Have your coal and burn it

By Chris Rochelle and Mike Stephenson2010-07-01T00:00:00

A machine moving coal supplies for a power station

Source: Colin Cuthbert/Science Photo Library

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to reduce carbon emissions and allow us to continue using fossil fuels to generate electricity

The idea of CCS is simple. Large point sources of CO₂, such as power stations, cement factories and refineries, could be connected in clusters to pipelines that would take separated CO₂ to wells where it can be injected into former oil or gas fields or salt water soaked pore space in other rock layers (saline aquifiers). The argument is that if the underground storage structure is good enough, the CO₂ will stay there for millions of years, just as natural gas does.

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