Carbon Storage? Not Under My House!

The people of this small Dutch town are not against pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the ground to fight global warming.

View of the area of Barendrecht near the filling station where plans for underground storage of CO2...

View of the area of Barendrecht near the filling station where plans for underground storage of CO2 in Barendrecht, Netherlands, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. The people of the small Dutch town of Barendrecht are not against pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the ground to fight global warming. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

(AP)

They just wish it wasn't right beneath their houses. "Who wants to live in Barendrecht if one of these CO2 things is built?" said retiree Marianne van Heugten.

The carbon dioxide storage experiment by Royal Dutch Shell and the Dutch government is only one of a dozen such projects across Europe to test a technology that could potentially slash emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by storing it underground.

That would allow countries that have lots of coal, such as China and the United States, to cut emissions while using the cheap but polluting fossil fuel. Carbon dioxide from the burning of such fuels is considered the chief cause of global warming.

But questions remain about the technology and its costs and risks even as the EU prepares to spend billions on it.

If it works, the technology would buy the world time in the fight againt global warming by reducing emissions until cleaner energy sources can be developed — and help the EU keep big promises. Three weeks before global talks on a new climate change pact in Copenhagen, the EU says it is ready to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 percent by 2050. The EU thinks carbon storage could shave up to 10 percent off global emissions by 2030 and 20 percent by 2050.

The European Union has pledged some euro1.05 billion in initial financing and will raise extra funding — likely some euro4.5 billion — from selling permits to emit greenhouse gases under a cap-and-trade system where companies need to pay to pollute more.

It is also calling for all new coal-fired power stations built after 2020 to be capable of capturing carbon — even if the technology isn't ready to be rolled out by then.

The Dutch government must decide whether to overrule Barendrecht residents objections or push forward with the unknown risks of storage under one of the most densely populated parts of Europe. Most current storage sites are in isolated areas.