OPC to build a power plant in West Virginia that can bury carbon dioxide emitted by the station

OPC energy company is promoting the development of a power plant in West Virginia that supplied 1.8 gigawatts, for $3.5 billion. The station is powered by natural gas and incorporates technologies to capture and bury the carbon dioxide emitted by the station. The announcement of the project, which will be carried out through the American subsidiary CPV (70%), was made together with the Chairman of the Energy Committee in the Senate Joe Manchin from West Virginia, and the representative of the Governor of West Virginia.
Giora Almogi, CEO of OPC, (-2.07% 4210), said that the establishment of the new station is supported by the new law - Inflation Reduction Act. This law includes significant benefits for renewable energy and was enacted following lengthy negotiations between the Joe Biden administration and Manchin, who defended the interests of the coal industry in West Virginia - which provides the source of energy for 90% of the electricity production in this country.
Almogi noted that the new law guarantees to power plants powered by natural gas a direct payment of $85 per ton of carbon dioxide captured and deposited for a period of 10 years from the operation of the plant, and to power plants that will be established within 10 years of the law coming into effect. The benefit will be given as a cash payment in the first five years after activation, and in the form of a tax credit in the following five years.
The law guarantees a low payment of $60 per ton to a power plant that will capture the carbon dioxide it emits - and sell it, for example, to companies that are involved in oil and gas production and use it to increase the output of their wells. According to him, the law conditions the provision of the benefit on the capture of at least 70% of the greenhouse gases emitted during the combustion process - however the existing technologies capture 90% of them.
Almogi pointed out that the technology for capturing greenhouse gases at the end of the combustion process is not new, and is provided by companies such as Mitsubishi and Linde. Until now, the technology has not been economical and attractive, because the payment given for capturing the greenhouse gases was low and because there was no certainty about the period of time in which the benefit would be given. Almogi added that it is important to establish the stations in areas where there are sites for burying greenhouse gases, such as oil wells that have been depleted and production has ended.
The project in West Virginia is one of two projects promoted by O.P.C. The projects include the construction of power plants driven by natural gas in a combined cycle (a gas turbine and a steam turbine that operates on the heat emitted from the gas turbine), and are combined with the ability to capture carbon gases, the aggregate capacity of which is 4,000 megawatts. The project in West Virginia, Shay, is at a relatively advanced stage.
The cost of building a power plant powered by natural gas is $1.2 million per megawatt installed, and an additional cost of $800,000 per megawatt to capture greenhouse gases. Almogi estimated that it would take two years until construction of the station in West Virginia began, and another three years until its construction was completed. He added that the supply will be 1,800 megawatts, and it is expected to capture 4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, based on an availability of 85% and an emission of 0.35 tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour - and capturing 90% of the carbon dioxide emitted.
Almogi noted that capturing carbon dioxide on this scale in a natural gas-fired power plant is equivalent to the impact of a solar power plant with four times the output, because a solar power plant only operates 20% of the time.