Return Carbon to the Ground

Americans need to transform how we produce and consume energy to prevent dangerous global warming. In fact, scientists say that significant carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions should begin within 10 years and that U.S. CO2 emissions should be cut by 50 percent or more by 2050 to avoid the most severe, irreversible effects of heat-trapping pollution. Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies will be the cornerstones of the solution.

To the extent that coal continues to be used, an important additional strategy is to capture the CO2 emitted from coal-fired power plants and pump it into natural geologic structures deep in the Earth, where it is gradually absorbed.

More than 50 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States is produced from coal. Yet coal has the highest uncontrolled carbon dioxide emission rate of any fuel and is responsible for 33 percent of the U.S. carbon dioxide (as well as other harmful emissions) released into the atmosphere.

There is no such thing as “clean coal”: coal production, processing, and transportation practices scar the landscape and foul the water, harming people and ecosystems that range from Appalachian coal-field communities to Western ranchers. Although Clean Air Act standards helped reduce sulfur and nitrogen emissions somewhat, carbon dioxide emissions from power plants increased by 27 percent since 1990, and there is no end in sight unless emission limits are put into force.

More than 100 new conventional coal-fired power plants are in various stages of development throughout the United States. By 2030, the Department of Energy projects that the equivalent of 450 new large (300 MW) coal-fired power plants will be completed.

With a lifetime of more than 60 years, these plants will produce more than 60 billion tons of CO2 in total—10 times the current annual emissions from all sources—enough to effectively foreclose the option to prevent dangerous