Is Carbon Capture and Storage the Fix?

From: Business Week - November 11, 2008

Promoted in Europe, the technology for storing CO2 emissions underground could someday transform electric utilities and other industry into eco-friendly businesses

Read Full Article: Is Carbon Capture and Storage the Fix? - BusinessWeek

At a power station in northeastern Germany, several buildings stand alongside the main 1,600-megawatt coal-fired power plant. To the average visitor, the complex—made up of warehouses, silos, and pipelines—is indistinguishable from any other industrial park. But for Swedish utility Vattenfall, which owns the project, it represents a bold new future. That's because the buildings contain a pilot 30-megawatt power plant fitted with new technology that could virtually end carbon dioxide emissions from the world's heavy industry.

 

The technology is called carbon capture and storage (CCS), and if it fulfills its promise, it could someday turn highly polluting power stations and smelting plants into eco-friendly, carbon-neutral businesses. The premise of CCS is simple: Trap carbon dioxide before it's emitted into the atmosphere, transport it through pipelines to storage facilities, and then pump the CO2 underground where it can't escape into the atmosphere.

 

All three parts of the process have been commercial for decades, but they haven't been used together in a concerted effort to halt the release of greenhouse gases. Now, with pressure growing to combat global climate change, utilities and other heavy industry are looking more seriously than ever to CCS as a potential solution to their emissions problem.

 

It sounds like the Holy Grail of climate change policy. But not everyone is convinced CCS is the right answer. Some questions still remain over whether carbon dioxide can be stored safely underground for the long term. And there are rival technologies in the works—some at roughly the same stage of viability—that involve treating or processing fossil fuels before they are combusted to reduce their carbon output.