Technologies for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from sources like coal-fired power plants, and either reusing it or storing it so it will not enter the atmosphere, have been in development for over 20 years.
Carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS or CCS) solutions have proven to be expensive, however, and clean energy research and development has tended to focus on carbon-free renewable power generation, such as solar, wind, hydrogen, and hydropower.
The added expense of CCUS technology is particularly hard to justify for some power plants. A 2015 study by University of Michigan found that most economic analysis of CCUS technology for coal-fired power plants, “severely underestimates the technique’s costs and overestimates its energy efficiency.” The Michigan study found the cost of reducing carbon emissions with CCS-equipped coal plants was higher than wind and comparable to solar power.
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