Clean coal test traps 95 percent carbon: Norway firm

"It's a breakthrough for us," Henrik Fleischer, chief executive of Sargas technology group, said of tests held since October of a prototype at the Vartan power plant, run by Finnish energy group Fortum (FUM1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) in Stockholm.

"A competitive coal-fired power plant with carbon dioxide capture could be built today with this technology," he told Reuters. "It could produce energy at competitive costs."

Many firms are seeking to strip heat-trapping carbon dioxide from burning coal to help nations including the United States and China, the top greenhouse gas emitters, to cut back.

Industries say they would need subsidies for any "clean coal" technology.

Tests by Sargas' five-meter (16 ft) high system of pressurized filters, absorbers and condensers at Vartan -- processing 60 kg (130 lb) of exhaust gases an hour -- are capturing 95 percent of carbon dioxide, Fleischer said.

"This is a complex type of installation and it's good to know it works," he said. The system relies on existing technology adapted from the chemicals industry and would have to be 40 meters tall to work at full scale.

Fleischer said that the capture process costs just under $20 a tonne of carbon dioxide and that companies would need government help for storage -- perhaps by pumping the gas into offshore oilfields to raise pressure and extract more oil.

RISING SEAS

In the European Union market, prices of carbon dioxide emissions permits are about 22.7 euros ($33.30) for delivery in December 2008. Greenhouse gases are almost universally blamed by scientists for stoking warming that could bring more heatwaves, floods and rising seas.