Despite the drubbing some of us are taking this winter there are still the same CO₂-induced global warming predictions being made and so reducing the amount of carbon that's emitted to our skies appears to remain necessary. One of the ways that has been touted as the most promising has been carbon capture and sequestration. While there have been many papers written and plans made for this technology, not a lot has actually been accomplished and so, as with every scheme that takes a substantial period of time between ideation to implementation, skepticism is bound to arise.

And risen it has. The Energy Tribune, a publication that bills itself as, "Leading the debate. Beating the streets," has a particular abundance of articles on the subject including one entitled, "Carbon Capture in the U.S. Faces Hard Realities" that focuses on the American experience with particular attention paid to the de-funding of the FutureGen project which was to be, through carbon capture and sequestration, the world's first zero-CO₂ emissions coal-fired power plant.

And it's not just The Energy Tribune that is cooling to the future prospects of this tech. Germany's Spiegel Online has just published an article that asks, "Is Carbon Capture a False Hope for Coal Power?" It seems people are coming to the realization that making sequestration work is going to be very expensive.

As I read these articles I can't help but ponder the question, why do we have to spend billions and billions of dollars chasing technology that, even when perfected, is not nearly as perfect as the renewable trifecta (wind, solar, geothermal) in creating energy that gives us the added benefit of saving our environment and, indeed, our lives.

[Source: The Energy Tribune]

Plans to build a nearly emissions-free coal fired power plant in Illinois have been thrown into chaos now that the Department of Energy has pulled out of the project. Plans for the FutureGen plant began over a decade ago with a cost of about $1 billion. With the cost now over $1.8 billion, DOE as decided to bail out the project. DOE was going to cover 75 percent of the cost of the plant that was to produce electricity and hydrogen and feature carbon capture and sequestration. Instead, the Energy Department will now take the money and spread it among multiple other projects. The money will be used to pay only for the carbon capture and sequestration, while partner companies will have to fund the rest of the plant. The FutureGen Alliance still wants to proceed with the project. However, they haven't been able to raise the necessary funding prior to the DOE pullout. It's not clear how they will replace the government funding. The Energy Department came to the conclusion that the planned facility was not commercially viable. However, it's not clear what part of it they consider not workable. If it's the carbon capture and storage, redirecting it to several other projects may not make it any better.

[Source: Forecast Earth]