Comment & Debate
“Do we really need carbon capture and storage?.” RSC: “Action is urgently required but what can we do now which will allow business to continue as reliably as usual – increase wind power 40 fold, increase solar power 700 fold while simultaneously reducing dependency on coal by a similar amount and halving the fuel consumption of two billion cars? Of course we must improve the efficiency of our energy consumption as well as further developing solar, wind, wave and other renewable power sources, not to forget significantly reducing deforestation. But will fossil fuels cease to be used in the short or even medium term? No, fossil fuels are just too easy to use. The physical, social and legislative infrastructures are well established. The energy concentration is too dense for an energy hungry world to ignore, even if finding new deposits of light oil (and gas) is getting ever more difficult. We accept that a sustainable future demands that we switch to renewable energy sources as fast as possible. In the meantime CCS provides a way to minimise emissions of greenhouse gases.”
The United States Carbon Sequestration Council, a non-profit coalition of scientists, environmentalists, and businessmen supporting the development of CCS technology, stated in its Apr. 2009 publication “Is Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) Needed? How Can We Make It Happen Sooner?,” available at www.uscsc.org:
“Petroleum, coal, and natural gas rank first, second, and third in global energy production, and are expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. The current and future use of fossil fuels will continue to generate CO2. There simply is no alternative to using these fuels to meet our basic needs – whether for electricity generation, for manufacturing processes, for meeting our residential needs, or for transportation (including for petroleum refining, hydrogen production, and meeting plug-in power electricity needs). Hence, if we are to reduce GHG [green house gas] emissions significantly, there is no alternative to successful development and deployment of CCS technologies…
CCS is an emerging technology that is essential to the achievement of most long range GHG reduction goals.”
Byran Hannegan, PhD, Vice President of Environment and Generation at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), stated in his Mar. 22, 2007 testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing on the “Future of Coal,” available at www.energy.senate.gov: “CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) will be the critical enabling technology that provides for continued coal use even as we reduce our CO2 emissions….Recent EPRI work has illustrated the necessity and the urgency to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies as part of the solution to satisfying our energy needs in an environmentally responsible manner.”