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The price tag for cleaner coal
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) asked experts several questions about trapping and storing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, a technology he supports.
They got back to him, and a report Dorgan released yesterday summarizes their findings. A big one: total investment of $110 billion to $450 billion is needed over 25 years to develop and deploy carbon capture and sequestration.
The money is split between R&D, demonstration programs, and support for “first movers” and early adopters of the technology. The estimates obviously varied by a few hundred billion, but the report notes there is “some consistency in the orders of magnitude of the proposed funding and timelines.”
Check out page 37 to see what various groups recommend. Experts included industry-backed groups such as the Coal Utilization Research Council and Electric Power Research Institute, but also environmentalists (the Natural Resources Defense Council) and others.
Dorgan chairs the subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee that oversees the Energy Department budget. He’s also a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
