Reply #68: Two reasons [View All]

[kristopher]

First is that this is money for research, not deployment. Second is that I know that Chu knows carbon capture has little to no chance of being an effective strategy. The money proposed for CCS is a way to blunt the efforts of the coal industry (includes both mining and power generation) to stop the climate bill.
There is also value in the research that might be applicable to developing nations that don't already have a large infrastructure in place. A big reason CCS won't work here is that plants need to be located in fairly close proximity to geographic structure capable of holding carbon. For example, one of our best structures is located under the seabed off the Pacific NW coast. We'd either need to relocate most of our coal generation there or spend the money developing an infrastructure get the captured carbon there. There are a lot of economics involved, but basically what doesn't make economic sense re CCS here might be very workable in places like China. So the money spent isn't a total waste as it may help mitigate the practices of other nations while giving our involved industries a technology to make money with.

Considering all the factors involved, it is extremely difficult to view Chu's actions as an endorsement of business as usual in the US. That perception requires one to completely ignore all the very tangible support given to the creation of a set of conditions that will place renewable energy sources on an equal market footing with fossil fuels. I don't expect laypersons to get that, but an envirnomental reporter from the Guardian certainly should.