Carbon Capture for Coal Fired Power Plants

For many years now the world has been worrying about global warming and even though it has not been proven that it is happening or even that carbon emissions play a key role in it governments around the world have been pouring money to “fix” a problem that we aren’t even sure is there.  

One thing that people are now trying to do is to capture the carbon dioxide that is released from coal burning power plants.  Right now this gas is released out of the smoke stack without being treated.  This has been going ever since the beginning.  As of today no one has proven that this is harmful to the environment at all, but recently there has been talk about limiting the amount of this gas that can be released.

This talk has caused people to try and figure out a way to capture the carbon dioxide from the power plants.  The department of energy budgeted 41 million dollars last year alone.  Their goal is to capture at least 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted.  They say they want to achieve this while only raising the cost to produce the energy by 35 percent.  I don’t know about you but I don’t want my tax dollars to go to fund a project that will increase my electric bill by 35 percent to “fix” a problem that we aren’t even sure exists and what exactly is causing it.  That is like paying someone to rob you.  It just doesn’t make any sense.  But then again it seems like that is what the government is best at.

 

If they do decide to go ahead and try to capture the carbon dioxide, they are faced with another dilemma.  They have to find a place to store it.  One thought is to pump it deep into the ocean.  This might work but it would require a massive pipe network to get the gas out there.  Another problem with doing this is that it could potentially increase oceanic acidification.  They are also thinking about pumping it into deep underground geologic formations.  The problem with this is the risk that the carbon dioxide would leak from these formations and make it into the atmosphere anyways.  

One of the main benefits that the United States government keeps saying over and over again is that it will create new jobs and stimulate the economy.  They may be right that it will create new jobs, but what are these jobs actually accomplishing.  As of right now we are producing the amount of energy that is needed for this country with the amount of workers that work to do it.  If we decided to implement carbon capture at these power plants all that we would be doing is making it more expensive and more labor intensive to produce the same product.  I am no economist but I think that this would only hurt the economy and ultimately lead to less jobs.

 

Overall what I am saying is that this technology, however advanced it may be, has no function purpose or need and I don’t want my tax money to fund the research for it.  It would only increase energy costs and hurt the economy.