Financial Times: Energy: Carbon capture is an opportunity ripe for exploitation

A few years ago there was a advertisement shown on US television opposing controls on greenhouse gases that ended with the words: “Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution; we call it life.”

The advert was derided by environmental campaigners for its cynical obfuscation of the reasons why anyone might be concerned about CO2. Yet it pointed to what now looks like one of the most promising approaches to addressing the threat of climate change – seeing carbon dioxide not as a problem to be solved but as an opportunity to be exploited.

If the world is to put long-term limits on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then capturing and storing the emissions from burning fossil fuels seems essential. Oil, gas and coal provide about 80 per cent of the world’s energy and it is difficult to see how they will not continue to be indispensable for decades to come.  MORE