CAN CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION WORK?
The other buzz words associated with clean coal are “carbon capture and sequestration,” or CCS. The concept of CCS is that we can curb climate change by capturing the emissions from coal plants and storing them underground, safely away from our atmos-phere for eternity. The most glaring flaw in this concept is that CCS technology is not likely to be a commercially viable option for at least another decade, and new coal-fired plants are slated to begin construction now. There are also no working models of CCS at a commercial-scale power plant anywhere in the world. Why not? Read on. Not under my basement! Proposals for carbon storage locations include underground depleted oil and gas fields, unmineable coal seams, and even in our oceans. Underground storage of the 1.9 billion tons of C02 waste produced annually by U.S. coal plants is hugely problematic and likely impossible. Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that can be fatal to humans exposed to high concentrations. In 1986,
