No one can deny that an effective tactic for carbon sequestration is highly desired. Even if you are an ardent opponent to global warming, you can probably understand that keeping our carbon, and therefore potential material for fuel processing, close by is a good idea in the event we need to synthesis our own fuel one day.
However, carbon sequestration is simply uneconomical. Beyond a few research cycles and experimental laboratories, it is difficult to see a practical free market viable carbon sequestration company. The only exception being the Norwegian team currently using carbon sequestration in salt beds in the North Sea, however, even they are buffered by a countless array of governmental subsidies.
At its core, we see a couple of issues with carbon sequestration related to high costs and lack of demand.
First off, in the case of conventional CO2 pumping in either subterranean caverns or ocean sediment beds, there is such a large cost to maintain and operate the pumps that it is difficult to envision anyone fitting the bill willingly. After all, who even benefits from the pumping? It is such a distributed cost amongst society that it is difficult to justify paying an individual cost to sequester CO2 deep within the ocean.
Secondly, the more progressive alternative to build small artificial ‘solar trees’ may be trendy, but they still offer little as far as benefit. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that many middle class homeowners would love to brag to their neighbor about who has the savvier solar tree, but in the present that is the least of most people’s concerns with a recession just behind the bend and rampant inflation lurking around the corner.
However, for a few carbon sequestration systems, there is a free market viability.
The first of these is Algae. Everyone knows about the fuel prospects of algae, but few people are aware that algae can be used in a product sense to create anything from plastic to nutritional supplements. A leader amongst this industry is Solazyme which has developed an entire algae food product line in conjunction with Rouquette.
Other interesting application for carbon sequestration systems include plugging CO2 into minerals to artificially form sequestration gems. Fascinating dark greens and blues can be formed in this process although the procedure is not market ready.
Either way, in order to see widespread carbon sequestration, we either need drastic policy changes and incentives or a shift in the ideology of carbon sequestering companies. It is time to make a product, not just pump CO2 underground.
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