Capturing king coal: deploying carbon capture and storage systems in the U.S. at scale
This report aims to evaluate CCS in the context of climate stabilization wedges and the challenges and opportunities linked to its wide scale deployment. This report first examines the technologies that comprise CCS, exploring the state of development of each component technology and how mature the technology is, as well as who the early adopters in the market place are. It then turns to the policy structures that drive a transition to a low-carbon economy, examining both government "push' strategies such as research and development and market "pull' strategies which place a price on carbon. It also discusses key regulatory needs such as a legal framework around long-term storage and the thorny issue of public acceptability. The final section analyzes some of the resulting drivers for investment and argues that cost premiums on advanced coal technologies, escalating capital costs for coal plants in general, and the lack of technology performance guarantees will make the rapid scale-up of integrated CCS systems particularly challenging.