BP wants to clean up coal burning power plants and create hydrogen in the process. The company and partner mining company Rio Tinto are planning a $1.5 billion coal-fired power generation project in Western Australia that would store the carbon underground.

The project would create enough clean energy to power 500,000 homes and would sequester four million tons of C02. Hydrogen that could be used to power fuel cells would be created by the coal gasification. The company says this would be a "permanent" solution, but the carbon would be stored in saline formations that could eventually release the gas into water or the environment.

The EPA and DOE here are studying how injecting CO2 could effect underground water supplies.

Carbon sequestration is likely to be a very hot (pun intended) topic as we look for ways to reduce the human contribution to global warming. This will be one of many technologies to keep the CO2 underground for decades.