In a letter to British newspaper The Guardian, British energy and climate minister Chris Huhne insisted that he is still considering an Emission Performance Standard (EPS) for CO2, contrary to a media report published by the newspaper on August 16 which suggested the government was abandoning the idea.

The Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) research staff have prepared an informative and up-to-date summary of Emissions Performance Standards (EPS) that have been adopted by various states in the United States, entitled “Emission Performance Standards in Selected States”.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on August 11th his decision to award $21.3 million (€16.5 million) to 15 projects to develop technologies aimed at safely and economically storing carbon dioxide in geologic formations. According to Chu, this funding decision is part of the US administration’s commitment to ‘lead the world in carbon capture and storage technology’.

US president Obama’s ’Interagency Task Force on CCS’ delivered on August 12 a report describing a series of recommendations to the president on overcoming the barriers to the ’widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years’. According to the report a price on carbon as well as public funding are key towards achieving timely commercial viability of CCS.

A fresh report from the Wupperthal institute carried out for the German ministry of environment confirms that CCS in Germany should focus more on curbing emissions from industry and biomass, as opposed to on coal-fired power plants only.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin announced on August 5th the awarding of $1 billion (€750 million) in Recovery Act funding to the FutureGen alliance for the implementation of a pioneering CO2 capture and storage (CCS) project in Illinois using oxy-combustion technology. This move aims to establish the US as ‘a leading player in an important part of the global clean energy economy’.