China faces massive bill for clean coal

And given they are building one humongous coal-fired power station every week for the next god-knows-how-long, it’s only going to get bigger. I wonder how this will affect their enthusiasm for legally binding emissions targets at Copenhagen?

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.
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While China is developing pilot projects for carbon capture, it has balked at throwing full support behind the technology.

“Carbon capture and storage, particularly for China, is not one of the priorities — the cost is an issue,” Su Wei, director-general of the climate-change unit at China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said in an Aug. 4 telephone interview from Beijing.

The cost of adding the devices would undercut China’s “non-negotiable desire for cheap power to fuel economic development,” according to the report.

At least they have their priorities right, unlike most Western governments…

Read it here.