Pollution has become a growing issue and one that more people are taking more seriously. It’s become apparent that we cannot pollute as much as we want without consequences. Pollution comes in many forms from waste, oil spills, or carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. The latter is one that this article discusses trying to clean up. Many power sources require digging beneath the earths surface in order to gather the precious resources necessary to power our modern lives. This releases billions of tons of carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. This is an issue that scientists have been working on solving and are making headway into processes to reduce carbon dioxide pollution.
Burying carbon dioxide is a process that may be a small contribution to the vast amounts of carbon dioxide created every day. Industrial plants are working on catching carbon dioxide emissions and burying them deep below the earths surface. This is a concept that hasn’t gone mainstream yet. This is due to complications with tax breaks that are in the works that would incentivize these industrial companies to take this action. This process takes a rather large initial investment. The Trump has recently approved the new tax breaks and the IRS is in the process of learning how to put this policy into action. This new tax break will allow these companies to receive up to $50 per ton of carbon dioxide that is permanently buried underground. This could be a big incentive. A coal plant in North Dakota estimates that it could capture up to 3 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s a significant income at roughly $150 million.
These types of projects and concepts will help the hopeful transition into using only renewable energy sources. It will help make traditional energy resources such as oil, coal, and ethanol much easier to continue using. It will be easier to except these traditionally high pollutant contributing resources into slightly greener means until the technology and infrastructure is in place for renewable energy sources. This also allows the energy producing industries that create many jobs keep these jobs and hopefully make the transition smoother. Jobs created by energy resources are a substantial part of the labor force and will significantly hinder the labor market if the ability to use these high pollutant resources is stopped through policy. That’s why it’s important to develop concepts to make our current processes greener while new renewable energy infrastructure is developed.
We are now in a time where nearly everyone is aware of the impacts that humans have had on the environment. It’s tough to deny our impact when we see the smog, increase in significant weather, and amount of waste created. It’s important to keep researching and developing different ways to improve our environment to ensure we can keep enjoying the resources we have.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/climate/carbon-capture-tax-break.html
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