Carbon Recapture???

Norway decides it's too expensive....

Norway's left-centre government was under attack Tuesday after it admitted that it was breaking a deal to store carbon set to be captured at a new gas power plant at Mongstad.

The recaptured carbon will be released, because the government decided that it's too expensive to store as originally agreed.

Oil and Energy Minister Åslaug Haga confirmed to newspaper Aftenposten that an agreement the government had with Mongstad partners StatoilHydro, Dong Energy, Shell and Vattenfall was being amended.

The agreement had stated that a test plant due to be operational when the power plant opens in 2010 would recapture 100,000 tons of carbon a year, and that the recaptured carbon dioxide "shall not be emitted into the atmosphere."

Now it's been revealed that the test plant won't be finished until 2011, and that the carbon recaptured won't be stored.

Full-scale carbon recapture and storage for the entire gas power plant at Mongstad won't be operational until 2014.

The carbon storage process proved to be more complicated and more than twice as expensive as planned, Haga said. "We have chosen to use the time needed... to ensure that we carry this out responsibly," she added. She insisted a capture and storage program will eventually be in place.