Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
wars, many argue that boosting renewable energy would benei t the
country—and the world—by thwarting catastrophic climate change.
h e real question is not whether it would be good to curb U.S. car-
bon dioxide emissions, or whether using more renewable energy could
in principle do so; the answer to both questions is yes. What ultimately
mat ers is whether renewable energy is the best way to answer the cli-
mate challenge. h e answer to this question ultimately comes down to
whether renewable energy, or instead some other zero-carbon energy
source, will prove to be a cost-ef ective and environmentally sound way
to cut U.S. emissions.
Kurt Zenz House and Justin Dawe are sold on the need to cut green-
house gas emissions, but they are bet ing on another way to do it. h e
pair launched their small startup, perched next door to a nail salon and a
Goodwill shop a couple of blocks from the campus of the University of
California, Berkeley, at er meeting at the Harvard Energy Journal Club.
House, an athletic man then in his late twenties, was completing a PhD
in geosciences; Dawe, a few years older, was i nishing his MBA. While
House i nished up his dissertation (winningly titled “On the Physics
and Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage in Terrestrial
and Marine Environments”), Dawe went of to work for Horizon Wind
Energy, a Houston-based developer of wind power projects.
“We're oilmen who vote for Democrats,” House quips. Dawe laughs.
He let Horizon, a true alternative energy i rm, to launch C12, which
seeks to capture the carbon emissions from fossil-fueled power plants
and use them to produce oil. We i rst encountered this tantalizing
prospect in Chapter 2: carbon-dioxide-enhanced oil recovery, known
as CO 2 -EOR, promises to boost U.S. oil production by as much as two
million barrels a day, if only there is a big source of carbon dioxide.
“What is the goal of low carbon energy?” Dawe asks rhetorically. “If
your goal is to come up with an alternative source of energy, then this is
not particularly alternative. If your goal is to have a societal-scale energy
system that emits small amounts of CO 2 , this is fabulous.”
h e idea behind carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is sim-
ple. Power plants that burn coal or natural gas emit carbon dioxide;
operators can install equipment to separate out the carbon dioxide and
bury it deep underground. h
is costs extra money—the equipment is
 
 
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