3 How viable is this Bioenergy Plus Carbon Capture and Storage?
More than the viability of BECC, what is threatening its potential is the amount of bureaucratic scandal plaguing the efforts. Reports of the funds becoming a burden to bear, compared to the throughput energy efficiency. An experiment of this large scale has a lot of untested parameters on an unprecedented scale. Besides these reports by the New York Times, there are unfortunate whispers that the project may not be completely helpful as it is bound to cost some energy and create some carbon emissions of its own.
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The burning question, no pun intended, on everyone’s mind is, if the concept of carbon-free coal power is a myth? Truth be told, by large it is. Many a large name has invested billions in the field of producing coal energy without adding to our carbon footprint. However, given the scale of these kind of plants, efforts have always been cost-ineffective and failed miserably. The other worry with funding BECC, which is our hope of replacing the hackneyed concept of carbon-free coal-power, is that it raises the question of capturing large sections of land that can be simply used to add to the green canopy on earth, or better still, for food crops.
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CONCLUSION:
Truth is, we wasted a lot of time denying the fact that our modern lifestyles are having a gruesome impact on our environment. The tales of civilizations that have poisoned their own well in the effort to fly too close to the Sun, can be found in fiction frequently. What remains to be seen is if we are willing to forget the profit to be made and invest freely in saving the planet instead by reducing global warming. Easier said than done.
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