Hunting the invisible: CO2 capture and storage

Today 1.6 billion people live without electricity. Energy is the key to an increased standard of living and it will take a long time before renewable energy will be available in the amount that is needed. Coal, by contrast, is both cheap and widely available. This is why coal-fired power stations spring up like mushrooms. The problem is that all the red spots on this map are responsible for filling the atmosphere with CO₂.

The seas and forests of the world do not have the capacity to soak up all the CO₂ that is pouring out from factories and from coal and gas-fired power stations. Therefore, our future energy supplies must be renewable. Even the most optimistic, however, doubt that renewable energy can be responsible for more than half of the world’s total energy needs by the year 2050. This is 50 percent too little.  Fortunately, by means of new and ground-breaking technology we can capture CO₂ from power stations and factories, and store it deep under the earth’s crust. The world can no longer afford to sit back and contemplate CO₂ capture and storage (CCS). It is time to get building – on a large scale!