High Costs Put Clean Coal on Back Burner

Site in Illinois may be able to hold 100 billion tons of CO2

(NEWSER) - Construction began this week on an Energy Department project that aims to bury a million metric tons of carbon dioxide beneath Illinois' surface by 2012, Wired reports. While that's peanuts compared to the billions of tons emitted each year, the project—the largest such injection to date—could pave the way for a multi-state storage site that advocates claim could store 100 billion tons. More»

Regulation of greenhouse gasses will have more immediate impact

(NEWSER) - No matter what happens in Copenhagen, the Obama administration is preparing to make a move to curb greenhouse gases at home that has businesses up in arms. As early as today the EPA is expected to announce that carbon dioxide has officially been classified as a dangerous pollutant, meaning that the EPA can regulate its emission even without action from Congress. More»

(NEWSER) - China's inefficient power plants and heavy reliance on coal are dragging down global efforts to curb climate change, a Greenpeace report warned yesterday. The report found that major Chinese power companies are responsible for a huge amount of the country's coal use and emissions, with the top three producers alone creating more carbon dioxide emissions than the total for all of Britain, the Guardian reports. More»

Coal, oil, companies suppressed experts' findings for years

(NEWSER) - A coalition of industries linked to fossil fuels lobbied for more than a decade to cast doubt on global warming—while the companies' own scientists advised them that climate change was irrefutable, the New York Times reports. The Global Climate Coalition, financed by the oil, coal, and auto industries, conducted a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to challenge the environmental consensus, despite an internal report as early as 1995 that the impact of carbon emissions "is well established and cannot be denied." More»

Japan, US to monitor carbon emissions from orbit

(NEWSER) - Japan and the US are using satellites to study global warming, the Economist reports. Last month Japan launched Ibuki—meaning breath—a satellite that will gather data from 56,000 points around the globe. America’s equivalent, the Orbital Carbon Observatory, will launch at the end of the month. Researchers hope to use data collected by the satellites to “audit” the Earth’s carbon cycle. More»