Greenhouse Gases (carbon dioxide) and burying it underground. The carbon dioxide is emitted from the flue gas of power plants and is a major pollutant to the atmosphere. The process is commercially untested and is a decade to fifteen years into the future. Even so, storage of nuclear toxic waste is still a big problem in the world today and it's a problem that won't go away for thousands of years. In the U.S., Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been selected as a permanent storage place for toxic waste even though it is on a fault line, there are several volcanoes in the area and there are no guarantees that it will not leak! The common reaction when a place is approached as a consideration for a toxic waste dump is NIMBY (Not In My Backyard!) This is not surprising and stresses the point that while nuclear waste may take less storage space than CCS, it is very unwelcome anywhere in the world.
A meeting in Copenhagen in December will strive to set clear long-term climate policies to try to sign a new global climate pact that would replace the Kyoto protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The treaty was produced by the UN Conference on environmental impact hopes to achieve the stability of GHG (greenhouse gases) levels within the atmosphere to prevent climate systems from having anthropogenic interference which is considered to be dangerous. The protocol is committed legally to reduce four GHG, comprising of nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur, methane and hexafluoride. Annex I (industrialized) nations produce two groups of gases, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons which are also covered under the protocol.
The protocol became official on December 11 1997. Signed in Kyoto, Japan, today 183 parties have ratified the protocol. GHG emissions are to be reduced by 5.2%, when contrasted to levels from 1990 according to an agreement by industrialized countries.
Steve Lennon, who is managing director of corporate affairs at South African utility Eskom believes that Fossil Fuel alternatives may take the place of costly CCS, but that it may take 20 years.
With renewables and financing both being so costly South Africa is in a very difficult position. We have the biggest and the cheapest form of baseload energy in the form of massive coal resources, he said.
