PUTTING A LID ON CARBON DIOXIDE

IT SOUNDS SO PAINLESS: CONCENTRATE, capture, pressurize, and inject carbon dioxide deep into Earth's geologic formations and avoid, or at least delay, the likely damage of global warming. There, the greenhouse gas would rest forever, providing the U.S. with time to develop a long-term solution to overcome the climate-change impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. That is the optimistic scenario upon which nearly all current federal global warming research is based. The U.S. hopes, in the words of the State Department's senior climate negotiator, Harlan L. Watson, to develop "transformational technologies" that will lead to an energy future free of climate-change fears. A focus on CO 2 is the logical first place to look for greenhouse gas reductions. Although it is but one of many greenhouse gases, CO 2 makes up more than 70% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. is by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter, ...