A group of Midwestern governors signed on to a greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan. They propose to reduce emissions by 60-80% of 1990 levels by 2050. Details of the cap and trade program have not yet been determined. In the last post, I mentioned that all of the Midwestern states attended the meeting. Only IA, IL, KS, MI, MN, WI, and Manitoba signed the agreement however.
The governors also signed an “energy security and climate stewardship platform”. This calls for, inter alia, a regional regulatory framework for carbon capture and storage (CCS) by 2010, including capture, injection, monitoring, verification, and liability issues. By 2012, a multi-jurisdictional CO2 pipeline should be permitted. Eight coal-fueled facilities with CCS should be built by 2015: three IGCC using bituminous coal, two using sub-bituminous coal, two using lignite, and one post-combustion carbon capture facility at a pulverized coal plant. The governors also committed to having all new coal-fueled power plants employing CCS by 2020. This would result in a complete phase out of coal-fueled power plants not employing CCS by 2050.