The Carbon Conundrum

Technology exists to sequester carbon-but will utilities ever buy in?

The vision: A nation filled with new, coal-fired power plants that provide inexpensive, secure power for Americans, while emitting few pollutants and sequestering the carbon dioxide produced. In other words, a power plant that not only industry and environmentalists can agree on, but one that utilities can finance and operate profitably.

The current reality: A nation filled with a rapidly aging coal-fired fleet that runs inexpensively but emits large amounts of pollutants and has no capability to sequester carbon dioxide. In other words, power plants that not only place industry and environmentalists constantly at odds, but which shareholders and investors are increasingly concerned about.

The question: What will it take to get us from today's reality to tomorrow's vision? And are we willing to do it?

There's little doubt that the problem of carbon-increasing levels of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide-must be addressed. President Bush's science advisor, Dr. John Marburger, acknowledges that greenhouse gas levels have risen substantially since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and that the bulk of that increase in carbon dioxide levels is due to human activity.¹ A rise in carbon dioxide levels also is expected to cause, if it hasn't already, global warming.

And as Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham remarked last fall, the only way projections are going for energy demand and resulting carbon emissions is up. Only if one assumes all nations of the world-developed and developing-undertake a massive overhaul of their energy infrastructures in a relatively quick time frame, he says, would those projections decrease.