The fantasy that spurred An Inconvenient Truth was that our current way of life is sustainable. That we can all travel around town in our cars and and fly between cities on our airplanes and extract our energy from coal the way we as a Westernized nation have been for the past 60 years. Richard Branson and Al Gore have even fronted massive prizes to any technology that can keep our current lifestyle afloat: $25 million to the first person who can effectively remove massive amounts of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and keep us running down at ground level.

 

But that’s science fiction, right? After all, combustion of hydrocarbon fuels must release carbon dioxide. But where that carbon dioxide goes and what it reacts with can, to a certain extent, be controlled. This is the root science behind carbon sequestration, and despite a relative lack of publicity — at least compared to other possible greenhouse gas solutions, such as cap-and-trade, hybrid electric vehicles, and renewable electricity sources — it’s further along on its path to development than you might think. 

“This is a geotechnical problem,” says Paul Metz, with the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory at University of Alaska-Fairbanks. “By far, 99.99 percent of the Earth's carbon is sequestered or stored as carbonate minerals. If we're going to look at ways to store carbon, we should look at how the Earth stores it.” Metz’s research deals with what’s called geologic sequestration, or storing carbon beneath the earth’s crust.

By venting exhaust from coal plants — America’s current coal stock can meet its current energy need for the next millennium or so — unground, near rock formations rich in iron, magnesium and calcium, sequestration supporters hope the hot carbon dioxide will form carbonates, rather than escaping into the atmosphere.

While the science behind the theories does hold up, there are several possible problems. First, the technology is still at least a decade away from any sort of commercially viable implementation. Second, the technology would still require us to make massive changes in our daily activities, as a tremendous amount of carbon emissions currently produced are from automobiles and airplanes. To reap the benefits of carbon sequestration, these technologies would still somehow have to be converted to electric power. Then there’s the problem of the environmental impacts of coal extraction, and of controlling the mercury and other toxic chemicals emitted during coal combustion.

So while there is some definite potential for carbon sequestration to aid in a more sustainable future, it is by no means a carbon solution unto itself. Many environmental advocacy groups have taken a wait-and-see approach, acknowledging carbon sequestration’s potential while saying even if effective, it would be best used in tandem with other approaches, such as cleaner energy sources and more efficient transportation and building design.

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