I'm with Aussie on this. I've always been highly suspicious of CCS schemes for the reasons A mentions, particularly the business about whether the CO2 stays put.

Increasingly, we're dealing with the complexities of storing Nasty Stuff essentially forever, e.g. nuclear waste and CO2. Given the serial screwups we see in nuclear waste management, I have very little confidence that we can make CCS work in any meaningful sense of that word.

And no, I don't know what the right answer/mix of answers is. I do, however, get nervous when I see talk of betting so much on something that's so unlikely (in my opinion) to work on the scale needed.

I wonder why Nuclear Waste must be stored with Zero Chance of accidental or malicious release for >10,000 years with billions of dollars in studies, for a volume of material probably .00001% of what CO2 is being considered. So a big bubble of CO2 gets released due to a earthquake in 200 years underneath a city of a million people which has been built there, and you have a million dead people.

Hey Richard, look on the bright side, I'm told CO2 Asphyxiation is a pleasant death. Check out:

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2005/05_06_02.html

Large amounts of tons, tiny fraction of the total.  Converting 100 ppm of the atmosphere from O2 to CO2 and putting it underground would reduce the oxygen content by 0.01%.

Certainly society needs to be protected from nuclear waste but this is not that difficult. Yucca mountain, despite its political difficulties, is a spectacular example of engineering convservatism.
The natural reactors at Oklo in Gabon ran for hundreds of thousands of years. The fission fragments and transuranics have stayed put for over a billion years. Essentially, the only fission fragments that are missing are the gaseous ones.

CO2 is plant food in New England and we'll take all you have to offer.

The bio-mass in the Northern New England forest is growing at a rate of 2-3% over current rates of consumption.

Both Global Warming and the excess of CO2 have been major factors in giving us this huge energy 'reserve'.

I and others are planning to tap into it with gassifiers, and when the enzyme scene settles down and become less proprietary, perhaps brewing up Jet bio fuels for the new generation of low Emission Aircraft(LEA's).

For the CO2 zealots; wood chip gasifiers are largely closed loop operations and it is easy to scrub out CO2 from emissions.

Since I don't believe in the CO2 theory of global warming--way to many contrary theories including increased solar radiation and the interference of the water vapour in Jet contrails with radiative forcing; I have mixed emotions about gettin into the carbon trading schemes like REGI.

In any case, my bio-refineries will be as green as it gets and utilize green 'waste' and low value feedstock to make a mid range BTU natural gas in a gassifier with well controlled output of gases and solids.

This is the easy part.

The hard part is getting a 'village' transportation system that is friendly to Alt. Fuel vehicles and runs in winter.

We a potential 'beta' site in Brunswick Naval Air Station, now in the process of closing.

If any of you have developed or planned alt. fuel vehicle systems, golf cart trails in Georgia, college campuses, please contact me since I'm involved in planning a workshop for this summer.

Everytime I see the stats on how much CO2 can be sequestered I am amazed all over again. The obvious problems are capturing CO2 relatively free of other gases, the cost of lines to move it, and the cost to compress it. And the first seems the worst.

I will also guarantee that environmental concerns will stop any scheme, however sensible, in the US. The chances of a CO2 release killing many people is zero. Maybe a worker near a failing well or pipe would die. It would be a safer job than the late shift at 7-11.

The sequestered C02 will be deep and the pressure relatively low. There will be no blast like a volcano or a sudden massive release.

There are many reasons to ease off fossil and carbon base fuels.. But they are here and will be here for quite some time. The choice is to improve or whine.

The second sentence (above) by Earl has it right - don't reject proposed decisions in a nanosecond just because some nonperfection may be argued.

K and Earl, nobody is writing off CO2 sequestration in a nanosecond, certainly I agree it is feasible and needs to be considered, CAREFULLY. The point of the argument is the double standard when it comes to nuclear waste, by the criteria that natural gas has been there for millions of years, apply that to nuclear, drill a hole any old place in hard rock that has been there for millions of years, dump the nuclear waste in, seal it with concrete, problem solved.

Natural gas does occasionally get released in earth movements or venting and being lighter than air, dissipates harmlessly into the atmosphere. CO2 however being heavier than air, settles on the ground until dissipated by wind & diffusion.

Another option with CO2 is to combine it with water & surplus or remote power to produce liquid fuels, namely methanol & ethanol. Also possibly algae will produce a biodiesel using waste CO2. Liquefied CO2 could be shipped to Iceland, which has huge geothermal power resources, and shipped back in the same tanker as methanol.

Global warming, nuclear power, or any technology goes against the Greens (Marxist) belief systems. In their view, everyone would be better off if we all just went back the Amish way of life. How come the greens don’t care about the poor people of Asia and Africa because they don’t have any money to give to the Greens to fight for their cause?

Nuclear power can be a clean and safe way to provide cheap power to the nation, but we could continue to use coal based power with CO2 sequestration if that’s the still the lowest cost power to produce. GW has started funding for nuclear waste recycling (as already done in the France) here in the USA. The end result wound is more fuel available for future n-plants and nuclear waste reduction as well. If natural gas can stay under ground without any problems then CO2 sequestration should have the same results.

Richard - "World CO2 emissions now exceed six billion tons annually, roughly 2500 cubic miles of gas at standard pressure and room temperature. In contrast all of the high-level nuclear power waste created to date would fit inside one large building. Future generations will think we were insane to be screwing around with CO2 sequestration."

I think future generations will think we are insane for doing either of these things when we have the solution for energy generation without nuclear or CO2 waste to bury somewhere to become EP's 500 year 'local' problem. It may be OK now to write it off as such however, the 'locals' of the time might not regard it so benignly.

To embrace zero emission technology we need to change and this is what is unpalatable to us Western people that want to keep all our wasteful luxuries. The problem is not really energy, as there is plenty of zero emission energy, but our attitude that our lifestyles are not negotiable or the attitude that we cannot have our present lifestyles without coal or nuclear.

EP - that article is extremely interesting. Makes a bit of a mockery of the argument that we have to have coal and nuclear. I would just like to add that energy efficiency gains could make the whole job a lot easier by lowering the target that you have to replace.

Can we do it without coal and nuclear? It doesnt matter because we wont.Political reality must interfere with wishes.Tell the coal states you are going to eliminate tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars and then show me how You will sell the idea to them.
Assuming Ender is correct that there is plenty of zero emission energy availlable,it is negated in his next point in that our "lifestyles are not negotiable".At least not to the point where the no coal, no nuclear,stricly green answers can be sold to the general public.Including many of those who say they want to save the planet.If it cant be sold to the public and their lobbyists{congress} then you must pursue an efficacious policy that can be sold.