France, Saudi Arabia to cooperate in CO2 'capture' technology

Smoke billows from a reprocessing factory in Paris

ROME (AFP) -- France said Tuesday it plans to cooperate with Saudi Arabia in solar energy and in technology for "capturing" and storing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, preventing them from being released into the atmosphere.

The two countries would set up a joint top-level technical group in Paris by July, French Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told reporters on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum here.

It would be a research group investigating solar technology on a large-scale and so-called CCS, carbon capture and storage technology, Borloo said after a bilateral meeting with Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi.

On Monday, British Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said that Britain also wanted to develop CCS technology and would publicly fund a large-scale demonstration project to go onstream by 2014.

Wicks said that other countries, notably the Netherlands, Canada and Australia, had in addition expressed an interest in the technology.