Seems like we are approaching a consensus that burning coal with CCS is not a feasible source of electricity. If you consider the externalities from mining and burning in addition to the 80% CSS price hike, coal doesn’t sound very appealing does it? It is important to dedicate some funding for research, but true renewables and conservation keep on providing the best solution to our energy needs.

Having mostly received private R&D money for the past 40 years, solar, wind, geothermal, conservation and wave technologies are already competitive with most other energy sources once climate mitigation measures are taken into account. It is about time that we fully fund R&D for renewables and conservation, imagine where we would be now had we anticipated the problem as some people advocated more than three decades ago.