Companies using fossil fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal are facing heavy pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. If they don’t, they could get hit with financial penalties or be completely shut down. In response, these corporations have come up with a treatment of sorts — it’s called carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS for short.
The idea is that the industry can continue operating as it always has, but as a caveat, it will install a system to strip carbon from emissions. The carbon will be funneled through pipelines deep into the ground, where it will be buried forever. As a result, plants can keep running, businesses rally on as usual, there’s less pollution in the air, everyone wins. Right?
Not exactly. As Connect the Dots host Rob Verchick and his guests discuss in this episode, CCS is not nearly comprehensive enough to reduce emissions at a level and rate necessary to make a difference. Also, the logistics are complex and questionable, and the whole process could end up burning more energy than it saves.
Should we really be using a strategy that relies on fossil fuels when there are better alternatives available? Are we banking on the “old way” instead of trying something new? Rob and his guests discuss these questions and more.
Listen below, or return to the main Connect the Dots page.
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For more information related to this episode…
More on Our Guests:
 | Flozell Daniels, Jr., is CEO and President of the Foundation for Louisiana. View bio. |
 | Alice Kaswan is a CPR Board Member and professor and associate dean at the University of San Francisco. View bio. |
 | Alex Kolker is an associate professor for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. View bio. |
 | Karen Sokol is a CPR Member Scholar and associate professor of law at Loyola University in New Orleans. View bio. |
 | Hannah Wiseman is a CPR Member Scholar and professor at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and Institutes of Energy and the Environment at Penn State University. View bio. |
Related CPR Resources:
Other resources:
- Forbes: “Clean Energy Rises: Is This The Death Of The Petroleum Industry?” and “Climate Change Cannot Be Mitigated Without Effective Carbon Pricing“
- Energywire: “How Biden’s environmental justice plan could backfire“
- Los Angeles Times: “The next Aliso Canyon could happen on L.A.’s Westside“
- Stanford Report: “Carbon capture and storage likely to cause earthquakes, say Stanford researchers“
Special thanks to:
- The College of Law at Loyola University New Orleans
- The College of Music and Media at Loyola University New Orleans
We’re also grateful to the musical artists featured in this episode, who make their work available to us through a Creative Commons license. Please check them out!
