Here’s a novel approach being taken by a power plant Upstate in Dunkirk, NY: grow algae using captured CO2 from burning coal, and then in turn make Ethanol out of the algae.

I’m more than a little skeptical about this, because it seems to me that the CO2 from the power plant is only being captured temporarily– eventually it’s released again when the Ethanol is burned. (This is in contrast to Ethanol brewed from crops, which absorb CO2 out of the air.) Still, if it helps us burn less coal in total, then I suppose the net effect is positive. Always nice to see New York State leading the way in testing new techniques.

What would be really incredible is if we could use that CO2 from power plants to make something non-fuel-related, say fertilizer for crops. Then that carbon from the coal would truly be going back into the earth.