£8 billion for CCS?

Apparently the EU is meeting today to discuss a £8 billion subsidy to help get CCS off the ground.

This is needed - not for new R&D, but to bridge the difference between the cost of the running the plant and the income from the avoided carbon.

As the article says once the technology has been implemented at a few plants the costs will fall - so, if passed, this shouldn't be seen as an on going committment from the EU.
It would be a good thing.

Swings and roundabouts though. The greens have found a way of banning coal, and are trying to tack it on to this legislation. "A second amendment... would ban any power plant that emits more than 500g of carbon dioxide per kWh of electricity generated".
This will not only have the effect of stopping un-abated coal, but will stop all coal (there will be uncertainty over the reliability, at least to begin with, of the capture plant. If it stops working you will have to stop the power station - this means an uneconomic plant, so why build it?).
Simply everything will be replaced with gas, which falls under this threashold, has a low cost and is reliable.