Is Capturing CO2 a Pipe Dream? (Global Warming Problem)

Is Capturing CO2 a Pipe Dream?

By Andrew C. Revkin

Is capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide a pipe dream?

It looks like it’s going to be a long while before anyone knows — at least whether it’s possible at a scale that could meaningfully cut into the tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide slated to be released in coming decades by coal-rich countries led by the United States and China.

An array of experts have been warning that current efforts to design and build utility-scale tests of the complex array of technologies for capturing, compressing, and disposing of the gas are grossly insufficient. And now one of the most vaunted projects, President Bush’s Futuregen plan for an emissions-free coal-fired plant, has been overhauled in a way that many energy experts say amounts to a dismantling and more delays.

The budget was ballooning to close to twice the original $1 billion, so the new proposal is to have industry add carbon-capturing systems paid for by taxpayers to planned commercial plants built by industry. The original project foresaw a single plant as a test bed, with government paying more than 70 percent of the cost. Because all the paperwork and budgets and permits and impact studies will have to be pursued anew, environmentalists say this will surely set back construction years. Other plans are afoot for building such gas-catching systems in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. But, again, scientists and energy experts see an enormous gap between the scale and timetable of such plans and the real-world, real-time expansion of coal burning.

China is still turning on a new coal-burning plant almost once a week. Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company, still has its coal-sales ticker flashing along on its Web site at about eight tons a second. In December, I wrote that “The Energy Future is Not Now,” as warning signs over Futuregen’s prospects built.

So when is it?

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Senin 19 February 2008, 10.32 pagi)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.nytimes.com)