Capturing Carbon from Power Plants to Prevent Global Warming Studied By UMass Amherst Researcher

July 1, 2008

Contact:

Erin Baker 413/545-0670

AMHERST, Mass. − It sounds easy enough − combat global warming by capturing harmful carbon dioxide emissions from power plants before they hit the atmosphere. Then store them deep beneath the Earth. But researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have shown that there are major technical and social hurdles to overcome before setting policy on carbon capture and storage (CCS).

“Many people responsible for setting climate policy are taking as a given a technology which appears to be somewhat controversial,” says Erin Baker, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering who specializes in alternative energy research that is based on economics and policy. “Our report concludes that we need to determine if carbon capture and storage is a viable option, both technically and socially, before we begin setting policy based on its use.”

The need for carbon capture and storage is especially pressing in light of proposed legislation calling for drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The current consensus in the scientific community is that by the middle of the century, the world must limit the increase in temperature to two degrees Celsius. To meet that goal, a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of at least 80 percent is needed by 2050.

U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, recently unveiled sweeping legislation that would mandate an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, based on 2005 levels. If passed, Markey’s bill would take effect in 2012.

“To meet these aggressive abatement goals, you really need carbon capture and storage as a viable technology, and the higher the abatement level you are targeting, the more you need carbon capture,” says Baker. “Otherwise it would probably mean using large amounts of nuclear power, unless there is a breakthrough in another energy technology.”

The viability question is not so much on the carbon capture side of the technology, but on the storage side. By pumping carbon dioxide emissions into large, deep aquifers in the ground, the process raises both technical and social questions. The National Academy of Sciences has estimated a likelihood of between 66 percent and 77 percent that such storage would be viable, which takes into account the fact that people might not be happy living near these aquifers, especially considering all the similar storage questions about nuclear waste that have been publicized over the years.

Aspects of CCS that need addressing are the likelihood of small leaks that would limit its effectiveness, and large leaks that could have an impact on human health in storage areas that are populated. Another factor is the potential for ecological damage, particularly in the world’s oceans, which have been suggested as possible storage sites.

According to Baker, the main benefit of carbon capture is being able to use untapped coal reserves in an environmentally responsible way. “Both the United States and China have huge amounts of coal, but burning coal produces more carbon dioxide than burning oil or natural gas,” says Baker. “If we can’t find a way to neutralize coal’s bad effects on the climate, we can’t use all that coal.”

Baker also says that using CCS to make coal burning clean is only a partial and temporary solution to the energy crisis. “The main limiting factor of carbon storage would be the aquifers, which would be filled in a couple hundred years,” says Baker. “So eventually you would have to switch to a long-term solution like solar or wind energy.”

Baker is doing her carbon capture research with a $347,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research. She has also received a $430,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program that supports a much larger project, into which the carbon capture study fits. The larger project is designed to influence the federal government’s future investments in the most cost-effective energy technologies for carrying out our nation’s climate-change policies.

“The whole idea,” explains Baker, “is to develop a portfolio that will give government policy makers a blueprint for how best to balance the R&D investment among various alternative energy technologies, and how much total investment we should spend to solve climate change. Right now we have no answer to those key questions. Nobody has actually done this work.”

In addition to carbon capture, Baker is concentrating on possible failures and breakthroughs in six other energy technologies: solar, nuclear, bio-electricity, batteries, biofuels, and wind and solar grid integration. Additional researchers who helped create the carbon capture report are Haewon Chon of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland, and Dr. Jeffrey Keisler from the College of Management at UMass Boston.

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