Is CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) a useful technology?

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technology that when developed would allow the climate changing emissions from large fossil fuel power plants to be prevented from entering the atmosphere and instead pumped underground into some kind of geological formation.

CCS is controvercial for some technical and some broader reasons. In terms of technology, it is yet to be applied at large scale, as it is also a new technology we have very little information about how securely the co2 would be stored. To complicate things, CCS is being strongly promoted by the fossil fuel industry and scientists have generally been in favour of the technology which, if narrowly viewed seems to be a very positive technology.

There has been a lot written about ccs, most notably by MIT, the IPCC and also, the Wuppertal Institute. The Wuppertal Institute report strikes a far more cautious note than the IPCC or MIT and is well worth a read by CCS enthusiasts (could it dampen that enthusiasm?) and critiques (do you need to improve your argument?).

• Report Homepage

Home del.icio.us Digg This!