Carbon Storage? Not Under My House!

AOIFE WHITE

BARENDRECHT, Netherlands (AP) — The people of this small Dutch town are not against pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the ground to fight global warming.

They just wish it wasn't right beneath their houses. "Who wants to live in Barendrecht if one of these CO2 things is built?" said retiree Marianne van Heugten.

The carbon dioxide storage experiment by Royal Dutch Shell and the Dutch government is only one of a dozen such projects across Europe to test a technology that could potentially slash emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by storing it underground.

That would allow countries that have lots of coal, such as China and the United States, to cut emissions while using the cheap but polluting fossil fuel. Carbon dioxide from the burning of such fuels is considered the chief cause of global warming.

But questions remain about the technology and its costs and risks even as the EU prepares to spend billions on it.

If it works, the technology would buy the world time in the fight againt global warming by reducing emissions until cleaner energy sources can be developed — and help the EU keep big promises. Three weeks before global talks on a new climate change pact in Copenhagen, the EU says it is ready to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 percent by 2050. The EU thinks carbon storage could shave up to 10 percent off global emissions by 2030 and 20 percent by 2050.