IEA Report: More than a trillion dollars needed to "decarbonise" coal in the next 40 years

A new report by the International Energy Agency released today concludes that we will need to invest well over $1 trillion in the next 40 years to make coal-fired generation plants climate friendly.

The report's lead author, Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, states that:

Even if there was a will to drum up the trillion-plus in funds, the technology is far from proven. The IEA report states that "if clean-energy technologies – like 'clean-coal power plants that would bury CO2 emissions underground – don’t develop as smoothly as optimists hope, the cost of cutting emissions could be a lot higher: think $500 per ton [of C02]."

Unfortunately, at this point there is very little optimism around the possible deployment of commercial-scale CCS in the near furture. A recent report by Greenpeace International on the future of CCS concludes that:

Other studies back the Greenpeace report findings. A 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study, The Future of Coal, concludes that the first commercial CCS plant won't be on stream until 2030 at the earliest.

Scientists tell us we are in desperate times and drastic cuts to our carbon emissions need to begin immediately. With proven economically viable renewable technologies already being deployed on a commercial scale around the world, Carbon Capture and Storage seems more like a fool's errand than an answer to the climate crisis.