With the conference in Copenhagen swiftly approaching, and the Senate analog to the Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act" struggling towards the floor, little doubt remains that fossil fuel-burning power plants will soon face either fines for, or mandatory reduction of, carbon emissions. Luckily, a team at MIT has devised a power plant set up that generates power from fossil fuels, but does so with almost none of the carbon emissions.
The only drawback is the price, at least for now. If a pricing scheme similar to the cap-and-trade system in the Waxman-Markey bill enters into law, the cost of burning coal or natural gas for energy will exceed the cost per kilowatt hour of the MIT-designed solid oxide fuel plant.
Obviously, none of these plants have been built yet, but a prototype plant will go online in 2012, and the MIT plan utilizes only technology that already exists on the market. Considering today was a 60 degree day in New York City, in December, maybe those MIT boys need to work a little faster.
[MIT]
Very interesting article, but at the end Stuart (the writer) shows his bias and attempts at deceiving the reader. The truth is, the high temp for today in NYC is 51 degrees Celsius (not 60) which falls into the average according to weather.com. Considering Houston, TX is getting ready to experience it earliest snow fall in recorded history and the whole "Climategate" scandal that's going on, the MIT boys don't need to speed anything up. Anyone with basic Physical Science knowledge knows that through out history the planet has warmed up (much warmer than we are now) and cooled down (ice ages). Though this discovery by the MIT boys is wonderful, and we should be good stewards of our planet; the whole man made global warming thing is, now more than ever, truly a farce.