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Earth The Almighty Buck Science

DOE Pumps $126.6 Million Into Carbon Sequestration 489

RickRussellTX writes "The DOE awarded $126.6 million in grants today to projects that will pump 1 million tons of CO2 into underground caverns at sites in California and Ohio. Environmental groups call carbon sequestration "a scam", claiming that it is too expensive and uncertain to be competitive with non-coal alternatives like wind and solar. I just hope nobody drops a Mentos down the wrong pipe."
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DOE Pumps $126.6 Million Into Carbon Sequestration

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  • So... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stubear ( 130454 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:14PM (#23332758)
    ..."claiming that it is too expensive and uncertain to be competitive with non-coal alternatives like wind and solar."

    Why can't we do both? Damn environmentalists meddling again. Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 )

      Why can't we do both? Damn environmentalists meddling again. Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives.

      Because the people pushing CCS want to burn coal & then shove carbon into the ground.

      Greenpeace wants alternatives, not technology that might arrive in 10+ years, only to prolong the existing energy production system.

      I personally agree with you, even though Greenpeace sees the funding as a zero sum game.
      You never know how or when knowledge & science, for its own sake, will pay off.

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:00PM (#23333118)

        Greenpeace wants alternatives, not technology that might arrive in 10+ years, only to prolong the existing energy production system.
        Huh? They've been kicking and screaming for decades to shut down our current power generation systems to replace them with unworkable, economically infeasible systems, when France has been using a safe, zero-carbon power generation system for decades as well. They're the ones living the pipe dream, not the rest of us.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by cheater512 ( 783349 )
        I'm pissed that its CO2 going down in to the underground caverns.
        It would be far more efficient if it was nuclear waste.
        • Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @03:11AM (#23334546) Homepage
          CO2 doesn't contaminate groundwater.
          Nuclear waste doesn't allow for huge amounts of enhanced oil recovery or coalbed methane recovery.

          The capital costs are very high, but if used for a purpose, CO2 injection can pay for itself. CO2 injection in the US alone has the potential to recover ~100-400B barrels (restoring old, "used up" fields like the East Texas Field, plus injection into all of the large fields we're currently tapping and the ones we haven't started tapping yet). That's 10-40 trillion dollars at $100/barrel -- a couple times the size of the US GDP. There's not as much money in coalbed methane recovery, but it's still substantial.
      • Eh.

        We're going to burn all the coal and oil eventually anyway.

        What difference does it really make how fast we do it?

        If we can shove some of the carbon back underground where we got it, that's a good thing.
    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:24PM (#23332816)

      Why can't we do both?
      The point is, how much more carbon could they have kept in the ground by using the same money to subsidize a carbon-neutral energy source.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by goldspider ( 445116 )
        Sell me a "carbon-neutral" energy source, and I'll sell you some coastal property in Montana.
    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kaos07 ( 1113443 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:27PM (#23332846)

      "Why can't we do both?

      Why should we? Sequestration has only been proven effect in labs, and the coal industry accepts that it won't be completely up and running by 2030. Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free. Carbon sequestration doesn't get rid of the fact that we're un-sustainably mining the earth, creating vast amounts of CO2 and then *hoping* that when we bury it underground there won't be any negative consequences.

      "Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives."

      This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise, and instead of looking to the REAL future like some companies (BP?) they'd rather try and flog of unproven and, even in theory, ridiculous ideas to the public.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by R2.0 ( 532027 )
        "Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free."

        Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind. Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc.

        I have a coworker that is very interested in living
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by kaos07 ( 1113443 )

          "Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc."

          I did say "renewables". Including Hydro.

          "As much as he wanted solar, he couldn't afford it. Why? The payback period (without subsidies) is 100 years!"

          You'd be very stupid to take an economic argument on this topic. You think burying all our CO2 is going to be cheap? You think it's going to get rid of all our emissions? No and no. I'm sure the calculations he made did not factor in

        • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rkcallaghan ( 858110 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:28PM (#23333302)
          R2.0 wrote:

          Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind.
          How about from Slashdot [slashdot.org], still on the main page as of my writing this post?

