Energy Efficiency All Grown Up

摘要

Clean-coal investment has been stalled by significant uncertainty across all major aspects of the investment decision:rn1. Unclear timing of clean-coal technology commercialization,rn2. Economic dependence on market prices for energy commodities,rn3. Volatility in the relative economic position of IGCC andrnpulverized-coal plants compared with natural gas plants,rn4. Trade-offs between lower CCS costs and higher upfront capitalrnrequirements,rn5. Commercialization of existing coal-plant retrofits vs. new builds,rnandrn6. A significant number of CCS legal and regulatory hurdles thatrnmust be addressed before investors will become comfortablernfunding an asset that otherwise could become a large liability.