Refrigerating coal emissions would reduce the amount of dangerous chemicals in the air. According to research by a team of physicists from University of Oregon, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions in particular by 90%.
The associated “energy penalty” would raise electricity use by about a quarter. This would be offset by significant benefits, such as a 38% reduction of cost to society through reduced health-care and climate-change costs thanks to cleaner air.
Cryogenic treatment would involve cooling machinery potentially the size of a football stadium. Carbon dioxide would be captured in its solid state, warmed, compressed into gas and then moved by pipeline to dedicated storage facilities hundreds of miles away.
Read more at University of Oregon