Carbon Capture and Sequestration
Here’s an article from Smart Planet on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) that brought a few basic ideas into alignment for me. There may be more scholarly treatments of the subject out there, but the author’s central point is one that I can’t imagine will prove false as this concept is taken forward. That is, with the acknowledged costs of CCS so outrageously high and the cost of renewable energy falling steadily, it’s hard to conceive of a world in which it makes sense from a financial standpoint to continue to burn coal and attempt to contain the effluent.
If anyone has data to the contrary, please share it.
It’s also questionable whether large amounts of CO2 can be sequestered reliably for many centuries. Also, capturing and sequestering CO2 requires considerable power resulting in the need to burn more coal to provide that power.
About all that can be said for it is that coal burning plants are able to provide reliable power 24 hours per day 365 days per year which solar and wind cannot do.
No disagreement here, but I did want to point out that it is not expensive to remove CO2 from smokestacks (for reference, consult your can of soda that is likely right next to you); it’s expensive to compress it to very high pressures and pump it into salt formations a mile deep in the Earth’s crust.
Harvesting CO2 from smokestacks to recycle into fuel, chemicals, or any other industry need… These are still very low cost and competitive. options.