China faces massive bill for clean coal

Western governments pushing China to use clean-coal technology may need to lower their expectations for the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases.

Costs will total as much as $US400 billion ($474 billion) over 30 years to install systems to capture carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks in China and bury it underground, said Richard Morse, a Stanford University research associate and author of a study on the technology. China has little incentive to invest because it will raise power prices and it’s unclear if wealthier nations will pick up the bill, Morse said in an interview.
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu and European nations have championed carbon capture for nations including China as vital to slowing global warming while keeping coal in the energy mix. China, the biggest producer of coal, gets about 80 per cent of its electricity from burning the fuel, which spews more heat- trapping gases than natural gas or oil.

“The idea that carbon capture has to happen in China is a western idea,” said Morse. Proposals by developed nations that seek Chinese cooperation ignore the “staggering” costs of clean-coal devices, Morse and colleagues said in the new report.

The Age