Reductive Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide

The United States currently meets 80% of its energy needs by burning fossil fuels to form CO2. The combustion-based production of CO2 has evolved into a major environmental challenge that extends beyond national borders and the issue has become as politically charged as it is technologically demanding. Whereas CO2 levels in the atmosphere had remained stable over the 10,000 years preceeding the industrial revolution, that event initiated rapid growth in CO2 levels over the past 150 years (Stevens, 2000). The resulting accelerating accumulation of CO2 in the troposphere is increasingly linked to global climate-warming, with projections of continued warming in the absence of resolute changes in CO2 management (Revkin, 2000). The worldwide effects of warming on forestry, fresh water supplies, farming, coastal stability, and human health could be enormous. In response to these threats, the 1997 Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming was initiated in a major world-wide effort to curtail CO2 emissions. A major feature of this activity involves separation, collection and storage of a significant fraction of the 6-billion tons of CO2 currently produced worldwide each year. The annual U.S. production is about a third of that value, and sites considered for storing U.S. produced CO2 include depleted gas reservoirs, deep saline aquifers, depleted oil reservoirs, coal beds, and the deep ocean (Noserale, 1999).