CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION HAS A STRANGE place in our energy-climate conversation. Some talk about it as if we hadn't already done it and as if we had much choice to do a lot more of it.

The nation urgently needs an energy-rich, low-carbon energy system that's cheap and efficient. Carbon capture and sequestration allows us to take advantage of the high-energy density of fossil fuels and the built infrastructure, and to deeply cut emissions very quickly. It draws on two domestic resources: lots of deep geological formations that can hold CO₂ indefinitely, and ingenuity to drive down the costs through rapid technology commercialization.

We know that CCS will work—we've already done it. Each year for more than 40 years, we've injected millions of tons of CO₂ underground for enhanced oil recovery, last year 28 million tons. In all, 3,000 miles of pipelines ship CO₂ through nine states for this purpose. We've captured millions of tons of CO₂ from gasification plants such as those in Coffeyville, Kan., or Beulah, N.D., and shipped it for hundreds of miles. We've even injected about 30 million tons of CO₂ worldwide over 15 years into deep brine formations just to keep it out of the atmosphere, successfully predicted how it will behave, and verified this through monitoring programs.

This last point is not widely recognized. The Department of Energy has worked closely with companies and leading U.S. research institutions to ensure success and learning in key demonstrations like the Frio Brine pilot in Texas, the ADM-ethanol project in Decatur, Ill., or Cranfield in Mississippi. They show that we can make excellent predictions about where CO₂ will go, how it will behave, and how long it will stay put. These projects, validated and verified through simulation, measurement, and years of monitoring, brought with them over time a number of major technology improvements like new monitoring tools.

We also know the cost of CCS is between $3,000 and $6,000 a kilowatt for coal with CCS, or about an extra 4 to 5 cents a kilowatt-hour, a bit more for natural gas plants. That's more than we'd like—an increase of 20 to 50 percent retail—but CCS is competitive with wind, solar and nuclear in many markets. And that's with today's 70-year-old capture technology.

There's lots of room to improve. There are many, many technology pathways to lower costs. Some of these are funded by the DOE, such as industrial catalysts derived from our understanding of the processes that occur in our lungs, or carbon-nanotube membranes or new sorbents. With advanced technology, we can expect a 50 to 80 percent drop in CCS costs, perhaps just 1 to 2 cents a kilowatt-hour—a very reasonable cost for a secure, energy-rich, low-carbon option.

The big uncertainty is scale—how much CCS is possible, and where? Because the whole point of CCS is to keep large volumes of CO₂ out of the atmosphere for a long time, large storage volumes are required.

This question can only be answered in one way — combining detailed geological assessments with a few key large-scale demonstrations. Both are in the plan of the Department of Energy, which has been doing coarse assessment of geological resources for some eight years. It's also the plan of the U.S. Geological Survey, which has a congressional mandate to do these assessments.

As for large projects, that's been the plan of major power companies, including Duke, AEP, Southern, Summit, NRG Energy and others. They've realized the critical importance of the CCS option, and have matched their own money with large federal investments from Congress and the DOE. These investments are required if we are to answer the questions surrounding scalability, and whether CCS can solve 15, 25 or 50 percent of our needs.

Ultimately, the big uncertainties aren't technical — they're political. The power sector needs to know the carbon price and the regulatory framework to make smart business decisions. This comes in the face of greater demands for electrification for vehicles, for renewable portfolio standards and for demand management.

The choice? Do we pay more for less abatement? Do we fail our children and ourselves by concentrating more CO₂ in the atmosphere? Do we let other nations, including Norway, China and Australia, sell us the key technology we won't invest in? Do we use more oil and less electricity to decarbonize our vehicle fleet?

Or do we proceed with all technology options, including CCS, to lead the world in low-cost, low-carbon energy? That choice requires sustained investment, by government and business, to vet and deliver this critical technology option to market as swiftly as possible.

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