SALT LAKE CITY -- Taking carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and dumping them underground is easy and probably safe. It just costs a lot of money, a leading researcher said Wednesday.
"It could double the cost of electricity if we implemented it right now," said Brian McPherson, a University of Utah geophysicist who has been awarded tens of millions of dollars by the federal government for research to combat climate change.
Yet other experts are working to lower the cost of converting carbon dioxide gas into a liquid state -- which takes a lot of energy and pressure -- for efficient underground storage, he said.
The race is on to find a way to get rid of carbon dioxide emissions, which are produced in abundance by coal burning and take most of the blame for heating up the planet. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded McPherson $5 million on Tuesday to study a promising geologic repository near a power plant in Craig, Colo..
That brought total DOE funding for his research to more than $70 million -- money largely spent on drilling holes in the ground.
McPherson said some of the best sites could be depleted oil and gas fields in southern Utah. He's also studying underground formations across the western United States.
Comments