In a nutshell: How CO2 hysteria can cost big money, divert funds from real alternative energy research, and result in MORE coal being burned

Canada Dumps Vital Renewable Energy Incentives for “Clean” Coal | SolveClimate.com

Canada's Conservative government released a federal budget last week that would kill off the country's main program for developing renewables and channel most of the money from a new "Green Infrastructure Fund" into carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, or so-called "clean" coal.

The new fund, worth a modest $1 billion over five years, includes $150 million for research and $850 million for the development and demonstration of "promising" technologies.

Most of that sum, however, is pork money that will go into a chancy project in Saskatchewan that seeks to retrofit an existing coal plant with carbon capture technology, the Toronto Star reports. The plant will remove a small fraction of CO2 from the facility and eat up 25 percent of the energy produced by the generating unit to do it. Meaning: More coal will have to be burned to get the same wattage out.

Looks like it's business as usual in Ottawa. This passage from Toronto Star reporter Peter Gorrie just about says it all:

The government and the oil industry like the fact that carbon capture lets them seem to be doing something leading edge about climate change while carrying on business as usual. It might never work, and the experiments will take years, but meanwhile, profits will flow, as will subsidies for the tests.