China’s carbon emissions could be cheaply buried underground, says study

China could bury its coal plant emissions underground as a cost-effective means of reducing global greenhouse gas levels, according to a study released yesterday.

Research by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a government lab of the US Department of Energy, estimates that China has enough deep rock layers with the capacity to store the country’s carbon dioxide emissions for the next 100 years.

"Conventional thinking had been that China did not have a lot of storage for carbon. But it turns out China does," said the report’s lead author, Robert Dahowski. "Enough for many decades, perhaps hundreds of years."

The study argues that carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a fledgling technology that traps emissions from coal-burning plants and stores it in rock formations deep underground – would enable China to tap its vast domestic fossil fuel reserves while efficiently cutting CO2 emissions. The nation is the world's biggest greenhouse gas producer.

The cost to transport, inject and monitor carbon dioxide from 1,623 large sources of emissions – including coal-fired plants, steel mills and cement and ammonia plants – would average US$5 to US$7 per ton in China, about half of estimated costs in the US, said the report.

It noted that more than 90 per cent of China's large power plants and industrial facilities were within 160km of potential carbon sequestration sites. "This suggests there will be little need to build extensive and costly long-distance CO2 pipeline infrastructure," the study noted.

The research was gathered and analysed over a five-year period by scientists in the US and China. The project was supported by the US Department of Energy, China's Ministry of Science and Technology, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, sponsors of the Global Energy Technology Strategy Program and US energy management specialist Leonardo Technologies.

The study's release closely follows a speech by US energy secretary Steven Chu, which highlighted the importance of developing CCS technology, given the unlikelihood that the US, China and India would stop burning coal.