          ~Rebecca
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by falconwolf ( 725481 )

          Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind. Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc.

          While I agree about cities being self sufficient in renewable energy, the only place I can think of is Iceland and to a degree Hawaii using geothermal as they are, but there are plenty of people who's house is energy sufficient,

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:09PM (#23333186)

        Wind and solar have been proven to work now.
        Sorry, it's not that I don't wish that were true but it's just not. Look up the annual energy consumption of the US (105 exajoules (29000 TWh) -- according to Wikipedia) and try to come up with any reasonable scenario in which that much energy can be produced by wind and solar. I've tried to run the numbers even in the most favorable cases and they just aren't there without a huge boost in the efficiency and economy of those alternative methods.

        Don't get me wrong, I think we are on the same team here but I refuse to believe, in the face of hard evidence, that wind + solar + geothermal + hydrodynamic + tidal energy will be sufficient to meet domestic US demand for the foreseeable future. Even the most aggressive energy efficiency plans won't kick in in earnest for a decade (cars turn over roughly 10 years, home appliances every 25, homes every 50 and the more you impose, the more costs go up and the slower the turnover happens).

        This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise
        News of their impending demise is highly overrated. The US has enough coal to last us 50 years at current growth rates and China likely does too. With oil capacity down and natural gas reserves dwindling, Americans will either have to consume much less energy (not likely) or tap into coal.
        • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by kaos07 ( 1113443 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:22PM (#23333264)
          There's an inconsistency in your post. You're basing your figures for renewables on current energy usage rates and current technologies, but you're saying that if we use coal we have to reduce energy consumption. We have to reduce consumption regardless. Sooner or later we're going to be on all renewables. Why not invest in it, cut consumption so we can do it sooner, rather then completely mining everything out of the ground and destroying a fair chunk of the environment?
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 )
            You are mixing up my supply and demand side arguments.

            On the demand side, I'm pretty certain that Americans will not tolerate any changes that reduce their perceived standard of living. Efficiencies like better cars, appliances and houses are a fantastic idea but take a long time to materialize due to slow turnover in those areas. Grander plans like better urban design so you don't have to drive ****ing everywhere and creating situations where you can live near where you work will take even longer. Support
      • by LoRdTAW ( 99712 )
        "Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free... ... very expensive and does not have a continuous output. We could substitute allot of out energy needs with solar or wind but certain parts of the world don't always get allot of wind and sun. Burning fuel and nuclear can output their rated capacity 24/7/365 if necessary. "Proven" and "works" don't always mean its going to gain market share. Believe me I would love to go so
      • by dbIII ( 701233 )
        I used to think it was untried as well but apparently the oil industry has been doing something similar for years to extract oil. Gas goes down and oil comes up, then apparently the pressure keeps most of the gas down there.

        IMHO the answer is a mix of different technologies and something to offset the existing plants that will be running for a few more decades.

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dangitman ( 862676 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @12:55AM (#23333904)

      Damn environmentalists?

      Sounds more like you're describing industry and government. They are only interested in milking fossil fuels for all their worth - and then getting government contracts to "clean up" their output. If they listened to environmentalists, emissions could be cut for a fraction of the cost (or for a profit) - but that's not what the men who run powerful industries care about. It's all about the gravy train of massive infrastructure projects (which often cause more problems than they solve).
  • by Raul654 ( 453029 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:18PM (#23332774) Homepage
    Carbon sequestration is like burying a ticking bomb in your backyard. A much better solution is carbon mineral sequestration - turning the carbon into rocks of some kind. That way, unlike underground sequestration (which has the potential to leak straight back into the atmosphere), the carbon stays where it is put.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:25PM (#23332822)
      If only we could engineer a self-replicating machine that uses carbon from the air and turns it into a pretty dense and perhaps even useful solid material.

