ANALYSIS - Carbon Capture: Climate Saviour?

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UK/NORWAY: October 9, 2006

LONDON/OSLO - Burying greenhouse gases underground is emerging as

humanity's number one weapon to fight global warming, hailed by the

oil and coal industry and even cautiously welcomed by environmentalists.

It sounds simple: capture the heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the

power plants and factories that burn fossil fuels, pipe it away and

entomb it in porous rocks several kilometres below ground.

But technological breakthroughs are needed to axe high costs that

would push up household electricity bills before anyone can talk about

"clean coal". And there are problems in preventing and monitoring

leaks and sorting out liability for any seepage.

Still, the prospect of the world's fossil fuel-powered economy

blasting through 2050 emissions targets, linked to fears of dangerous

climate change, is driving the technology.

It is seen a relative quick-fix -- stapling on to existing fossil fuel

industry rather than replacing a bigger share with wind, solar,

nuclear power or efficiency gains.

"I have a friend who says 'there is no silver bullet to solve climate

change, there is silver buckshot'," said former US Vice President Al

Gore during a visit to Oslo to promote his documentary about climate

change.

"Clearly carbon capture is one of the buckshot...with luck maybe it

will become a silver bullet," he said.

UN studies project that entombing carbon dioxide might play a bigger

role in fighting global warming this century than any other measure.

"There's interest from both industry and government, it's mushroomed,"

said Robert Socolow, a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace

Engineering at Princeton University, estimating that public and

private interest was now engaging 10,000 researchers.

Socolow projected that carbon capture and storage would add about 2

cents a kilowatt hour to electricity generated by a coal-fired plant

-- a 50 percent cost increase for delivery to the grid, and adding

perhaps a fifth to household bills.

COAL COMEBACK

Successful carbon capture would boost the fossil fuel industry. That

in turn would slow a shift to renewable energies in a fight against

global warming which could spur more heatwaves, droughts, floods,

disease and raise sea levels.

"It's impossible in the timeframe we have to find alternatives to

fossil fuels," said Jeff Chapman, chief executive of the Carbon

Capture and Storage Association, which formed this year and now has 36

members, including oil and gas and power companies like Royal Dutch

Shell, BP, RWE and E.ON.

Some environmental groups say carbon capture is a form of wishful

thinking delaying a shift to renewable energy, but others are keen --

assuming it is proven.

"Energy efficiency and renewables are the preferred option but CCS is

a kind of emergency exit," said Stephan Singer, Head of European

Climate and Energy Policy at WWF.

"If it works it's definitely part of the solution."

In a report to Group of Eight (G8) leaders this summer the

International Energy Agency forecast business as usual emissions would

more than double by 2050 and found carbon capture and storage a key

cure yielding up to 28 percent of achievable cuts.

A 2005 report by scientists who advise the United Nations estimated

there was capacity underground to store some 80 years of carbon

dioxide emissions -- or some 2,000 billion tonnes.

But the UN panel said the costs of carbon dioxide would have to be

US$25-30 a tonne to make it feasible -- above European Union market

prices of between 12-16 euros (US$15-20) a tonne.

CAMEROON LAKE

What's lacking is proof it is economic and political will.

Experts note that there are dangers, even though carbon dioxide is

non-toxic in normal, low concentrations. It can asphyxiate because it

is heavier than air -- 1,800 people died in Cameroon in 1986 after a

release from a volcanic lake.

Schemes are in operation in Norway, Algeria and Canada, among others,

while six British CCS projects are awaiting government support. The

European Commission also says it is looking at how to use the technology.

Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate

Impact Research in Germany, predicted US technology would lead.

"In the next 10 years, either in China or the United States, we will

see the first emission-free coal-fired power plant -- not in Europe,"

he said, adding China would use US technology.

A US breakthrough could boost President George W. Bush. Many of Bush's

allies criticised his 2001 decision to pull out of the UN's Kyoto

Protocol, the UN plan for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases by

about 35 industrial nations.

Story by Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE