Europe’s $14 Billion Clean-Coal Proposal May Go Up in Smoke

A European proposal to spend 11 billion euros ($14 billion) testing how to pump greenhouse gases underground is itself getting buried.

The plan to subsidize 12 pilot plants that capture and store carbon dioxide blamed for global warming won initial approval by a European Parliament committee on Oct. 7. Germany, Spain, Poland and at least three more countries have since decided to oppose the project, officials said in interviews. Chris Davies of the U.K., who sponsored the proposal in parliament, said it needs to be changed to win a final vote that’s not yet scheduled.
At stake is the world’s most ambitious research project to demonstrate that coal-burning, CO2-spewing power generators can run without releasing gases that warm the planet. Experimental “carbon-capture” technology is vital to the United Nation’s goal to halve global emissions by 2050, said Kamel Bennaceur of the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

“It’s critical that the world commits to 20 demonstration plants by 2010,” Bennaceur, a senior energy analyst at the policy adviser to the largest oil-importing nations, said in an interview yesterday. “Of those, 10 to 12 would be from Europe.”

Spain and Denmark oppose the plan, saying it would invest too much in carbon capture and that proven technologies such as solar power and hybrid cars deserve more incentives.

Killing the subsidy plan may delay the pilot projects as developers would find it harder to secure funding from individual governments of the 27-nation EU.

Bloomberg