Carbon Capture and Sequestration: A Risky Solution That’s Probably Here to Stay

As the debate over the merits of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) roars on, one thing seems definite: CCS will play some role in our efforts to combat climate change. As we face this reality, it is important to remember that water will be the resource most severely impacted by CCS and river and watershed groups must play a role in limiting the harmful consequences of injecting CO2 into our aquifers.

First, I’d like to put it out there that I am as skeptical as anybody on the feasibility of CCS (for more information on CCS, see Wikipedia). I think there are too many uncertainties and the risk unintended consequences makes me nervous. I personally believe that scarce funding should be invested in long term renewable energy solutions, not cleaning up dirty fossil fuels with a technology that is just as unproven and expensive as virtually every other technology currently on the table. If the EPA's efforts to deny mountain top removal permits in West Virginia succeeds, you'd wonder if coal power with CCS will have any economic advantages at all.

Despite these objections, I am beginning to accept that CCS is here to stay. I think accepting CCS as a temporary carbon mitigation solution will be a political compromise necessary to passing comprehensive climate change legislation.

In a recent Op-ed, Sens. John Kerry and Lindsay Graham gave me a jolt of optimism – the first in months – by making me believe that the Senate might actually pass a decent climate bill. Of course in doing so they made a number of hard-to-stomach compromises and tipped their hat to the coal industry by declaring:

The United States should aim to become the Saudi Arabia of clean coal. For this reason, we need to provide new financial incentives for companies that develop carbon capture and sequestration technology.

It seems as if Canada has joined us in the race is to be the king of CCS as the Canadian government just announced its commitment to providing Shell and other oil companies with $865 million for a CCS project in oil sands of Alberta.

Given these signs, river and watershed groups should be prepared for an onslaught of CCS projects over the next few years. Policies and regulations at the federal, state and local levels are being written today to deal with the upcoming growth of CCS, and we need to make sure that our lawmakers are well aware of the potential consequences of large scale CCS.

A recent report released by the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto describes some of the major causes of concern around CCS. Here is a summary of the paper's main points from the NYT’s GreenInc Blog (note the prevalence of water):

• Scale: Achieving the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s long-term sequestration goals means boosting deep geological carbon dioxide storage from about 5 megatons per year to more than 22,000 megatons annually by the end of the century — an “unprecedented” undertaking that Mr. Thomson says will involve extensive new facilities and pipelines that would rival the world’s oil industry infrastructure.

• Water Contamination: In a typical carbon-capture scheme, the carbon dioxide is supposed to be injected into deep, extensive saline aquifers, where it dissolves or binds to subterranean mineral deposits. But the quantities being discussed are so large, Mr. Thomson warns, that experts are increasingly concerned that the CO2 will displace the brine, causing it to contaminate groundwater reserves.

• Water Use: “The process required to capture and then compress carbon dioxide at a conventional coal-fired plant will need much more water than the same plant without carbon capture technology because carbon capture technology is energy-intensive,” writes Mr. Thomson, citing an Australian study showing the coal plants with C.C.S. could be a 25 percent to 33 percent more water intensive.

• Unexpected Leaks: Earthquakes, geological fractures, and old oil wells all represent potential escape routes for CO2 that’s supposed to be locked beneath the nonporous rock caps sitting atop saline aquifers. Mr. Thomson says the risks include the release of contaminants buried with the CO2, as well as leaks of a gas that can poison plants, animals and humans.

• Liability: Suitable aquifers straddle national borders, and it’s not yet clear how damage costs should be apportioned in the event of a catastrophic leak.

Water contamination and water use are two problems in particular that need to be addressed. Producing electricity from coal already has a number of consequences for our water resources, whether its from the decimation caused by mountaintop removal mining practices, the risks to our water from mercury, coal ash and soot, or the water demands for cooling coal-fired power plant cooling.

Stay engaged in local decision making and scrutinize any permits for new CCS projects. CCS may very well prove to be an important technology for dealing with global warming, but we should make sure that its costs are well known and that cleaner, less water intensive solutions aren’t left behind.