The world population is over six billion. We must burn fuel (coal, oil and natural gas) to keep all those people warm, to provide electricity to light their homes and to move them around from place to another. We must also burn fuel to power the machines with which they earn their livelihood and burn forests to produce agricultural land to grow their food. However, all of these activities produce carbon dioxide, a gas that over time can heat up the world and change weather patterns.
Scientists have long been trying to determine what to do to reduce and/or remove some of this carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The process of carbon sequestering shows promise. Carbon sequestering is the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. Natural carbon sequestering occurs through the natural process of photosynthesis. The leaves take in carbon dioxide, and it is changed into part of the mass of trees and plants, much of it as carbon. Therefore, trees and soil can act as a storage container for carbon dioxide.
However, there is a type of carbon sequestering, also called carbon capture and storage, that is accomplished using manmade technology. This process attempts to extract carbon dioxide from the air and put it somewhere where it cannot escape back into the atmosphere. Facilities that burn fossil fuel could benefit from this technology. Since power plants make up about 40 percent of the world's carbon emissions, this could make a significant difference in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide going into the environment. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated worldwide storage capacity at 2 trillion to 10 trillion tons.
There are different methods of capturing the carbon including the gas being pumped down into wells where it dissolves or sending the exhaust through a chimney with a three-dimensional mesh where a chemical solvent soaks up the gas as it goes up. Of course in the case where the carbon is captured and stored in wells or reservoirs, there is always the possibility of a leak. A greater concern, however, is the possibility of groundwater contamination. However, research has been going on for more than three decades on this problem, and current techniques are thought to be quite safe. There are a number of active projects presently that are pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the ground, and scientists are conducting ongoing studies in reservoir geology at these sites.
What is the downside of all this? The fact is that when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. This could be the case when considering carbon capture and storage. For one thing, this could be another effort at treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. The real problem is the amount of carbon dioxide we are releasing into the air, and if people think that carbon capture and storage will solve the problem, they may relax their efforts to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we are burning. Also, this technology could cost trillions of dollars to implement and could lead to a significant increase in the transportation industry just to store it, thus releasing more emissions.
Carbon sequestering definitely should not be dismissed. It may well be one of the best technologies to come along as far as attempts to combat global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, to herald it as the overall solution to the problem is not prudent. Even if it works, it will not be enough, and other creative methods for reducing greenhouse gasses will need to be found. Furthermore, regardless of the technologies that are adopted to reduce greenhouse gasses, carbon emissions must decrease.