Climate Change | February 18, 2008 |
Burying CO2 Under the Ocean?
Carbon capture is the most promising technology for reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants, by capturing it and injecting it in geological formations underground. Now, one of
Dr. David Keith is the director of the Energy and Environmental Systems Group at University of Calgary-based Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy, and he sees this solution as a potentially useful complement to CO2 storage in geological formations, particularly for CO2 emanating from sources near deep oceans. The flat plains that cover deep oceans are good storage environments, he argues, because they have little life and are benign.
For CO2 to be stored there, the gas must be captured from power and industrial point sources, compressed to liquid, and transported via pipelines. When the liquid CO2 is pumped into the deep ocean, the intense pressure and cold temperatures make it negatively buoyant.
“This negative buoyancy is the key,” explains Keith. “It means the CO2 wants to leak downwards rather than moving up to the biosphere.”
There are currently no power plants that use a full capture and storage system, primarily due to the cost of implementation and the inefficiency of the current systems, which would increase energy costs from 20 to 90 percent. When implemented, a CCS applied to a modern conventional power plant could reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by approximately 80-90 percent compared to a plant without CCS.
There are other carbon capture projects underway in the
Although these carbon capture technologies sound like a reasonable solution for reducing power plant emissions, I have to wonder if the research money wouldn’t be better spent on developing alternative energy sources. In fact, there are suggestions that the end is near for coal-fired power plants, as new emissions regulations are on the table in D.C., and there is a growing public discontent with pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.


Post Your Comment