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“Mounting Costs Slow the Push for Clean Coal”

May 30th, 2008

According to today’s New York Times “it has become clear in recent months that the nation’s effort to develop the technique is lagging badly.” The effort to use abundant and cheap coal in a cleaner gasified form and capture the resulting carbon may come too late to be useful in the push to decrease greenhouse gas emissions:

“Coal’s had a tough year,” said John Lavelle, head of a business at General Electric that makes equipment for processing coal into a form from which carbon can be captured. Many of these projects were derailed by the short-term pressure of rising construction costs. But scientists say the result, unless the situation can be turned around, will be a long-term disaster.

…only a handful of small projects survive, and the recent cancellations mean that most of this work has come to a halt, raising doubts that the technique can be ready any time in the next few decades. And without it, “we’re not going to have much of a chance for stabilizing the climate,” said John Thompson, who oversees work on the issue for the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group.

Entry Filed under: Energy & Environment