US government panel backs 'clean coal,' but with price on carbon

Aug 12, 2010, 21:47 GMT

Washington - A US government taskforce on Thursday backed a controversial technology that aims to make coal-fired power plants a clean energy source, but only if US lawmakers can agree to put a price on carbon.

The inter-agency taskforce ordered earlier this year by President Barack Obama found that carbon capture and storage (CCS) was a 'viable' technology and key to the United States' energy future.

CCS technology, which aims to capture polluting carbon dioxide emissions during a coal plant's combustion process, remains in its infancy. Some climate groups doubt whether CCS can ever succeed on a commercial scale and urge the US to move away from coal altogether.

Obama has already backed the technology with 4 billion dollars in government funds and set a deadline of 2016 for companies to bring on line between five and 10 commercial clean coal power plants.

'There are no insurmountable technical, legal, institutional or other barriers to the deployment of this technology,' Obama's taskforce found.

But the report said that forcing companies to pay for their carbon emissions was 'critical' to making CCS a realistic possibility.

Obama has long supported a cap-and-trade system, which would place an overall limit on carbon emissions blamed for global warming and allow cleaner and dirtier companies to trade pollution permits.

But the initiative has failed to garner enough support in the US Congress. Left-leaning Democrats from coal-producing states like West Virginia have opposed a cap-and-trade system, along with most conservative lawmakers.