Dive Summary:

• Despite critics questioning the viability of commercial-scale carbon capture technology, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz touted its value to U.S. energy security and environmental safety in a speech at the Energy Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory in West Virginia.
• Coal and other fossil fuels will be “a major part of our energy future for decades,” Moniz said. Therefore “any serious effort to protect our kids from the worst effects of climate change must also include developing, demonstrating, and deploying the technologies to use our abundant fossil fuel resources as cleanly as possible,” Moniz said.
• But critics point to the Energy Department's struggling flagship FutureGen 2.0 demonstration project as reason to temper investment in carbon capture. July 1, the Obama Administration announced $8 billion in Energy Department loan guarantees for carbon capture and related projects.

From the article:

“Coal and other fossil fuels provide 80 percent of the country's energy and 70 percent of its electricity, according to Moniz.”