Scientist warns of quake risk from 'carbon capture'

David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle Science Editor

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Efforts to stem global warming by pumping emissions of carbon dioxide deep into the Earth's crust could trigger widespread earthquakes, a Stanford geophysicist warned Monday.

Although those quakes would not be particularly destructive, they would be widely felt and disruptive - and it would also cost billions of dollars to create thousands of disposal sites for the greenhouse gas, said Mark Zoback, one of the country's leading seismic experts.

His conclusion could have repercussions for research projects backed by the U.S. Department of Energy. So-called "carbon sequestration" or "carbon capture and storage" projects have focused on what could be done in regions of the country where coal-fired power plants emit billions of tons of carbon dioxide every year.