A Guide to Sequestration

Climate change concerns may soon force drastic reductions in carbon dioxide CO₂ emissions. In response to this challenge, it may prove necessary to render fossil fuels environmentally acceptable by capturing and sequestering CO₂  until other inexpensive, dean, and plentiful technologies are available. Today's fossil fuel resources exceed 5000 megatons of carbon (GT C) (I), compared with world consumption of 6 Gt C /year, assuring ample transition time. However, by 2050, the goal of stabilizing the atmospheric CO₂   con, cent ration while maintaining healthy economic growth may require "carbon-neutral" energy in excess of today's total energy consumption (2). Lowering world CO₂ emissions to 2 GT C/year 

 Estimated storage capacities and times for various sequestration methods science daily. The "fossil carbon" range includes at its upper end methane hydrates from the ocean floor. The "oxygen limit" is the amount of fossil carbon that would use up all oxygen available in air for its combustion. Carbon consumption for the zits century ranges from 600 Gt (current consumption held con-stent) to 2400 Gt. "Ocean acidic" and "ocean neutral" are the ocean's uptake capacities for carbonize acid and neutralized carbonize acid, respectively. The upper limits of capacity or lifetime for underground injection and mineral carbonates are not well constrained.