S5 Ep2: Season 5, Episode 2: Capturing the Enemy

Companies using fossil fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal are facing heavy pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. If they don't, they could get hit with financial penalties or be completely shut down. In response, these corporations have come up with a treatment of sorts — it's called carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS for short. 

 

The idea is that the industry can continue operating as it always has, but as a caveat, it will install a system to strip carbon from emissions. The carbon will be funneled through pipelines deep into the ground, where it will be buried forever. As a result, plants can keep running, businesses rally on as usual, there's less pollution in the air, everyone wins. Right?

 

Not exactly. As Connect the Dots host Rob Verchick and his guests discuss in this episode, CCS is not nearly comprehensive enough to reduce emissions at a level and rate necessary to make a difference. Also, the logistics are complex and questionable, and the whole process could end up burning more energy than it saves. 

 

Should we really be using a strategy that relies on fossil fuels when there are better alternatives available? Are we banking on the "old way" instead of trying something new? Rob and his guests discuss these questions and more. 

Joining host Rob Verchick in this episode are:

 

• Flozell Daniels, Jr., CEO and President of the Foundation for Louisiana
• Alice Kaswan, CPR Board Member and professor and associate dean at the University of San Francisco
• Alex Kolker, associate professor for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
• Karen Sokol, CPR Member Scholar and associate professor of law at Loyola University in New Orleans
• Hannah Wiseman, CPR Member Scholar and professor at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and Institutes of Energy and the Environment at Penn State University