Worldwide race to bury our carbon emission mistakes

Geelong Advertiser
Thursday 6/12/2007 Page: 23

IN western Japan, researchers fuss over tubes that look like coiled strands of linguini. But this is no cooking class: the scientists are trying to pull carbon dioxide - the leading cause of global warming - from power plant exhaust. The work, on filters that separate CO2 from other gases, is part of an expanding global race to trap greenhouse pollutants and bury them deep underground, an experimental and costly technology known as Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS.

In the biting cold of Europe's North Sea, Norway operates the world's first offshore carbon capture plant. Australia, the world's fourth largest coal producer, has more than a dozen planned projects. The United States, meanwhile, is leading a $1.7 billion quest to build a zero emissions, coal-based power station. The struggle to transform fossil fuels into a clean energy source will figure prominently at the major two-week UN climate change conference in Bali.

"I think Carbon Capture and Storage will play an important part in a longterm response to climate change," Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the conference, said. "Countries like China and India will continue to rely on abundantly available coal, and therefore you have to find a way of economically using that coal in a clean way." The programs aren't without critics.

Much of the focus of global warming efforts is on reducing production of CO2, not storing it. Many environmentalists argue that the billions spent on researching carbon storage should go instead to developing renewable energy sources. Safety concerns abound. Some fear the carbon dioxide could seep out of its underground storage, contaminating groundwater or poisoning the air. Carbon stored at the bottom of the ocean, as others have proposed, could wreak havoc with marine ecosystems.

The technology is expensive, will take years to develop, burden future generations with maintaining underground storage areas and only perpetuate the world's dependence on fossil fuels, critics say. "What we see is a diversion of money away from renewables toward CCS and coal, and that's not the way we want to see things move forward," said Gabriela von Goerne of Greenpeace's climate and energy unit in Hamburg, Germany. "The technology is not in place, it's under development, and we don't have time. We need to cut emissions right now and not in 15 or 10 years."

Even proponents acknowledge they will have to overcome huge hurdles to combine coal burning operations with carbon storage. Because of the cost, the technology requires a large financial incentive-such as the high tax placed on carbon emissions in Norway - to make economic sense for energy companies. But backers say that carbon storage would allow us to have our coal and burn it too - and that that's the only realistic course in a world so dependent on fossil fuels.