      If I made such a machine I might call it 'The Real Easy Extraction' machine
      • by corsec67 ( 627446 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:40PM (#23332936) Homepage Journal
        One issue is that it is very easy to covert trees and other plants back into gasses [flickr.com].

        And then as you plant more of them, and get a forest that looks like a tree farm [flickr.com], fire becomes a larger risk.

        And then your carbon sequestration devices are threatening surrounding communities.

        A huge issue across the US is overpopulation of forests because we have been preventing forest fires for so long, so there is definitely no shortage of trees in many areas.

        Other than that small detail, yeah, plants are one way to easily store carbon.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by shawb ( 16347 )
          The real secret is to then sequester the carbon locked up in the trees underground. That's right, for environmental reasons I advocate that we immediately bring a halt to the process of paper recycling.

          Seriously, there is debate over the environmental benefits of paper recycling. This debate may even have some merit, unlike the "well, we really don't know if global warming is occuring" pseudo-debate. By some measures, the process of recycling paper may use more fossil fuels than the harvesting and pul
      • by kylehase ( 982334 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @12:13AM (#23333630)

        Trees are great but I heard that a lot of the world's oxygen comes from aquatic plants so I did a quick fact check and found this:

        It is estimated that between 70% and 80% of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by marine plants.
        source [ecology.com]

        Which means that a lot of CO2 is consumed by these plants right? I'm now wondering, if these marine plants only have access to dissolved CO2 in the water would it help to diffuse CO2 into the water? Wouldn't this be a good alternative being that there are so many "Easy Extraction" machines in the seas? These are also not susceptible to forest fires AFAIK.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      It's not like there isn't "ticking time bombs" everywhere. I say we try what we know how to do first, then you can have the starship enterprise show up and work it's miracles when it arrives.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Technician ( 215283 )
      Carbon sequestration is like burying a ticking bomb in your backyard. A much better solution is carbon mineral sequestration - turning the carbon into rocks of some kind. That way, unlike underground sequestration (which has the potential to leak straight back into the atmosphere), the carbon stays where it is put.

      Who cares where the carbon comes from? Instead of trying to capture carbon, we should simply bury the same amount of almost pure carbon in easly obtained forms. In a gas, CO2 is common. As a so
  • Safety? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jmv ( 93421 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:19PM (#23332780) Homepage
    Actually, my main concern is "what if it escapes?". Considering that CO2 is heavier than Oxygen, I wouldn't like to be anywhere near (i.e. within tens of km if not more) a site that stores thousands of tons of CO2.
    • Re:Safety? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:27PM (#23332844)
      This brought up Lake Nyos [wikipedia.org] in my mind... What if all that CO2 escapes, indeed.
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by penn00 ( 1224820 )
        I thought of this at first, but Lake Nyos was a crater lake that flooded an adjacent valley with CO2. I doubt that these caverns have the same possibility to allow the CO2 to flow down hill and "pool" in to an area below sea level.
    • Considering that CO2 is heavier than Oxygen, I wouldn't like to be anywhere near (i.e. within tens of km if not more) a site that stores thousands of tons of CO2

      that's why all the plans involve putting it down somewhere. I'd oppose sequestration in huge towers outside of major metropolitan areas, but putting it deep down in the ground makes a lot of sense.

      --MarkusQ

      • by enoz ( 1181117 )

        putting it deep down in the ground makes a lot of sense.
        Given the opportunity I think the CO2 would prefer to be ABOVE ground level, considering it is less dense than the surrounding rock (or lake).

        Personally I'd like to know if an earthquake or shifting in an inconvienent place would cause CO2 leakage.
      • by jmv ( 93421 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:00PM (#23333116) Homepage
        that's why all the plans involve putting it down somewhere.

