“Unfortunately, few in the energy industry believe these deadlines are remotely achievable. A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called The Future of Coal, published last year, suggests that the first commercial CCS plants won’t be on stream until 2030 at the earliest. Thomas Kuhn of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents most US power generators, half of whose fuel is coal, takes a similar line. In September, he told a House Select Committee that commercial deployment of CCS for emissions from large coal-burning power stations will require 25 years of R&D and cost about $20 billion.
The energy company Shell, though enthusiastic about the technology, doesn’t foresee CCS being in widespread use until 2050. Yet some governments appear oblivious to this. When Germany recently approved its new coal power stations, it stipulated that the plants must be compatible with any future carbon capture technology. The UK is likely to take the same approach if ministers, as expected, approve a new coal-fired station at Kingsnorth in Kent. However, these installations are likely to have reached the end of their useful lives before the technology arrives.”

It also says (perhaps even more depressingly):

“Add all this together, and what do we get? The most detailed published assessment, by Peter Viebahn of the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart, estimates that at best CCS will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations by little more than two-thirds. That compares with life-cycle emissions for most renewable energy technologies that are 1 to 4 per cent of those from burning coal.”

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