http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL0531028720080505

Carbon capture and sequestration is marketed as the silver bullet to allow coal-fired power plants continue operation while limiting the harmful emissions released into the atmosphere. After capturing the carbon dioxide, utilities will need to store it somewhere. Current technology allows us to inject it into the ground where it won't get back into the carbon cycle.

Greenpeace and more than 100 other environmental groups denounced projects for burying industrial greenhouse gases on Monday, exposing splits in the green movement about whether such schemes can slow global warming.

But Greenpeace issued a 44-page report about the technology entitled "False Hope".

"Carbon capture and storage is a scam. It is the ultimate coal industry pipe dream," said Emily Rochon, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace International and author of the report.

Greenpeace and 112 green groups from 21 nations said governments should invest in wind, solar and other renewable energies rather than in capture technologies that would allow coal-fired power plants to stay in operation.

CCS projects are expensive, but are they worth it? Technologies can be applied to existing coal plants to slow climate change at a lesser cost to consumers than shutting down coal plants entirely. In the future, more focus should go towards large-scale renewable electricity projects and no new coal plants should be built.

Reuters; May 5, 2008

Submitted by B. Shapiro