Projects to capture industrial emissions and store them in the earth's crust could cut CO2 pollution by up to 40 per cent, according to officials from oil major Shell.
Carbon capture and storage - gathering CO2 emissions at their source and pumping them underground - faces steep cost hurdles, but may someday be worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a Shell executive said.
"CCS is probably the largest source of potential carbon reduction for the next 30 years, and a way to deal with 30 to 40 per cent of (global) emissions," said Kimberly Corley, Shell senior advisor for CO2 and environmental affairs.
The technology is now used from Texas to Algeria to pump CO2 into oil and gas reservoirs, pressurising them to increase output. But Shell is betting on becoming an industry leader in storing its own and other companies' carbon emissions to tap into financial perks given for lowering emissions.
The company already has seven test-phase CCS projects underway and is seeking to fund future projects through lucrative carbon credits.
"We think (CCS) is one of the few technologies that have the potential to become very big," said Shell chief executive officer Jeroen van der Veer. Costs are a drawback due to the difficulty of trapping emissions as they spew from coal- or oil-burning plants.
Building CCS projects now would cost Shell around €1.5 billion for each million tons a year of emissions, said Mr Corley. The US emits around seven billion tons a year.
"No one knows the cost if you start to do it on a large scale," Mr Van der Veer said.
Aggressive deployment of CCS could mean a billion tons of CO2 are stored by Shell and others annually by 2025, generating €37 billion, said David Hone, Shell's climate advisor.
CCS hinges on financial rewards for emissions reduction, including cap and trade programmes, which Shell supports.
The Obama Administration is pushing climate legislation, including cap and trade, to generate €485 billion between 2012 and 2019 and cut emissions by 14 per cent.
Shell's plans include one to pump CO2 from its Pernis oil refinery near Rotterdam into spent gas reservoirs underneath a nearby town, which Mr Corley expects to go ahead soon.
CCS critics say there's no guarantee that emissions will stay underground, and leaks pose dangers.
"We think we can do it safely," Mr Van der Veer said.