon and 5 o’clock, but then the sun goes down and it doesn’t produce as much,” said Good. “Something else needs to come online because (consumers) aren’t changing their habits on the use of electricity just because the sun is down.”

On paper, a gas or coal plant that does not release carbon dioxide into the air would be a logical asset to fill in any lags in purely green power production, but Good indicated that while Duke was still collaborating on various research projects involving carbon capture, the big breakthroughs necessary to launch a commercially viable carbon-capture plant were not yet in sight.

“We just don’t have at-scale, operating carbon capture and sequestration in the United States,” she said. “That’s where the research and development comes in.”

The seeming unreliability of the sun and wind has been a nagging hurdle for the advancement of renewables in the overall U.S. energy strategy. The Trump administration has pointed to around-the-clock reliability as a reason to consider steps to keep coal-fired power plants online. To that end, Congress approved a new round of incentives known as the 45Q tax credit to encourage carbon capture research. In June, a group of governors from six coal and gas-producing states formed the Governors’ Partnership on Carbon Capture, a coalition that will encourage Washington to speed up its research, and facilitate the potential construction of pipelines and other infrastructure related to carbon capture and sequestration projects down the road.

Renewables, however, remain the wave of the future at this point, according to Good. The development of renewables, along with increased energy efficiency and the continued presence of nuclear plants in the generation portfolio, has helped Duke slash its carbon production by 31 percent since 2005.

“Renewables have a tailwind at their back,” Good said. “The economics are a tailwind along with the strong interest in renewables on the part of corporations and ‘smart’ cities and utilities like mine that are continuing progress toward de-carbonization. We look at this continuously and we see that development continuing.”

Various factors other than purely technological advances have affected the bottom line of utility companies and have contributed to the tailwinds and resulting heady times for renewables, including low natural gas prices, corporate tax reform, and low interest rates, Good said.

However, utilities still have the burden of delivering affordable and reliable service to their customers while also maintaining a national power grid that is becoming more and more sophisticated and must also handle growing inputs from renewable generators, such as homeowners with solar panels on their roofs.

“I see more investment in the grid over the next 10 years than in any other component,” Good said. “The grid is an enabler of that growth and investment has to keep pace.”