July 22nd, 2009
© MoToMo
About half of U.S. power comes from coal, according to CNN. And the process of burning coal for electricity accounts for about 80 percent of the country's CO2 emissions from electricity. And while wind, solar and other forms of clean renewable energy are expanding rapidly, it will be a long time before they rise to production levels that will allow coal to be sidelined.
The Obama Administration is investing a billion new dollars in a carbon capture and storage (CCS) research projct called FutureGen. It is a public-private partnership to design, build, and operate the world's first coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant.
CCS technology would reduce emissions by catching CO2 before it's released into the atmosphere, transporting the emissions to a suitable location for underground storage and then injecting the gas into deep geological formations: either in the pores of rocks or in gaps left by oil and natural gas extraction.
Will CCS become a realistic way to clean up coal? Time will tell…