Carbon Capture: Possible Solutions, Pt. I

How do you combat a necessary evil on a budget? That's the dilemma with carbon capture. Scientists, policy makers and energy companies all agree that carbon dioxide from coal burning plants needs to be kept out of the atmosphere. The problem is how to do it without running up expenses that will make China, India, the United States and even Europe retreat behind years of prototype trials.

Thus far, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) has been concerned with research and very little about actually putting the technology to real use. Below we look at some of the issues and possible solutions.

Part I: Carbon Storage, the Money and the Market

Where Does It Come From?
Although people like Charles Dickens have been complaining about the environmental effects of coal for over 150 years, it is still a big part of our energy consumption. Coal accounts for 49 percent of the electricity in the U.S., and 22 percent of all of the energy in the U.S. It's second only to petroleum.

Solar, wind, geothermal and wave power produce power with very low carbon emissions even after the emissions from equipment construction is calculated. Those technologies, though, only account for 12 percent of the renewable energy produced in the U.S. and renewables only account for 7 percent of the overall energy pie. Put another way, solar, wind, wave and geo are 0.8 percent of the U.S.'s energy.

_{Source: DOE}

"The reality is that in the U.S., half of our electricity comes from coal. And China and India are largely dependent on coal. People are using it. So my point of view is instead of saying that we shouldn't burn coal, let's instead find a way to make coal as environmentally acceptable as possible," said Stanford University research professor Sally Benson, Director of the Global Climate & Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford.

"And the big emphasis of our work is trying to find ways of reducing CO2 emissions from that. It's just necessary. One can't play god. And people are not going to let go of electricity services," said Benson.