MIT centers, laboratories, departments and programs provide a multi-faceted approach to solving the world's energy challenge.
Carbon sequestration
In a carbon-constrained world, coal-burning facilities will have to capture carbon dioxide emissions and sequester them underground in geological formations or in the deep ocean. Coal supplies 25 percent of the world's primary energy and more than half of all electricity generated in the U.S. today comes from coal-fired power plants. Transporting the 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced annually by those plants would equate to roughly one third of all the natural gas transported in U.S. gas pipelines each year. Meanwhile, China is constructing the equivalent of two to three 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants per week, each of which will produce about three million tons of carbon dioxide per year. China's annual additional capacity of coal plants is comparable to the entire UK power grid. India is also adding coal-fired power generation at a rapid pace.
This context is important for appreciating the massive scale of the geologic sequestration requirements and the associated research challenges if we are to avoid the post-industrial doubling of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by mid-century. Challenges include site characterization and further identification of safe, effective and environmentally sound storage sites; resolving site liability issues; and designing modeling, monitoring and verification systems appropriate to future regulatory regimes and for long-term stewardship of sequestration sites. Large-scale demonstrations at representative geologic sites are critical to resolving technical and regulatory issues.
