Blog Action Day - Environment theme

Today is Blog Action Day, organised by Blogactionday,a non-profit organisation. The theme of environment chosen for this year is one of the best memes I have come across as the deed is noble in thought and spirit.More than 16000 blogs are participating in this action day.This blog is also one in the lengthy list. My contributory post to this is about the harmful effects of coal burn and carbon sequestration as a viable option in mitigating the harmful effects of coal carbon emissions.

Coal is a relatively cheap and abundant commodity and is an excellent source of energy. But it comes at a significant cost to the environment. Coal emissions lead to acid rain, smog and toxic mercury content in the atmosphere and groundwater,and global warming. Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. More and more countries however are building coal fired power plants and using coal in a variety of other applications.

The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States is striving to find a way to cut coal emissions. Its plan is to regulate the way carbon is stored in the ground. This is called carbon sequestration. Sequestering is the capture and burying of carbon from coal. It aims to strip carbon before coal is burned, capture it and bury it deep under the ground in geological formations that wont release it into the atmosphere.By storing carbon dioxide underground,atleast 90% of the carbon emissions from the coal fired plants can be contained from being let out into the atmosphere.
Waste carbon dioxide can be pumped into oil fields to boost production.This clean energy technique will reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Clean coal technology, if successfully operated,would reaffirm coal as the king of the energy landscape in the US with the added benefit of the technology being environmentally sound.