        If it was stored in gas form at atmospheric pressure, it wouldn't be a problem (it would just be silly). The problem is that if it's stored in highly compressed or solid form, then if something goes wrong and it goes back to gas, it *will* go up and escape, potentially killing anyone in the area.
        • by MarkusQ ( 450076 )

          If it was stored in gas form at atmospheric pressure, it wouldn't be a problem (it would just be silly). The problem is that if it's stored in highly compressed or solid form, then if something goes wrong and it goes back to gas, it *will* go up and escape, potentially killing anyone in the area.

          Gas at atmospheric pressure in air is only one possible solution. For another, consider that at higher pressure, CO2 is denser than water under the same conditions [technologyreview.com]. Thus, if sequestered under the sea it would

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by v1 ( 525388 )
      when they say sequestered, I assume they mean it's going to be locked into a solid form? The only example of a gas being stored in a geological formation is all that helium they set aside for the airships way back when.

      That and I don't understand why they can't just make use of it. I'd expect a biodiesel plant would love to be piped into that, making good use of all that CO2 to increase their yield.

      This whole idea is basically the same as a landfill. Burying a problem never makes it go away, and almost a
    • Re:Safety? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:40PM (#23332928) Journal
      ... my main concern is "what if it escapes?". Considering that CO2 is heavier than Oxygen, I wouldn't like to be anywhere near (i.e. within tens of km if not more) a site that stores thousands of tons of CO2.

      CO2 has sometimes been pumped down oil wells to provide pressure to lift out more oil after the hole goes "dry" due to loss of natural gas pressure while there's still oil available.

      On at least one occasion such a well has leaked, creating a large bubble of CO2 on the ground that displaced the air and caused human fatalities. (Not oil workers, either, but sleeping neighbors.)
    • by wass ( 72082 )
      You mean, like the degassing event of Lake Nyos [wikipedia.org], where approximately one cubic kilometer of CO2 gas stored in the lake bottom was suddenly released, triggered possibly by a seismic event? The gas suffocated and killed 1700 people, along with numerous cattle and trees.

      Besides, carbon sequestering doesn't solve any problems, it just postpones it for a future generation to deal with. We could exert ourselves now and work at carbon-neutral energy generation, but we'll have to fight against fossil-fuel power
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jmv ( 93421 )
      Just to make it clear, this [wikipedia.org] is what I'm talking about.
  • That's the main problem with environmental groups. At their core, many of them are just as immune to rational argument and unwilling to consider proposals that don't line up with their pre-conceived notions as the fossil fuel industries and their pet politicians.

    The arguments against sequestration are (so far as I've seen) just as bogus as the anti-nuclear waste disposal arguments. I'm glad that these groups recognize when there are problems with any given technology, I just wish their response to any a

    • by kaos07 ( 1113443 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:38PM (#23332920)

      "many of them are just as immune to rational argument"

      Your statement hinges on the fact that coal industry has indeed given any rational arguments to support the burying of CO2 (A very literal way of 'burying your head in the sand', don't you think?). Let's step back and look at the problem. The main issue we have the moment is global warming being caused by an excess of greenhouses gases, predominantly CO2 in the atmosphere. We need solutions. Renewable energy is a solution. Cutting back on energy usage is a solution. And yes, even sequestration is a solution. However, what are the best and most effective solutions to take? Cutting back our usage can be done now and it can have significant effects in the area of reducing CO2 output. Renewables are already a proven technology and lack only significant funding to make them more common. That said, in many countries and states funding is significant and renewable energy targets are set to be met. Now let's look at sequestration. Is it proven? Only in laboratories. Which if you consider the scale and possible ramifications of the process is a fairly useless sticking point. Is it safe? Well you decide for yourself. Pumping millions of tonnes into underground caverns? Versus building windmills, hydro plants and solar farms. Does it solve our problems? In the short term it prevents CO2 from immediately going into the atmosphere but burying it can't continue indefinitely, and it does nothing to reduce our reliance on coal - a finite source.

