Carbon Capture and Sequestration Strikes Out in Europe

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the removal  of carbon dioxide from air pollution emissions and its storage  underground, is widely lauded as the means by which we can continue to burn coal without causing the earth's climate to warm.  It has proven difficult to do on a large scale, though, which calls its feasibility into question.   Guardian (U.K.) reports that a competition by the  European Union to find a CCS process to fund with  275 million euros resulted in no one who could propose an viable project. You can see the story here.

There are serious questions about whether CCS is a practical control technique, and important  legal issues to be resolved as well.  It is not clear who is responsible if the gas migrates or escapes, if there are seismic events triggered, etc.  The West Virginia Legislature formed a Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Working Group to look at these issues,  and it issued a report in July of 2011.  I don't think anything has happened with the report since that time.

Carbon capture has been promoted by some as BACT (Best Available Control Technology) that should be imposed on power plants and other sources of carbon dioxide.  One can question whether it is even needed, in light of the planet's failure to warm in the last 15 years, even as carbon dioxide levels rise.