Energy Producers Taking Long Look At Carbon Capture and Storage

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With the Kyoto Protocol due to be renegotiated later this year, and many nations still overwhelmingly reliant on coal for energy production, energy producers are looking to carbon capture and storage techniques as a possible way forward.

But environmental groups are critical of the process, which sequesters carbon dioxide from power plants or heavy industry before its emission into the atmosphere. The CO2 is then piped to storage facilities, and finally pumped underground where proponents claim it can’t escape.

A new report from Emerging Energy Research details aspects of carbon, capture and storage. Emerging Energy Research found that this year more than $20 billion will be spent on such projects, with electrical output to generate 16 Gigawatts, or about the same as 20 regular coal-fired power plants, according to the report.

The European Union is investing $11.6 billion in carbon, capture and storage projects. The United States and Canada follow, at $6 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively.

In December, the United Kingdom put into law measures to promote carbon capture and storage, among other initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases.

In November, U.S. marketing stalwarts Nike, Levi Strauss, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, and Timberland launched a new business coalition called Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy, which calls for new coal-fired plants to be limited to those that employ carbon capture and storage.