Carbon capture called a viable strategy

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LONDON, April 19 (UPI) -- Capturing and burying carbon dioxide from power plants is a viable way to deal with the greenhouse gas, but government support is vital, a British report says.

Experts spent two years researching carbon capture and storage, or CCS, for the U.K. Energy Research Council, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Although the British government has announced a $1.6 billion fund to help develop CCS, the report says wider, long-term support is required.

"CCS is seen as the key to many scenarios of how to mitigate climate change, whether that's the United Kingdom meeting its targets on cutting emissions or global targets that keep warming below 2 degrees centigrade" the report's lead author Jim Watson at Sussex University said.

"But unlike other low-carbon technologies, CCS doesn't exist at the commercial scale.

"So it is vital that the government's commitment leads to several full-scale CCS projects as soon as possible; only through such learning by doing will we know whether it is a serious option for the future," Watson said.