And as an aside, they are also sayign that carbon capture will never make any kind of sense.

And it's not me saying it, but ExxonMobil

It's interesting to see my intuition that CCS is bollocks, confirmed by such treehuggers.

Mind you, pricing carbon in CO2 rather than in energy is bollocks as well.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

1. US dollar cents or EUro-cents?
   
2. kWhr... it's like "kph" for km/h. Why can't American companies and government organs get SI unit acronyms right even in official releases?

I'm supposed to be on a panel for Coal Week here talking about renewables. The coal folks have been pushing this idea of clean coal. I'm definitely going to yank this for when I talk.

I wonder whether they are including the carbon costs of production (digging/pumping it out of the ground, transport, etc) as well as use in electric plants (the actual emissions from burning)?

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

However, wouldn't that imply that, at some point in the next few years, the price of gas will have to de-couple from that of oil in order to remain competitive. Yet who might initiate such a thing, as it would not be in the producer state's interests to do so.

It also puts the UK's continued insitence on the Dash for Gas in an interesting light.

keep to the Fen Causeway

The graph shows a range of electricity price using gas of 5 - 7.5 cents/kWh.

1m² of natural gas (methane) contains ~10kWh of energy and the power plant is 40% efficient, so 1m² gives 4kWh of electricity. That means the estimated price of producing electricity by gas is 20-30cents/m² of gas. Note that this is the cost to the power plant operator per m² consumed, which means the price of gas + running costs.

A quick googling shows that the price of Russian
 gas in Dec. 2009 was ~23cents/m² .

I don't know if the gas fired power plant efficiency is realistic but if you use the expected price increase from $30/ton CO₂ you get a figure for the efficiency about 40% (but the error bars are too big to fit into the comment box).

For coal the price range is 7-9cents/kWh. High-quality coal contains ~9kWh/kg. Again with 40% efficiency that translates into 2.5-3.2cents per kg of coal ($25-32/ton), again neglecting non-fuel costs in production.

Real capricorns don't believe in astrology.

Daily energy use: the 3 bars are hosuehold use, personal vehicles, and indirect use.

The most amazing (as in: different from everybody else) one is the size of the personal vehicle related consumption in North America.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes