The Trump administration is telling the world that carbon capture and storage at power plants is not ready for prime time, delivering a major setback to a technology that’s struggling to find a foothold.
EPA proposed a repeal last week of the Biden administration’s climate rule on electricity producers, which called CCS the “best system of emission reduction” for long-running coal plants and new gas turbines.
In a new proposed rule, EPA said capturing 90 percent of carbon emissions at power plants hasn’t been “adequately demonstrated and its costs are not reasonable.” It’s “extremely unlikely that the infrastructure necessary for CCS can be deployed” by a 2032 compliance date set under the Biden rule, EPA said.
The Trump administration’s proposed rollback — which EPA touted in a news release Friday with more than 50 supportive quotes from lawmakers and trade groups — comes amid scant deployment to date of carbon capture projects on U.S. power generation. Fewer projects in the electricity sector could impede broader CCS efforts nationwide, whether they involve storing carbon dioxide underground or using it to pump out more oil and gas.
