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If a report released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency is correct, then the $2 billion committed by the Alberta government toward the development of carbon capture and storage is nothing more than a drop in the bucket. The IEA estimates it will cost as much as $10 trillion U.S. between 2010 and 2030 for the world to keep carbon dioxide emissions below 450 parts per million and temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. While that level of investment might be enough for even the most ardent climate change advocate to throw their hands up and surrender, there's a little bit of good news to be found in the report.

Two strong potential candidates for the Next Big Thing in cleantech venture capital are nuclear and carbon capture and storage. I've spoken with numerous VCs recently who are looking for innovative ways to play in nuclear power. Bets have already been made by VCs in small-scale nukes, hot fusion, and technologies related to big-scale nukes. The hope is to find a low-cost solution that is practically zero carbon emissions and also provides reliable "base load" power. So in other words, the hope is for a lower-carbon replacement for coal power. The challenges are also significant, however, not least of which being time to market for any new innovations, as this interesting article illustrates. With the recent news that the DOE will be putting $2.4B into carbon capture and storage, and its inclusion in emerging climate legislation, it's also clear that CCS will be leaned upon as a hoped-for way of making our existing coal-fired generation infrastructure less impactful on the atmosphere, while still preserving its value as low-cost baseload power. So in other words, the hope is for a lower-carbon "fix" for coal power.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) are possible, but the cost of doing so - both early on and even as the technology matures - is likely to be staggering, according to a study from Harvard University's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs.

BASF, RWE Power and the Linde Group agreed recently to develop a new processes for CO2 capture from combustion gases in coal-fired power plants. The collaboration will comprises the construction and operation of a pilot facility at the lignite-fired power plant of RWE Power AG in Niederaussem/Germany

U.S Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell today announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the first three large-scale carbon sequestration projects in the United States and the largest single set in the world to date.

"Shell, on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, a joint venture among Shell Canada (60 per cent), Chevron Canada Limited (20 per cent) and Marathon Oil Sands L.P. (20 per cent) has proposed a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. The Quest CCS Project would be based at Shell's Scotford Upgrader, located near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Commissioned in 2003, the Upgrader turns bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands into synthetic crude oil, most of which is turned into consumer products such as gasoline."

Siemens started working with Norwegian utility Statkraft earlier this year to develop a CO2 capture technology that suit the conditions and mode of operation of combined cycle plants.

Industrial greenhouse gases prevented from entering the atmosphere through the use of so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology are to be credited as not emitted under the EU emissions trading scheme, according to Commission plans to be put forward next year.

Blue Source is piping industrial carbon dioxide from a natural-gas processing plant in southeastern Colorado to an undisclosed oil producer that will, in turn, pump it into an aging oil field. The result should be increased crude production and a carbon-dioxide emissions reduction equivalent to taking 70,000 cars off the road.

Chemical reactions that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it in the form of solid rock inside geological formations could offset billions of tons of carbon-dioxide emissions each year