Researcher warns carbon capture and storage could just delay global warming, due to leaks

Carbon capture and storage projects have been pointed to as one opportunity to curb global warming, but a new study suggests seepage from CCS projects may just delay global warming instead of stopping it. "Unless the seepage rate of sequestered carbon dioxide can be held to 1 percent every 1,000 years, overall temperature rise could still reach dangerous levels that cause sea level rise and ocean acidification, concludes the research published yesterday in Nature Geoscience," Christa Marshall of Environment & Energy Daily reports. The study was conducted by Gary Shaffer, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and Chile's University of Concepción.

"The delayed warming resulting from escapes of gas would occur gradually for hundreds of years, but could be problematic and expensive for future generations who would have to figure out how to recapture the CO2 from the atmosphere," Marshall writes. Shafer explained, "It may be a useful thing to carry out this carbon sequestration, but there are dangers, and the best thing would be to decrease emissions in other ways that make it unnecessary." Even a leakage rate of 1 percent every decade could be "very serious," Shafer told Marshall. At that rate temperature would spike about 3 degrees Celsius in the next century and a rise close to 4 degrees Celsius over the following 2,000 years. (Read more, subscription required)