Will carbon capture work?

1 ANSWERS

1. Amit bang
   

   The UK government has given a massive boost to world ambitions to develop clean-coal technology. It announced a decision that will herald a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the UK - but all of them will have to have their CO2 emissions partially captured by cutting-edge technology.
   
   Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has finally come of age. After years of skulking in the shadows of disbelief it is about to claim its place in the sun.
   
   CCS has been championed by industries who stand to gain from it and by a few greens who reasoned it was the only technology which allowed China and India to burn the black stuff under their feet without sending emissions spiralling even higher.
   
   It was distrusted by many mainstream environmentalists who saw it is a dangerous diversion from cleaner, renewable technologies.
   
   Those fears have not completely evaporated - but it was significant to see green groups congratulating the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, for his leadership and vision, whilst harbouring residual doubts.
   
   The CCS announcement was historic. Looking through the archive, I heard a TV reporter in 1969 intone that Drax in North Yorkshire might be the last coal power station to be built in the UK, as nuclear became the fuel of the future. And no new coal power station has been commissioned in Britain for more than 30 years.
   
   Most energy experts now agree that coal has to play a part in securing energy diversity - especially with the intermittency of wind and uncertainty of nuclear new-build.
   
   Building conventional coal stations would torch the UK's climate targets - so carbon capture was the only way out.
   
   That solution was foreseen by few people in government five years ago. It has taken an impending crisis in energy and climate to focus minds on the need to fund the technology, probably with a direct levy of a few percent on bills, and - crucially - to insist that it is fitted.

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