Have you seen this on CCS: http://neftriplecrunch.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/not-enough-space-for-carbon-in-the-ground/

Which is the more urgent problem, runaway climate change or running out of coal? I think the answer is obvious, so I see no problem with the continued burning of fossil fuels for another generation or so, provided that it is mostly emission-free. Yes there’s a hefty energy efficiency penalty in capturing the CO2, but one that is likely to drop through practice as plants get implemented. Yes, for that reason and others CCS is forecast to be very expensive in its early days. But the unfortunate truth is that almost all low carbon energy is hideously expensive when developed to become a large part of total supply, and especially when you’re starting with an ageing entrenched conventional infrastructure. We need a massive increase in renewable deployment, particularly offshore, and in efficient energy use. But it won’t come cheap, and I would argue that providing the entire energy demand through such means would cost considerably more than the £7-9.5bn expected to be raised by the CCS levy to cover part of that load through centralised CCS. Furthermore, the oft-quoted outright dismissal of CCS on the grounds that it is “unproven” is faintly ridiculous. Constructing a 2MW wind turbine was unproven until someone built one. And then 3MW and now 5MW. Landing on the moon was unproven until the Apollo missions showed it to be possible. Drilling for oil in water 2km deep was unproven until the oil price (sadly) stimulated innovation to solve the technical challenges. So why rule out the much less technically-difficult CCS on those grounds when numerous pilot projects around the world are already operating perfectly well, burying around 7 million tonnes of CO2 per year in 2010? I understand that it’s an uncomfortable thought that we will bury ‘waste’ CO2 in the earth where one could imagine that it could escape. But most geologists agree that the chances of that are minuscule. We don’t get eruptions of natural gas from gas fields everytime there’s an earthquake. Again, runaway climate change is the most serious risk we face and a minutely unlikely leakage event pales into insignificance in that context.

And then there is the international picture. Coal is cheap, coal is plentiful, coal is located close to major anticipated centres of energy demand (US, China, India). So coal is being and will continue to be burnt in massive quantities and as a world we urgently need to do something about that. Major developing countries such as China will use the best available technology that is close to being cost effective. For example, China’s installed capacity of onshore wind turbines has more or less doubled every year for the past 5 years. They would do the same with CCS if it were closer to market effectiveness. But for now they just build unabated coal plant at a frightening rate. And this is not only true in the energy sector. There are currently precious few ideas for how to make steel and cement without burning fossil fuels. CCS could solve that in time. Therefore we in the richer developed nations have a clear moral obligation to play our part in bringing forward the technology by building large-scale demonstrations. Plus this is one way that we stand a fighting chance of maintaining some economic clout in the 21st century, selling clean technology to the majority world.

I agree that it’s a shame that CCS is inherently large scale and will help to maintain the greedy godforsaken corporate behemoths that control the current energy business. But for me, climate change is the worse evil and the role of CCS for tackling it is too important to ignore. I welcome the CCS levy and wish that whoever wins this year’s election will redouble the commitment to leading the world in this field.
[sorry that this a little less light-hearted than my usual stuff at lowcarbonara.wordpress.com , but I wanted to get it off my chest]

It will be interesting to compare this figure to the defence budget of the members of the security council over the same time frame…

I am reluctantly coming around to the point of view that in the medium-term (by which I mean the next few decades) we have no choice but to go for the nuclear option.

I think it is time for Ecohustler to address this question.