EU summit set to agree carbon capture projects
Source: Reuters
By
Jeremy Lovell
LONDON, March 2 (Reuters) - European Union leaders will approve a series
of carbon capture and storage projects at a summit next week in the search for
quick solutions to the global warming crisis, an official said on Friday.
With fossil fuels like coal expected to continue to play a major role in
power generation, world leaders and scientists are seeking ways to cut the
resulting greenhouse gas emissions -- including capturing the carbon before it
enters the atmosphere.
"We will announce a major programme of commercial scale demonstrations of
the technology that allows you to bury the carbon emissions from burning coal in
the ground for millions of years," said a senior British Foreign Office official
who asked not to be named.
"The challenge is to demonstrate the technologies at scale so we can
reduce the cost of them and bring them rapidly into widespread use," he said,
noting a European Commission proposal for 12 such projects expected to be
approved by the summit.
Power generation produces around one-third of greenhouse gas emissions
that scientists say will raise global temperatures by between 1.8 and 4.0
degrees Celsius this century, bringing floods, famines and putting millions of
lives at risk.
Although coal is one of the dirtiest fuels, it is so abundant it is
expected to remain prevalent for generations. China, for example, is building a
coal-fired power station every week to fuel its 10-percent-a-year economic
growth.
While there are doubts about carbon capture and storage because of the
need to find enough geological structures like old oil fields to hold the
gasses, politicians like the idea because it would mean business can continue as
usual.
The Foreign Office official said the projects would be spread around
Europe -- and also maybe in places like China -- to ensure wide corporate,
scientific and political cooperation.
The hope is they will have produced results by 2015, and that by 2020 all
new coal- and gas-fuelled power stations in Europe would have to be fitted with
the technology.
"My sense ... is that there is now a political consensus across Europe
that we have to do this," the official said.
"If you haven't got a coal strategy you haven't got a climate strategy
and that is understood at a political level."
The March 8-9 EU summit in Brussels will also agree to cut EU carbon
emissions by 20 percent by 2020 -- or up to 30 percent if there is wider
participation -- and aim to get 20 percent of all electricity from renewable
sources by that date.
The leaders will agree to reduce overall energy consumption by 20 percent
through increased energy efficiency and that 10 percent of all road fuels should
be biofuels -- also by 2020.
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft)
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