Is Burying Carbon in the Ground the Answer to the Woes of Coal?

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They call it โ€œclean coal . โ€ They tell us that the pollution problem is โ€œfixedโ€ and the solution to the greenhouse gas implication is just around the corner.

They say, โ€œDon’t worry that burning coal releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other fuel source . We’ll soon ‘sequester’ that stuff: we’ll bury it in theย ground.โ€

Howย soon?

Burying the carbon produced from the burning of coal, so called Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), isn’t as simple as the coal advocates would have usย think.

At the rate CCS technology is being developed, Richard Branson will have figured out how to send tourists to Moon before we see anyone storing significant amounts of carbon under ourย feet.

New Scientist magazine recently provided a good overview of CCS technology. It quotes a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study called The Future of Coal, which concludes that, โ€œthe first commercial CCS plant won’t be on stream until 2030 at theย earliest.โ€

Oil-giant Shell โ€œdoesn’t foresee CCS being in widespread use untilย 2050.โ€

If it’s going to take 30 years before we figure out how to capture carbon from coal effectively, wouldn’t it make sense to move our energy generation away from coal to renewable source like wind and solar? After all, the world’s best scientific organizations have all concluded that we have much less than 30 years to significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas we are pumping into theย atmosphere.

But in coal country – which is to say, the United States of America – the appetite for coal profits seems to be overwhelming what might otherwise be viewed as intelligentย caution.

Consider the โ€œAmericans for Balanced Energyโ€ (ABEC), an organization that has received $40 million from coal industry giants including Peabody Energy, Duke Energy, Arch Coal and CONSOL Energy Inc. You may have seen ABEC at work: their โ€œclean coalโ€ advertising blitz ran heavily on CNN during Democratic Presidential Debates and Democratic Primaryย coverage.

One of ABEC‘s ads highlights a CCS pilot project called โ€œFutureGen,โ€ something that was originally hailed by the US administration as the first commercial-scale pilot project that would capture and sequester carbon and answer our global warmingย woes.

Not surprisingly, ABEC‘s โ€œclean coalโ€ ads haven’t been updated to report that the US Department of Energy pulled out of the FutureGen project in January after development estimates jumped from $800 million to $1.8 billion. So working CCS is still 40 years away, but the myth of CCS remains as a justification for building new coal-fired power plants plantsย today.

If the American public buys the CCS myth, hopefully Richard Branson will not only have figured out how to fly us to the moon, but to colonize it asย well.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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