Climate change concerns may soon force drastic reductions in CO_2 emissions. In response to this challenge, it may prove necessary to render fossil fuels environmentally acceptable by capturing and sequestering CO_2 until other inexpensive, clean, and plentiful technologies are available. Today's fossil fuel resources exceed 5000 gigatons of carbon (GtC) (7), compared with world consumption of 6 GtC/year, assuring ample transition time. However, by 2050, the goal of stabilizing the atmospheric CO_2 concentration while maintaining healthy economic growth may require "carbon-neutral" energy in excess of today's total energy consumption (2). Lowering world CO_2 emissions to 2 GtC/year would shrink the per capita emission allowance of a projected world population of 10 billion people to 3% of today's per capita emission in the United States.
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