Europe is planning on building more coal plants in the coming years, and are talking a great game about carbon capture and storage. But when push comes to shove, will the Europeans be willing to make the extra capital outlay?
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross posted from Prometheus
Yesterday, I mentioned a set of important environmental votes taking place in the EU Parliament (pictured). One of these votes involved the future of coal with carbon capture and storage with the result being that the EU is betting big on this technology. The vote is very important because it provides justification for building new coal-fired plants to meet Europe's growing energy needs. Building coal-fired plants will ensure that coal will for many decades play a prominent role in EU energy supply. And if coal has a big future in Europe, then it is safe to say that it has a big future everywhere. Thus emissions reductions from the power generation sector will all but certainly now depend up the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, a technology that is not yet in wide deployment. Like it or not, a winner has been picked.
Here is an excerpt from coverage by European Voice:
New coal-fired power stations must have technology to capture and store their carbon emissions from 2015, the European Parliament's environment committee voted today.
Chris Davies, the British Liberal MEP who steered the voted through the Parliament, said that his proposals would effectively prohibit coal-fired power stations without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. His proposal sets an emissions limit of 500 watts of CO2 per kilowatt hour from 2015. His report received strong backing from the committee, with 54 votes in favour, one against and six abstentions.
Earlier in the day the environment committee also voted to set up a €10 billion fund to kick-start the development of CCS, to be financed through the proceeds of selling pollution permits under Europe's emissions-trading scheme. In March 2007, EU leaders pledged to build 12 CCS demonstration sites by 2020, but have so far not produced serious plans or money to do so.
Davies said that the Parliament had thrown down a challenge to the Council of Ministers. "EU governments must now either back this proposal to kick-start CCS development or produce a realistic alternative. At present the ideas from the Parliament are the only show in town."
This is exciting! With the announcement of the Vattenfall 30mw CCS plant in Spremburg going online early last month, the EU is set to break the deadlock over this issue once and for all. Maybe now that a "winner has been picked", as you say, then the format wars of speculation over how and when and where will dissolve away. Of course, instead of leading we will be following, but for a country that can't make up its mind left or right this is perhaps the best place for us to be, in step behind a smart international standard.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/21397/
Posted by: Tyler Burton at October 8, 2008 10:57 PM