Peabody to Fund Carbon-Capture Start-Up?
NEW YORK (
) -- Coal company
Peabody Energy
(BTU) - Get Report
is expected to announce its decision to invest in energy start-up company
Calera
this week, according to the
New York Times
.
Calera's claim to fame is that is has developed technology converting most of the carbon dioxide emission from a coal or gas-fired power plant into calcium carbonate, which can then be prepared for use in wall or highway construction.
If Calera can replicate this process on a grander scale, companies could ultimately do away with costly carbon-sequestration systems that would need to be built next to these power plants, "and it might actually make the heretofore specious notion of 'clean coal' a possibility,"
Times'
columnist Thomas Friedman writes.
Calera is currently the pet project of Vinod Khosla, co-founder of
Oracle's
(ORCL) - Get Report
Sun Microsystems, and an avid supporter of clean energy start-up companies,
the Times reports.
"If this works," Khosla said, "coal-fired power would become more than 100% clean. Not only would it not emit any CO2, but by producing clean water and cement as a byproduct, it would also be taking all of the CO2 that goes into making those products out of the atmosphere."
Peabody stock is up 0.6% at $49.50 in pre-market trading.
-- Reported by Andrea Tse in New York
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