Fossil fuel burning wouldn't be so bad for the environment, were it not for all of the climate-changing carbon dioxide released in the process.
One solution could be to catch it before it escapes from a coal-burning power plant and lock it away underground. That may sound crazy -- and some say it is -- but carbon capture and storage (CCS) is moving closer to reality.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced earlier this month their funding -- to the tune of $126 million -- of two large-scale carbon storage projects in California and the Midwest. The DOE had previously announced $253.7 million in funding for four others.
"The announcement of these two projects, making a total of six, each with a minimum of a million tons [of CO2 injected underground], is a massive step forward," said Julio Friedmann of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.
"It's been recognized for a while that there need to be many large-scale injections to learn what it is we need to learn," Friedmann said.
Companies have been injecting CO2 into the ground already, including in efforts to help force the last bits of oil out of oilfields, but the scale does not match what is needed to store CO2 from coal-fired plants.
"The next tier of questions include ones that really require a large, sustained injection," said Friedmann.
These projects will help researchers understand how the Earth's crust deforms as large volumes of CO2 are pumped underground, and which sites are the best for storing CO2, Friedmann said.
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