John McCain and Barack Obama both like to give lovin’ to “clean coal” — but how much would they be willing to pony up for it? In a new report, the International Energy Agency, assuming that we continue to head into a fossil-fuel-powered future, says that the world needs to invest some $20 billion in carbon capture and storage in the next decade in order to reduce emissions to the extent touted by the G8. Twenty full-scale projects able to grab carbon and hide it away must be running by 2020, declares the report, and a jaw-dropping 10,000 must be up and running by 2050. Meanwhile, in the present, only four pilot projects exist, none of which are at coal plants. The U.S., for its part, axed funding for its only planned large-scale carbon capture project, calling it too expensive. So, uh, anybody have a better idea?
