Energy and Climate package: CO2 capture and storage

This paper first highlights the importance of the development of the carbon capture and storage technology to enable the use of fossil energies, notably by emerging economies where the demand in primary energy is strongly growing. It also identifies the key issues for the transition from a demonstration phase to a commercial phase in Europe: technical issues, cost reduction, authorization processes, responsibility issues, social agreement. Then, the author comments the content of the UE 'Climate' package with respect to this carbon capture and storage perspective: the directive project defines the operator's responsibility, economical incentives are defined in the 'quotas' directive. He also comments issues which are still being discussed: debate on emission performance of plants, financial incentives for a large scale implementation