Carbon capture

The Biden administration proposed new power plant rules on May 11, 2023, that have the potential to be among the most stringent federal policy measures on coal, oil and gas power plants the United States has ever introduced. The proposal would set new carbon pollution standards for existing power plants, effectively restricting their emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Operators of fossil fuel power plants would need to find feasible and innovative ways to avoid excessive carbon dioxide releases. That’s drawing attention to a relatively mature, but expensive technology: carbon capture and storage, or CCS. Most CCS chemically separates carbon dioxide generated during fossil fuel combustion, compresses it and transports it through pipelines for storage, typically in geological formations deep underground. While CCS can be effective, it has some high hurdles on its path to widespread use. I follow U.S. policies on CCS as a clim...

Deep below the ocean surface, the light fades into a twilight zone where whales and fish migrate and dead algae and zooplankton rain down from above. This is the heart of the ocean’s carbon pump, part of the natural ocean processes that capture about a third of all human-produced carbon dioxide and sink it into the deep sea, where it remains for hundreds of years. There may be ways to enhance these processes so the ocean pulls more carbon out of the atmosphere to help slow climate change. Yet little is known about the consequences. Peter de Menocal, a marine paleoclimatologist and director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, discussed ocean carbon dioxide removal at a recent TEDxBoston: Planetary Stewardship event. In this interview, he dives deeper into the risks and benefits of human intervention and describes an ambitious plan to build a vast monitoring network of autonomous sensors in the ocean to help humanity understand the impact. First, what is ocean carbon...