Cost of Carbon Capture: Can Young People Bear the Burden?

Near-universal recognition of the threat of human-caused global warming, tragically, has not been accompanied by comprehensive quantitative assessment of technological options for mitigating climate change. In this issue of Joule, David W. Keith and co-authors describe a process of capturing CO2from the air and provide a much-needed empirical cost estimate based on results from a pilot plant. Estimated costs, exceeding $100 per ton of CO2without including the cost of CO2storage, are lower than some prior estimates, yet are so high as to strongly support the need for rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions.