Carbon-capture project fizzles
| July 29, 2009 | 5:23 PM
More journal entries from John Moore »
It was supposed to capture carbon and help save the world from global warming.
But instead, things at a German coal-fired power plant turned into catch and release.
The Vattenfall Schwarze Pumpe project was launched amid much fanfare last September in Spremberg, Germany. The plant was touted as having the latest technology designed to trap the facility’s CO2 emissions and bury them underground. The idea never caught fire with local residents — soon, however, it did start to crash and burn.
Residents were worried about the safety of storing all of that CO2 under their feet, so now it has been pumped into the atmosphere. Officials blame the carbon plan’s demise on an attitude of “numbyism” — or “not under my backyard.”
Read more at the London Guardian.
More stories from the “If It Can Go Wrong, It Will” department:
- In Pittsburgh, a driver hits a utility pole; the utility truck that responds breaks a radiator hose, spilling coolant everywhere; and then a utility worker with a jackhammer breaks a water line. Read more at post-gazette.com.
- The Swedish embassy in Germany served wheat products at a luncheon for children with celiac disease, which makes people allergic to most wheat products. Read more at Sweden’s The Local.
- In Australia, an Internet filter installed by the government blocks students from education sites, but not from pornography. Read more at the London Telegraph.
- In Cyprus, the government has called off a pilot project meant to reduce rush-hour gridlock in the capital by requiring at least two people to a car in one lane — because of too much traffic. Read more at AFP.
carbon, celiac disease, CO2, germany, global warming, gridlock, pittsburgh, pornography, power plant, utility pole
