While rapidly increasing intentions for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the world is facing serious friction with another trend: the need for new power capacity. This trend is obvious in ‘newly industrialised countries’ (NICs) like China and India, but it is also visible within the EU. As China and India will definitely prefer coal as a cheap domestically sourced fuel for their new capacity, richer countries are now struggling with a dilemma. Should they build coal power stations or do we spend extra on renewables or other low carbon technologies (and at a later stage show the NICs how this can be done)?

From the US to the Netherlands, many governments are now deliberating how to deal with their own plans for new power stations. CCS could provide one way out of this dilemma. You could build your coal power plants and still be low on carbon emissions!

NGOs criticise CCS for not being really sustainable, but others see the technology as one of the solutions to the paradox of economic growth and emissions reduction. In the last few months, the EU hurried into plans to build at least twelve large demonstration CCS plants before 2015. National governments are competing with each other or organising competitions within their own countries (like the UK), project developers are proposing new projects, and US power generators are preparing for federal decisions in this matter.

Although technically incorrect, politicians seem to have an idealistic vision in mind of the ‘power plant without a chimney’. Please don’t awake them from this dream. History has proven that technical developments can speed up a lot if they are driven by the large majority of stakeholders. Look for instance at the global phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons in the Montreal Protocol, saving the ozone layer: it did not take twenty years!

CCS is rapidly gaining critical mass. While even experienced researchers have their reserves, the first large-scale power plants with CCS are expected be built within a few years. The IPCC report of next week will probably tell us we don’t have decades to curb emissions, so we are in a hurry. Industrialised countries only have a few years left to teach the trick to developing countries.

But meanwhile, let us not forget that - in the end - only real sustainable energies matter. Investing in CCS may not be at the cost of renewable energy. That may sound a bit naïve, but solving the climate problem will require both CCS and renewables. So let’s organise the renewables rat race as well.

Rolf de Vos

Editor in chief