This looks like a possibly useful way of dealing with CO2 over the short term. We must realize that we also need to deal with NOx emmissions as well, since NOx gasses knock out our atmosphere's mechanisms for disarming methane, as well as depleting the ozone layer.

Carbon Sequestration is merely a tactic in which to ensure that we stay reliant on dirty fuels and detracts energy, time and money from looking into cleaner sources of energy (wind, solar, etc).

Current research cannot guarantee that CO2 won't leak back to the surface, at, as you say, some "catastrophic" date. Back in 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon leaked (naturally occurring) CO2 which killed appx. 1,700 people. To proceed with Carbon Sequestration could lead to a potential environmental disaster down the road.

the point of this study, Nicole, is that the CO2 would be stable as in a STILL (not carbonated) mineral water. locked in, for real.

since atmospheric & oceanic greenhouse gas levels are now rising so much faster than predicted, we have to look at sequestration. obviously, it's not an all or nothing approach. if you read my posts regularly you know that i blog obsessively on renewables.

our only really hope lies in combining as many methods as we can get online as quickly (and safely) as possible.

Yes, yes, but in the article they let slip that there was water down there to start with -- which begs the question of exactly what water, or mix of waters, they pumped up and examined, to find those silicates.

It could be that the water they pumped up was partly old water that had been dissolving silicates since time immemorial. Science rather regularly makes just such faulty assumptions. Prove it, I say.

If there is a way for them to be sure that the water they examined was indeed water they had pumped down in the first place, or that the silica in that water (which they had to separate from oil after pumping) was not dissolved into the oil (and I don't know if this happens), then I'll start to get interested.

Until then, I remain pessimistic. Truly stable geologies are rather rare, and if the CO2 is merely lying underground under high pressure, it would seem just a matter of time before it came home.

Nuclear is clean energy. Be smart, be nuclear. Don't burn dirty coal and polluting hydro carbons. Chinese are going nuclear in a big time way. You can't stop the future. Change is good, your resistance is futile. On to the brave new world. Learn Chinese.

Wong,

We agree about not burning coal and other fossil fuels. However, nuclear is most definitely not clean.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=cdd18a50-cb26-4fb7-91d8-77172d0b3deb&k=69601

The problems with nuclear power include, but are not limited to:

1) Where to store the waste.
2) How to protect the power plants from terrorists.
3) How to stop nuclear weapons proliferation.
4) How to protect the nuclear waste from terrorists who want to make dirty bombs.
5) What to do while waiting 10 years for the plant to be built for a cost of $5 billion.
6) Waste of $5B per plant that could have been spent on real clean energy like wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal.
7) How to ensure that the creation of 25 times the current number of plants, many of which will be in developing nations, will be built to adequate safety standards.
8) How to care for the sick workers that had to dig up the uranium at great cost to their health.

All your concerns have been addressed by the Party. China is moving into the 21st Century and your children will be speaking Chinese.