Governments Balk At "Clean-Coal" Costs While Companies Pimp "CCS-Ready" Coal Plants

[hatrack]

LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) - Governments and the private sector are balking at the expense of kick-starting a technology to bury planet-warming gases underground, casting doubts on "clean coal" plans seen vital to help fight climate change. A handful of nations are developing audacious plans to trap and seal beyond reach the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from burning fossil fuels in power plants.

The technology -- carbon capture and storage (CCS) -- may help answer the riddle of how to get more energy for less CO2, given high carbon-emitting coal is the world's most abundant fossil fuel.

But no plant has yet been built anywhere in the world, challenging power company claims in Europe and the United States that they are building "CCS ready" plants, as western companies and governments face growing environmental opposition to coal. The notion of being CCS ready is that companies build coal-fired power plants, for example, and bolt on CCS technology later when it becomes commercially viable.

But in the short-term being "CCS ready" does not commit them to very much at all. "The power plant itself is not really very different," said Markus Ewert, head of research at Germany utility giant E.ON (EONG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), adding the main difference was to set aside extra space for CCS equipment in the future, and to be within about 200 km of

EDIT

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL0391924220080410

[phantom power]

1. "CCS Ready"

Just add non-existent capture technology, and non-existent sequestration sites.

:banghead:

[eppur_se_muova]

2. The Emperor's new rug ? nt