It’s not clear that CO2 can be stored safely and indefinitely underground. It’s not clear the technology can be deployed at a large enough scale to have an impact on global CO2 emissions. Finally, it’s not clear whether burning fossil fuels and sequestering the greenhouse gas pollution will actually be cheaper than using alternatives like renewables.

If renewables are cheaper and safer, they seem far preferable to CCS.

An example of what he’s talking about is the CCS process American Electric Power developed for its Mountaineer plant in Virginia with help from Chu’s DOE: CEO Mike Morris was all ready to build at scale a coal plant that would capture 90% of its CO2 until he realized Congress was not going to put a price on CO2 emissions and his regulator would not allow him to pass on the 2 cent per kWhr extra cost CCS would add to the cost of electricity to his customers, so he cancelled. See: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=11-P13 -00029&segmentID=1

The best book on carbon capture and storage I’ve seen is Capturing Carbon, by Robin Mills. People with opinions about the possibilities of this technology would do well to read it.

“Gasoline made from the tarsands would give a Toyota Prius the carbon footprint of a General Motors Hummer. And to go for the dirtiest possible alternative, that vastly increases the amount of global warming pollution at a time when the world is desperately trying to reach an agreement to reduce that pollution, is obviously not the right way to go,” Gore told CTV’s Canada AM.

“I understand that a lot of money is at stake, but often the choice we have to make comes down to whether we’re focused only on short-term profits at the expense of the health of the planet and the security for our children, (and) at the end of the day that’s not really a difficult choice.”

Obama’s energy secretary

Carbon capture cannot redeem the oil sands