      The idea virtually is a scam, it's the coal industry asking for grants and subsidies all across the world to support a dying business instead of looking the facts in the face and realising that renewables are the way of the future. No amount of exaggeration (Moonbeams?) on your part will change that.

      • Please be honest (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "Cutting back on energy usage is a solution."

        What you really meant to say is that massive depopulation of the earth is the solution, since at this point we can only reduce the rate at which energy consumption grows, not the overall rate at which energy is consumed.
      • we have 100's of years worth of coal. why can't you people understand this fact.
        • by kaos07 ( 1113443 )

          Hundreds of years if our current consumption levels don't increase. Since energy consumption increases exponentially...

          We also don't have enough "underground caverns" to fit hundreds of years worth of CO2. In addition searching and mining for more and more coal resources is going to have detrimental effects on the environment as a whole. All my points still stand.

      • by MarkusQ ( 450076 )

        Your statement hinges on the fact that coal industry has indeed given any rational arguments to support the burying of CO2 (A very literal way of 'burying your head in the sand', don't you think?).

        That's exactly the sort of thing I mean. Carbon sequestration is an idea. There are arguments for and against it, and each of these arguments will have some degree of merit and applicability. If you are being rational, that's all that matters. I am making no assumption whatsoever about where the arguments c

      • The idea virtually is a scam, it's the coal industry asking for grants and subsidies all across the world to support a dying business instead of looking the facts in the face and realising that renewables are the way of the future. No amount of exaggeration (Moonbeams?) on your part will change tha

        The fact of the matter is that right now there is no alternative energy technology that competes with coal. If there were, people would be using that. But it doesn't exist. You can say that coal has a future, b
    • by Anonymous Coward
      One way CO2 is being sequestered now is with enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Even though it sounds like you're just pulling more hydrocarbons out of the ground (e.g. bad), think of it this way: if you're pumping more CO2 into the ground then produced from combustion of the oil taken out, you've just made all that oil carbon neutral.
    • It looks as though we are going to need sequestration from the atmosphere based on what is becoming understood about the sensitivity of the climate to grenhouse gasses http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080317.pdf [columbia.edu]

      In my opinion, a solid is much more compatible with storing carbon in the Earth than a gas, but even if we are to store a gas, it does not make a whole lot of sense to use up what capacity there may be on burning coal. Coal is already nicely sequestered.
  • 1986 Disaster (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tuqui ( 96668 )
    Hope you don't live near or at least this type of disaster [wikipedia.org] doesn't happen there.
  • The USA (Score:2, Funny)

    by kcbanner ( 929309 ) *
    The USA: Dumping their problems into holes and sealing them off...since...forever.
  • By a quick calculation from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], there are about 1.9 trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere.

    What exactly is the point of this endeavour?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      What exactly is the point of this endeavour?


      It makes the people doing it feel good. That's all it does and all it needs to do.

  • WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Hojima ( 1228978 )
    Can't we just plant trees? I heard that natural swamp ecosystems can be used to purify water better than our industrial plants. We could create a project that actually does something useful.
  • Bamboo (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bigattichouse ( 527527 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:36PM (#23332904) Homepage
    1. Grow Bamboo 2. Drop down old salt mine or other large hole. 3. ??? 4. Profit!
  • Greenpeace... *ahem* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Swift Kick ( 240510 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:37PM (#23332910)
    I like how 'environmental groups' is a link to a single source: Greenpeace.

    As we all know, they're the kind of people that we can have a good intelligent discussion with, right? Of course, anyone that doesn't fall in line with their philosophy is some sort of heretic, even if they happen to be one of their own founders [washingtonpost.com] that disagrees with a long-standing platform of the organization.

    I'd have a lot more respect for them if they also condemned Al Gore and his pimping of useless carbon credits [newsbusters.org] that happen to fatten his own pockets...

  • Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsotha ( 720379 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:43PM (#23332960)

    I wonder if Greenpeace realizes the choice isn't between coal plants with sequestered carbon and windmills. In reality, barring some fortuitous breakthrough in solar power, as oil gets more expensive the choice will be between coal plants with this technology and coal plants without it. I believe Greenpeace has completely overestimated the average person's willingness to make lifestyle sacrifices for the sake of atmospheric carbon reductions.

    I wish organizations like this would try to be part of the solution instead of just trying to limit our options. You can't accuse the coal companies of proposing a technology that isn't economically feasible on the one hand and then propose wholesale conversion to technologies that are even less economically feasible.

    We wouldn't even have this problem if the very same people hadn't killed the nuclear industry through scaremongering and excessive litigation.

  • by FranTaylor ( 164577 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @10:51PM (#23333024)
    How much CO2 is generated in the process of accumulating, pressurizing, and delivering it? When you have worked through all of the ripple effect, I bet they generate a pound of CO2 for each pound they sequester.

    This is no different from Wile E. Coyote's electric fan-powered sailboat.

    Or the ethenol believers who conveniently neglect the big fire they have to put under that still.
  • by univgeek ( 442857 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:47PM (#23333426)
    $126M buys 126000KW, i.e., 126MW of installed wind power. At a power factor of 30% this produces 38MW of power.

    A coal powered plant would produce 300000 Tons of CO2 a year to generate this power. Three years of operation would mean 1M tons of CO2 not released into the atmosphere.

    For a gas-powered plant, it would be 6 years. For an oil powered plant, 4 years.

    A 38MW plant is not really much power, and is a drop in the bucket. On the other hand the research benefits from this project are not easily quantifiable. So I'd go with the research on this one!

    References:
    http://www.seen.org/pages/db/method.shtml [seen.org]
    http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm [windpower.org]
  • Wood (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Toonol ( 1057698 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @12:21AM (#23333682)
    Doesn't nature provide carbon sequestration in the form of Wood? Wouldn't cutting down a forest and building stuff out of the wood, meanwhile letting the forest regrow, effectively remove carbon out of the system?
  • by Ace905 ( 163071 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @03:14AM (#23334560) Homepage
    Man, I would not want to live anywhere near one of these storage facilities.

    On the other hand, from wikipedia [wikipedia.org] "To further investigate the safety of CO2 sequestration, we can look into Norway's Sleipner gas field, as it is the oldest plant that stores CO2 on an industrial scale. According to an environmental assessment of the gas field which was conducted after ten years of operation, the author affirmed that geosequestration of CO2 was the most definite way to store CO2 permanently. [4]

            "Available geological information shows absence of major tectonic events after the deposition of the Utsira formation [saline reservoir]. This implies that the geological environment is tectonically stable and a site suitable for carbon dioxide storage. The solubility trapping [is] the most permanent and secure form of geological storage." [4]
    "

    This sounds pretty exact-opposite of what the greenpeace hippy terro... activists are saying.

  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @10:12AM (#23337018) Homepage
    If Carbon Sequestration meant that the Carbon was placed into a solid form, I might like it.
    Imagine:
        coal --> energy + diamonds

    That's not a bad formula! Or:
        coal --> energy + carbon (bricks, fibers, nanofibers, etc.).

    We could use that for building materials. No problem there. But:
        coal --> energy + high pressure gas buried in an old mine shaft underground waiting to escape

    is not a good idea. :(
  • by jzarling ( 600712 ) on Thursday May 08, 2008 @10:47AM (#23337516)
    I knew this sounded familiar - its the plot of a Beverly Hillbillies episode from September 1970.

    http://www.tv.com/the-beverly-hillbillies/the-pollution-solution/episode/72982/summary.html [tv.com]
    Jed: This fellow's gonna drill a tunnel through the San Bernardino Mountains, put in a great big fan, and draw all the smog out of Los Angeles.
    Drysdale: Why, that's a preposterous idea.
    Jed: Yeah. We like it too. (edit)

    Good episode

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