Research Highlights
July 2008
Jim Dooley discusses Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage on Energy Policy TV
Carbon dioxide capture and storage is a critical component of society's response to climate change, but large-scale commercial deployment of the technology will ultimately depend on a climate policy that calls for deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions. This was the message that PNNL's Jim Dooley conveyed in a panel discussion that was hosted by Energy Policy TV in July.
The televised panel discussion, "Carbon Sequestration: Promise and Reality," focused on the technical and commercial state of carbon dioxide capture and storage, or CCS, and its deployment. The roundtable discussion included perspectives from science, technology, industry, and finance. In addition to Dooley, other panelists included Victor Der, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the U.S. Department of Energy; Michael Morris, President, Chairman and Chief Executive of American Electric Power; Kevin Book, Senior Vice President and Energy Analyst for FBR Capital Markets Corporation. The broadcast can be viewed online.
Fossil fuels, especially coal, remain the cornerstones of the global economy for the foreseeable future, the panelists agreed. But the combustion of fossil fuels also is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. CCS holds tremendous potential to curtail greenhouse gases from coal plants while enabling this plentiful energy source to continue, Dooley said.
Dooley's economic research demonstrates that if CCS and other low-carbon energy technologies can be deployed as needed worldwide, the cost of addressing climate change could be reduced by trillions of dollars, as opposed to a world where CCS is severely constrained. "This is money that could be spent instead on improving healthcare, raising living standards worldwide, and other crucial issues society must address simultaneously with climate change," he said.
Dooley, a senior staff scientist at the Joint Institute for Global Climate Change, is a widely recognized expert on CCS issues. Dooley served as Lead Author and Cross-Cutting Chairman for a recent assessment of CCS for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. He serves on the editorial board for the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, the first peer-reviewed journal to focus on carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies. Dooley is the co-developer of a state-of-the-art geographic information based model for examining the large-scale deployment of carbon management technologies in the United States.