Dive Brief:
- The outgoing leftist government of Norway has dropped plans for a large-scale project to capture carbon dioxide emissions, citing "substantial cost increases."
- The project at the Mongstad natural gas plant was also the victim of low prices for carbon dioxide in Europe.
- Norway's outgoing Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg had made the CO2 project a priority in 2007, comparing it to a "Moon landing."
- The government said it will maintain a research center to test carbon capture technologies.
Dive Insight:
The move by Norway cannot be good news for the U.S. Just last Friday, Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, touted "technologies that are currently entering the market and being constructed today" when she unveiled the administration's plans to curb CO2 emissions from new coal and natural gas power plants.