If you are looking at those figures and thinking coal is expensive, you should live in Texas. Down here in the land of deregulated power our rates are averaging higher than that now...Which could explain why they want to build a bunch of new coal plants down here. They actually pay for themselves.

  The problem here is that this yoyo is using cost figures today, before the technology is feasible. In fact, there are several sequestration  technologies and the goal is to cost 10%. Coal alone is quite cheap - not as cheap as nuclear, but a whole lot cheaper than wind, which has enormous side costs because of it non-dispatchable nature.

At current gas prices, you'd be better off with gas.  The price spike in Texas proves my point though - even with those massive increases in those states that have been particularly exposed to gas price in electric markets, the cost of new, clean air compliant coal still looks cheaper.

I disagree with your projection, only because the parasitic loads of carbon sequestration are thermodynamically immutable, and the technological pieces (compressors, etc.) aren't the type of equipment to see a huge price reduction with sufficient R&D.

But even if you're right, the point is moot, because even without sequestration, New Coal is really expensive.  And that cost isn't going anywhere but up as demand for new coal-generators in the developing world and over here is putting massive capex price pressure on the whole energy island.  (See the story about Duke's swelling capital budget in the $3000/kW link above.)  So even before we get to carbon mitigation, a path to coal is a path to huge increases in retail electric rates that will facilitate the deployment of competitive technologies that could obviate the need for the coal in the first place.  

Sequestration takes 20-30 of the power output to run the sequestration.   They just tell you the Sequestration goal is 10 percent as vaporware.  It makes it sound like sequestration is possible or that it's just around the corner.   The realities are different.  

Just how non-dispatchable is wind.   I was told that a new report in Minnesota showed that wind could take 25 percent of electrical power before any demand strategies have to be used.   Put in heat pumps up here, when the cold front comes in the wind really blows, it can go even further.  

Does wind have dispatchable costs, sure.   But we aren't charging for coals pollution.    

1) RE: thebike45  "Coal alone is quite cheap - not as cheap as nuclear..."
Nuclear isn't cheap in any sane way you look at it. Especially when you can't cool the damn thing, and especially when you factor in the post-operational costs.

2) RE: one point in the article
"But no one puts up the capital to build plants if they don't think they're going to get their capital back, along with some profit."

Honestly, our government has a pretty good track record of building while KNOWING they would never get the capital back. Look into the history of the Army Corps of Engineers, or the Bureau of Reclamation. Granted, both of their types of projects were dams, canals, general devastation, etc., but it is entirely realistic from a historical perspective that our government (thus, one step removed, we) would front the money. A number of congressmen/women could make quite a profit and add to their already padded pockets for doing so. FWIW

RE: point 2, you're right, but only for gov't-backed investments.  (Actually, a good case can be made that the deployment of $ in the public good that wouldn't otherwise be profitable enough to be deployed by the private sector is exactly where gov't investment should go.)

But that's different from the point I'm making, where the coal-fired powerplant investments are being considered by the likes of Duke Energy, Tenaska, AES and other big-balance sheet companies who have obligations to deliver returns to their shareholders.  Those companies are not going to build those plants unless they can see their way to above-market returns, and this is precisely the issue.  The really key battles that are going on right now are in state utility commissions where those companies are trying to get state regulators to guarantee their returns on investments that serve no obvious public benefit except the provision of power - which can be more cheaply supplied by other sources.