NORWAY’S “CLEAN” COAL PROBLEMS

...investment in carbon capture faces delays
May 11, 2010 (Business Report)

"…[T]he Mongstad gas-fired power station on the west coast of Norway could be the world's first commercial-scale CCS site…[but the] Norwegian government recently said it would postpone an investment decision at Mongstad until 2014, which could push CCS operations off to 2018.

"The Oslo government has said the project is too complex to do on schedule, raising the ire of those who see CCS as one of several actions necessary to mitigate global carbon emissions, and annoying citizens after hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on the exercise."

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"It's not the only bad press CCS has received recently…[A] research paper from two Texan engineering academics claimed that the value of CCS had been overestimated as the space needed to store carbon dioxide had been underestimated…They claimed its worth was based on the wrong premise that pressure feeding carbon into rock structures would be constant.

"…[T]he deal-breaker is that the costs of CCS remain astronomical. A Harvard study last year put the costs of carbon abatement in 2008 prices at $150 (R1 116) per ton of carbon dioxide avoided, excluding transport and storage costs."