Today Sen. Kerry chaired a hearing on geological carbon sequestration and introduced legislation to establish CCS demonstration projects.
The legislation provisions:
- Establish 3-5 commercial-scale sequestration facilities
- Establish 3-5 “first-of-a-kind” coal-fired demonstration plants with carbon capture
- Establish an interagency process to determine a regulatory framework for CCS
- Direct USGS to perform a capacity assessment of sequestration potential; establish an aggressive CCS R&D program at DOE
- Authorize technology sharing agreements with China, India and other coal-intensive developing countries.
At the hearing the consensus was that the federal government should invest not only in a few large-scale projects, but also a greater number of small-scale pilot tests, and in use-directed fundamental research. The EPRI representative emphasized the advantages of starting R&D investment before carbon emissions pricing kicks in, and promoted the work EPRI has done to study advanced coal technologies and CO2 capture and sequestration.