The cost of carbon capture and sequestration infrastructure in the United States that would include each of the coal-fired electricity plants in the country could cost over a trillion of dollars, industry experts told CBS news program 60 Minutes in a segment that aired on Sunday.

So, we're talking about hundreds of billions, to a trillion dollars or so, and every power plant needs to capture its greenhouse gases, Dan Kammen, a Berkeley physicist and energy expert said in an interview at the Basin Electric Power Co-Operative, a coal plant in North Dakota known as the only in America to capture CO2.

The U.S. lawmakers, as well as President Barack Obama are pushing for new legislation that will cut greenhouse gas emissions which are blamed for climate change. Recently the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled for the first time that emissions of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) threaten public health and welfare. The most polluting fuel when with regard to carbon dioxide emissions is coal. Nearly fifty percent of all U.S. electricity is produced with that fuel.

The President and his administration have urged for the development of technology for carbon capture and sequestration to produce so-called clean coal facilities.

Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, the third largest electric utility in the U.S., told ’60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley that the U.S. can't abandon coal but that an infrastructure to capture carbon dioxide is not impossible.

Rogers estimated on the program that the cost to transition to a low carbon economy will take trillions of dollars.”

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Barack obama Energy Jim Rogers