Europe Continues to Put Money Behind Carbon Capture

Good news on the potential of Carbon Capture going mainstream…this week, European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said that he would support giving billions of euros of public funding from the European Union's emissions trading program for power stations to trap and bury carbon dioxide in the battle against climate change.

This is a big step forward because public funding is critical to ensure the success of this technology. New techniques to pump carbon dioxide underground are regarded as a way to cut down on climate-changing emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are proliferating around the world. But utilities are reluctant to build carbon capture and storage power stations without public funding because the technology adds about €1 billion extra to each plant's cost and reduces output.

Two E.U. lawmakers, Chris Davies and Avril Doyle, have proposed using about €10 billion ($12.9 billion) from the European Union's flagship Emission Trading Scheme to get 12 demonstration plants up and running by 2015.

The European Commission's environment directorate previously has opposed the idea of funding carbon capture and storage from the Emission Trading Scheme's New Entrants Reserve, a fund set aside for new installations joining the scheme. Perhaps with the election behind us and President-elect Obama on deck to take the helm in the oval office, the EU is predicting a new era in environmentalism.