Repowering Coal

The world has more than 2TWe of coal-fired power plants, adding roughly 12 gigatons of CO₂ emissions per year, representing almost one-third of global total net emissions of 38.8 gigatons a year. But shutting coal plants down worldwide is not a solution when the majority are less than 14 years old, and energy demand is soaring, writes Eric Ingersoll and Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis, a non-profit organization focused on accelerating the energy transition through innovation.

Microsoft has joined the Terra Praxis-led team working on Repowering Coal. Microsoft is helping create Azure tools to enable automated analysis of the US (and ultimately global) coal power generation fleet for retrofit. Microsoft will build the analytics tools with Terra Praxis and help undertake strategic partnerships with #REPOWER consortium stakeholders. At the Microsoft booth during #CERAWeek, Terra Praxis will offer demonstrations of the Azure tools showcasing the opportunity for retrofitting coal power plants. If you're in Houston, please visit us at the Microsoft Agora House, in the George R. Brown Convention Center March 8-9.

CERAWeek brings together global leaders to advance new ideas, insight and solutions to the biggest challenges facing the future of energy, the environment, and climate. CERAWeek is widely considered to be the most prestigious annual gathering of CEOs and Ministers from global energy and utilities, as well as automotive, manufacturing, policy and financial communities, along with a growing presence of tech. It has been described by the Financial Times as the "the Davos of energy," and by Politico as the “industry’s Super Bowl.” CNBC called it “the world’s preeminent energy conference.” CERAWeek was rated one of the top five overall “corporate leader” conferences in the world.​

Microsoft continues to support its commitment to the energy industry by joining the CERAWeek 2022, March 7 to 11, in Houston. Darryl Willis, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Energy Industry, promises to tackle the challenges the energy industry faces together with various Microsoft’s energy and sustainability leaders.

SUNY Distinguished Professor Andrew Whittaker is part of a consortium led by Terra Praxis developing a digital platform to repower coal plants using advanced heat sources. The aim is to retrofit retired and operating coal-fired power plants with modular nuclear reactors while retaining the balance of the plant. Other members include the UK-based architectural and engineering consultancy—Bryden Wood, along with MIT, Microsoft, and a group of utilities. Whittaker and the multidisciplinary Terra Praxis team, which includes civil, mechanical and nuclear engineers and designers, are adapting proven seismic isolation and damping technologies to standardize equipment, drive down cost and accelerate construction. Researchers are targeting a five-fold reduction in capital cost.

Bryden Wood has joined Terra Praxis in working on the “REPOWER” initiative to help countries meet net-zero emissions targets by replacing coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with Generation IV advanced modular reactors (AMRs)—creating a new design and construction solution that would make such a program possible at scale and speed, in part by deploying a new digital platform.

Watch this presentation by Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll of Terra Praxis to the Effective Altruism community about why they founded Terra Praxis—to come up with Climate 2.0 strategies that address the actual risks to the energy transition—cost, speed, scale, space, and political support—these are the obstacles that are standing in the way of achieving the progress on decarbonization the world needs and expects. These risks include public opposition and legal constraints to the future development of renewable energy. For instance, two-thirds of the counties in the U.S. state of Iowa have added restrictions or prohibitions to future wind development; this is true for many states across the US. Based on analysis Terra Praxis and its partner LucidCatalyst performed with McKinsey, it is clear that there is very little potential for onshore wind development left in Germany. However, climate modelers do not take this into consideration and continue to model large additions to wind resources, allowing policy makers to believe we are on the right track when in fact the reality is very different. Along similar lines, Terra Praxis is leading a project to repower the world's 2TW of coal plants, which make up the single largest source of global carbon emissions.

International design company Bryden Wood is working alongside Terra Praxis to create a new digital platform to decarbonize electricity by 2050. The ‘Repowering Coal’ initiative will deliver a substantial portion of the clean electricity required to achieve net zero by 2050, by replacing coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with Generation IV Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) which will be ready for deployment by 2027.

Engineering and architecture firm Bryden Wood has revealed the digital platform for its ambitious Repowering coal project, which aims to retro-fit coal-fired power plants to accommodate modular nuclear reactors. The strategy, developed in collaboration with non-profit Terra Praxis, will see coal-fired boilers at existing power plants replaced with Generation IV Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRS), which will be ready for deployment by 2027. This initiative is seen as a way to make gains on worldwide decarbonization of the energy sector.

Terra Praxis is working with Bryden Wood to create a new digital platform for making the replacement of coal-fired boilers at existing power plants with advanced modular nuclear reactors possible at scale and speed. Terra Praxis co-founder Eric Ingersoll said: "This ambitious project will design a process to repower the world's coal fleets via a fast, repeatable system resulting in carbon negative power plants that are cheaper to operate than before and ensure continuity for communities reliant on these plants for energy and jobs."

In this episode, Jaimie Johnston MBE and Kirsty Gogan from Terra Praxis discuss how to achieve a practical, global-scale solution to the very biggest issue facing humanity – climate change.

Terra Praxis has been listed among seven of the most high-impact, cost-effective, evidence-based organizations fighting climate change. Why Johannes Ackva and Luisa Sandkühler of Founders Pledge recommend Terra Praxis: “We believe that Terra Praxis continues to do incredibly important work around shaping a conversation for advanced nuclear to address critical decarbonization challenges, such as the decarbonization of hard-to-decarbonize sectors and the conundrum of how to deal with lots of very new coal plants that are unlikely to be prematurely retired.”

Update, November 29, 2022, 9 am: This story was originally published in 2019 and has been updated throughout.

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The flurry of new policies and announcements raises the question: Are we at the dawn of a nuclear renaissance? We’ve heard these claims before. But the mounting scale of the climate and energy conundrum is fueling more money and favorable policies into atomic power. Kirsty Gogan, co-founder of Terra Praxis is quoted: “There have been years of indecisiveness, but the climate is changing around nuclear"... “We need Impossible burgers for energy, a drop-in substitute. We’re not bending the curve on emissions because in the power sector we still need reliability, making the idea that we’re going to phase out coal unforgivably unrealistic right now.”

Thanks to a grant from Founders Pledge, Terra Praxis hosted a high-level, high-impact event in parallel with COP26 in Scotland on November 3, 2021: De-risking the Terawatt Transition at the Climate Action Solution Centre. Read this article on Grant II: Changing how we think and act about the challenge of committed emissions to learn why Founders Pledge decided to make this grant, what they expect from it, and how they will track impact and what it has achieved so far.

SUPPORT OUR WORK
You can contribute to our work by making a donation at every.org/terrapraxis — to our US-based 501(c)3. By donating through this channel, you will receive a receipt for your donation from Every.org which is a US-based 501(c)3. If you are based in Europe or the United Kingdom and interested in donating to Terra Praxis, please contact us. Donations support our work in the US, UK, and Europe.

Bryden Wood has revealed plans to repurpose the world’s coal-fired power stations to house modular nuclear reactors as part of a ‘major initiative’ to decarbonize the energy sector. The practice's REPOWER proposal has been drawn up with Terra Praxis, a non-profit organization focused on action for climate and energy, which leads the initiative. Unveiled at COP26 this week, the strategy sets out how coal-fired boilers at existing power plants could be replaced with Advanced Heat Sources (Generation IV Advanced Modular Reactors) to deliver a substantial portion of the clean electricity required to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Bryden Wood, which was again recognized in the AJ100 Best Use of Technology category this year, has created, along with Terra Praxis, ‘a platform solution’ making these conversions possible at scale and speed by transforming how projects of this kind are financed, designed, approved and delivered.