The United States is one of the world’s largest consumers of coal, second only to China. But while it is a clear leader in coal consumption, it has yet to dominate technological innovations to make it cleaner. In fact, a list of the world’s 10 leading innovators in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology includes only three American firms—Babcock & Wilcox, General Electric, and Combustion Engineering—which rank third, seventh, and 10th, respectively.
Mitsubishi, a Japanese firm, tops the list, having invented just under 5 percent of all CCS patents worldwide. Alstom, a French firm, comes in second with just above 3 percent. Meanwhile, the three American firms together have invented 6 percent of the world’s patents on carbon-mitigating technology for coal.
