High Costs Put Clean Coal on Back Burner

Ambitious plans to combat global warming by pumping carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants into the ground have been delayed or canned due to spiraling costs, the New York Times reports. Scientists now fear that the next generation of coal-burning plants will be built using old, emission-spewing technology, spelling disaster for the climate.

A project to build a flagship plant in Illinois to test the latest coal-burning techniques lost its government backing in January after costs doubled to $1.8 billion. A few smaller projects have survived, but with the estimated 15 years it takes to get such plants up and running, the concern is that the carbon-capturing operations won't be ready when they're urgently needed. (More climate change stories.)