Dive Brief:

• The number of large-scale projects to capture and store carbon dioxide has dropped from 75 to 65 over the past year, according to a survey released Thursday by the Global CCS Institute, which is based in Canberra, Australia.
• The Institute found that "while CCS projects are progressing, the pace is well below the level required for CCS to make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation."
• The U.S. is the world's leader in CCS, the survey said, because of the use of the technology to produce oil, not to control carbon emissions from power plants.   

Dive Insight: 

All eyes in the U.S. are on the fate of Southern Company's 582-megawatt integrated-gasification combined cycle project in Kemper County, Mississippi, which is the only true commercial scale CCS project in the country. The project has been beset by labor problems, litigation and cost overruns. Just last week, Southern said the project's in-service date would be further delayed into 2014.