Scientists are talking about a new way to address global warming. Their idea is to take carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants and inject it deep into the earth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell explains:
Transcript
Scientists are talking about a new way to address global warming. Their idea is to take carbon
dioxide from coal-burning power plants and inject it deep into the earth. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Annie Macdowell explains:
It’s called carbon sequestration. The idea is to use a chemical process to remove carbon dioxide
from power plant emissions and pressurize it into a liquid form. The liquid would then be injected
into saline aquifers up to ten thousand feet below the ground.
The government wants to create 4 to 10 regional partnerships to study the possibility of carbon
sequestration. One of the potential sites is in the Illinois Basin. The basin extends throughout three
quarters of Illinois, into Western Indiana and Western Kentucky.
Robert Finley is the director of the Center for Energy and Earth Resources at the Illinois State
Geological Survey. He says carbon sequestration could be a good transition for the country as it
moves away from using fossil fuels.
“It would allow us to use coal in a more environmentally responsible way while we look toward the
future with additional use of renewables and ultimately, perhaps, going to a hydrogen economy.”
Finley says at this point, sequestration doesn’t work with other pollutants found in power plant
emissions, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.