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from the my-solar-panels-are-covered-in-soot dept.
Ken_g6 writes:
Wired today reports on continued coal use around the world and efforts to promote carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Today coal produces more than 40 percent of the world's electricity, a foundation of modern life. And that percentage is going up: In the past decade, coal added more to the global energy supply than any other source. Nowhere is the pre-eminence of coal more apparent than in the planet's fastest-growing, most populous region: Asia, especially China.
Many energy and climate researchers believe that CCS is vital to avoiding a climate catastrophe. Because it could allow the globe to keep burning its most abundant fuel source while drastically reducing carbon dioxide and soot, it may be more important - though much less publicized - than any renewable-energy technology for decades to come. No less than Steven Chu, the Nobel-winning physicist who was US secretary of energy until last year, has declared CCS essential. "I don't see how we go forward without it," he says.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs projects that solar power will be cost-competitive with other electricity sources in the US by 2033. So will we build more coal plants or tear them down?
(Score: 1) by mascot on Thursday March 27 2014, @11:55AM
Actually I think this is not a terrible idea.
CO2 enrichment is the key to raising yields in algae biofuels so the first algae biofuel projects are built near fossil fuel plants so they can use the C02.
The C02 does end up in the atmosphere anyway but its better to get energy out of oxidising carbon twice rather than once no?
What we need is a hefty tax on the extraction of fossil fuels (rather than crazy subsidies). Trying to tax carbon and measure emissions is a buerocratic mess. Trying to craft individual subsidies and grants for each renewable technology is even worse. Easier by far to tax fossil fuel extraction because its hard to dodge, easy to measure and simple to administer.
Maybe we could offer a rebate to petrochemical companies.
(Score: 2) by geb on Thursday March 27 2014, @01:35PM
The technology by itself is interesting, and could be used in sensible ways.
My objection to it is that it was quite nakedly being used to support the continued use of coal, while appearing vaguely environmentally sound. It would be much better used as a closed loop, incinerating dried algae for power, rather than greenwashing coal and hiding the emissions elsewhere.