American Electric Power has pulled the plug on its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at its Mountaineer facility in West Virginia reports the New York Times — and we helped.
When we began campaigning against this project in August 2009, we asked:
Would you spend $670 million to maybe change the Earth’s temperature by an imperceptible 0.000092 degrees Celsius over the next 85 years?
In the end, state regulators refused to allow AEP to recoup the costs of this folly from ratepayers.
AEP bailed because, unlike a government, they have a finite budget, and the bottom line is not an insignificant matter to them. They can at least go back to the greenies and say “we tried, but it didn’t pay, now leave us alone.” For a few thou and some publicity they bought off the green wolf pack for a while.
Cost versus benefit. What a concept. Here’s another one – actual benefit cutoff value. If it ain’t bigger than the noise value, don’t do it. duh.