MIT: U.S. Has Plenty of Room for Carbon Storage

MIT: U.S. Has Plenty of Room for Carbon Storage

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While plenty of question marks still hang over the prospect of carbon capture and storage, MIT believes it’s ruled out one: the United States, it says, has enough capacity in its deep saline aquifers to store at least a century’s fossil fuel emissions.

In the past, estimates of America’s capacity have ranged from enough to store just a few years’ worth of coal-plant emissions up to many thousands of years’ worth. It’s a big disparity. But because deep saline aquifers have no commercial value, there’s been little exploration to determine their extent.