Monday, January 2, 2017

: re: Can Carbon Capture Technology Prosper Under Trump?


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 9:54 AM
Subject: re: Can Carbon Capture Technology Prosper Under Trump?
To: "letters@nytimes.com"


To the Editor:
    The best form in which to sequester carbon for geologically-relevant periods is as low-valent solids (coal, peat, biochar). Second best is as a low-valent liquid (petroleum). Geological formations that can securely hold a gas (e.g. CO2) are finite and only rarely are they present where you would want them for CCS. To spend energy to capture, and to compress, and to ship, and to inject CO2 (Petra Nova has its own power plant just to drive CCS!) makes sense only for capturing federal subsidies. It is wiser to leave carbon which is already stably sequestered in the earth. What should be captured and sequestered is the carbon of waste cellulose (newsprint, bagasse, straw, sawdust, stoker...). Photosynthesis day by day is cleaning CO2 out of our atmosphere. As biochar, it can be blocked from cycling back as greenhouse gases.
Barry Haskell Levine


http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/science/donald-trump-carbon-capture-clean-coal.html

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