HAMM, Germany (Reuters) – RWE AG said on Friday it has selected the western German town of Huerth for a novel 450 megawatts brown coal fired power plant that will capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) and come on stream by late 2014. Reuters.

Posted by markjohnston

(Updated 29 Aug.) The date of the Environment Committee vote on the CO2 geological storage proposal has moved again. Earlier information indicating a switch from 25 September to 16 October was not confirmed by Parliament authorities. The latest information received is that a new date of 7 October (afternoon) is the most likely option. This… » read more

Posted by markjohnston

The European Economic & Social Committee plenary will adopt its opinion on aid for early CCS demonstration on 17 September.

Posted by markjohnston

Irish energy minister Eamon Ryan will launch a study of potential off-shore CO2 storage sites on 17 September. The work, based on existing data and also including Northern Ireland, will indentify a dozen geological sites that could be suitable. Sunday Times: Ireland locates offshore carbon storage sites.

Posted by markjohnston

Four major UK environmental groups, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, RSPB and WWF, recently made a “Joint Statement on Coal and Carbon Capture & Storage” placing five key demands on the UK government: focus on renewables and energy efficiency; introduce greenhouse gas emissions standards; introduce emission standards for existing plants from 2020; keep a clear… » read more

Posted by markjohnston

This EC press release, issued 23 July, is worth noting. The 16-July EFTA annoucement itself is here. In so far as I’m aware, this is the first state aid approval in EU & EEA for a CCS demonstration project (as opposed to pilot projects and other smaller-scale research activities). Next in the pipeline is the… » read more

Posted by markjohnston

Holidays’ over; back to work. The ENVI secretariat has this week posted an ordered & numbered version of all MEP amendments to the CO2 Geological Storage (GS) proposal on the committee’s pages, available here at point 7. Other language versions will appear over the next days and weeks, ahead of the debate in committee on… » read more

Posted by markjohnston