The Obama administration is moving ahead with the development of the "clean coal" technology of carbon capture and storage, even though experts say that the technology's high costs will prevent it from being widely adopted for decades. Carbon capture and storage requires that carbon dioxide emissions be captured in the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants and factories, and then converted into a liquid and pumped into reservoirs deep in the earth.
"I won't be surprised if we have some of these [systems] in place in the 2020 to 2030 decade, but ... it's going to be on the margins, just because it costs so much" [Reuters]
, says energy consultant Bill Durbin. In 2008 the Bush administration canceled the flagship clean coal project, called FutureGen, which called for the construction of a near zero-emissions coal power plant that would test carbon capture and storage technology. The project's costs had escalated ...
