Climate Ark has a pair of stories from the past couple of days boosting CCS (carbon capture and sequestration), showing again that bad ideas don't always go away on their own.

Most recent, from Reuters, is a report that Europe intends to invest heavily to help China, then India and others, to develop CCS technology.

The European Union will start a consultation process on how finance and technology should be delivered to China and later India. This could be critical in securing their commitment to a new global deal on climate change at talks in Copenhagen in December. "China builds, every year, as much coal-fired power plant as the entire UK generating capacity," said a report prepared for consultations with industry and seen by Reuters on Friday. "Unless a way can be found of making this climate-compatible, we can never meet our climate objectives, regardless of what action we take in Europe," it added. While the technologies exist, utilities are reluctant to build CCS power stations without public funding because the CCS component adds over $1 billion to the cost of each plant. But most environmentalists oppose spending public money on the technology, saying it is untested and utilities already make massive profits while driving the planet towards irreversible climate damage.

  I have to wonder about Pete Harrison, the writer. Environmentalists oppose public money for CCS because "... utilities already make massive profits ..."? WTF? Environmentalists don't have it out for the utilities. We want a solution, since no matter who profits, we all benefit. The issue here is whether CCS works, and so far, there's no reason to think it will. And all the investment that chases this chimera won't be available to develop sustainable alternatives.

Meanwhile, re. the report itself, it projects that almost 60 percent of CO2 emissions from the power section will be sequestered by 2050, compared with virtually none today. It's the first time I've seen anything stated even remotely like that.

Next up is a dispatch on an MIT Energy Initiative report, released in Washington on Friday, that says "the U.S. should create a multibillion dollar program to prove that carbon-dioxide from the nation’s coal-fired power plants can be captured," as summarized by Bloomberg.

So, it still has to be proven? Take that, EU. But also, the story goes on to say that the the Energy Initiative is a research partnership with energy companies including BP Plc and Siemens AG, which, to me, discolors any findings — this isn't pure academic research; it was funded, and no doubt guided, by industry. The report's forward, written by utility executive Wayne Leonard, gives the rationale:

“If we are to sustain an effective climate program and grow our economy, we can’t kill coal; we have to save it,” Leonard, co-chairman of the symposium.

OK, then; I get it. If I was bent on saving coal, I would grasp toward CCS, too, if I was invested in coal, even if I had no proof it would solve the problem.

The difference is, I'm not bent on saving coal. I'm bent on leaving it behind. There is no part of coal — the mining, the environmental despoiling, the burning — that's part of a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable future. 

Re. the headline: You may recognize it as a lyric by Sting, from the '80s. His reference was nuclear, not carbon dioxide, but it fits quite neatly.