Sweden's Vattenfall abandons research on CO2 storage

[GliderGuider]

Sweden's Vattenfall abandons research on CO2 storage

Swedish energy giant Vattenfall said Tuesday that it had given up its research on CO2 capture and storage, intended to make the company's coal power plants greener.

Capturing and liquifying CO2 coming from carbon combustion to later store it underground was meant to curb greenhouse effect gas emissions, but its costs and the energy it requires make the technology unviable.

These difficulties had already forced Vattenfall to give up in 2011 a large project at a pilot plant in Jaenschwalde, in eastern Germany.

But Tuesday, the group said that CCS was not among its priorities anymore.

"We are evaluating our research portfolio in order to invest in R&D projects which can contribute more quickly to our business development," Research and Development Nordic head Karl Bergman said.

So the fate of the planet isn't a priority for them Got it. Now what?

[phantom power]

1. We emit 10 giga-tons of CO2 per year. The idea of capturing that was always a joke.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. They're being realistic. CCS is just plain impractical. nt

[GliderGuider]

3. CCS was always a pipe dream.

The intensity of the hype around such a chimera is a clear signal that there just isn't anything else.

[Nihil]

4. "but its costs and the energy it requires make the technology unviable"

Doubt that will stop the techno-utopians who will continue to tout CCS as if it were a solution
rather than a charade.

[GliderGuider]

5. It won't of course,

But the rest of us won't be too surprised when the whole CCS house of cards collapses and CO2 keeps pouring into the atmosphere.

It is what it is.