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Argument: Carbon capture and sequestration is one part of larger climate fight

Issue Report: Carbon capture and storage

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George Monbiot, Visiting Professor of Planning at Oxford Brookes University, wrote in his 2007 book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning: “The difficulties I have encountered with investigating the other [low-carbon] technologies have persuaded me that carbon capture and storage – while it cannot provide the whole answer – can and must be one of the means we use to make low-carbon electricity.”

George Peridas, PhD, Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated in his June 12, 2008 testimony submitted to the Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Unites States House of Representatives Hearing, “Spinning Straw Into Black Gold: Enhanced Oil Recovery Using Carbon Dioxide,” available at www.nrdc.org: “A growing body of scientific research indicates that we face extreme dangers to human health, economic well-being, and the ecosystems on which we depend if global average temperatures are allowed to increase by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit from today’s levels. We have good prospects of staying below this temperature increase if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other global warming gases are kept from exceeding 450 ppm (parts per million) CO2-equivalent and then rapidly reduced. To make this possible requires immediate steps to reduce global emissions over the next several decades, including action to halt U.S. emissions growth within the next few years and then cut emissions by approximately 80% by mid-century. This goal is ambitious, but achievable. Fortunately, a wide variety of tools is available today to achieve those reductions – but we will need all the tools at our disposal. One such tool is Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS)… Given the world’s and the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, it is essential to have in place a technology and a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities that burn these fuels, even though their complete phase-out through energy efficiency improvements and a transition to renewable fuel sources might be technically and theoretically possible. Using all available tools is a wise and necessary hedging strategy in the face of the steep emission cuts that are needed. Projections differ as to the exact portion of reductions that will be delivered by different technologies, but from a strategic point of view, CCS provides a much needed answer for fossil fuel use – which is inevitable.”