e-porfolio 5

One day, a student encountered a multi-choice question, which says that whether CO2 can be exploited to make fuel. “Are you kidding?” he laughed, “If CO2 can burn, and so will the earth!” However, he is wrong. A new technology called Carbon Filter Process (CFP) have been experimented and evaluated to make this come true. The technology focuses on separating carbon dioxide from power-plant flue gas with carbon-rich sorbents at ambient pressure, and punching captured CO2 to oil field to enhance the recovery of oil and methane. Although CFP has imperfections for citizens to opposite, there are several evident showing that CFP is a beneficial technology.
The cost is the most considerable concept of a new technology. Opponents claim that the expenditure of establishing a new plant power may be over the environmental benefit, and there are other cheap ways to reduce CO2’s emission. Actually, they are not the first one concerning it. One of CFP developers’ goals is to archive a low cost as much as possible, so they have done a lot of research to fulfill this goal. The materials used as sorbents are cheap and easy get, such as activated carbon, and the sorbents can absorb CO2 at ambient temperature without high pressure. Moreover, simple steam heat can make the sorbents recover. Consequently, the cost of recovered one ton of CO2 is only $2 compared to the cost of $40-50/ton nowadays. This reduction of cost is significant.
Opponents also worry about its practical utility. People are wondering CFP will make a significative or just a bit of difference. Whatever are the effects, this technology is friendly to the environment. As we all know, CO2 is the main cause of global warming. Although there has been proposed several policies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, to establish a cooperation among countries about reducing the CO2 emission. However, Kyoto Protocol is not been fully accepted by almost countries, since the protocol affect their industries’ developments. However, CFP is an efficient way to reduce CO2 emission without compromising industries’ expansion. With this technology, more countries could participate in this beneficial activity to work together and protect the environment. If every country can join this activity and make a distribution, it could make a reduction to the CO2 emission.
Some corporations do not want to adopt this technology because they think it can do nothing to their profits. Actually, it is not a profitable alms deed for corporations to take actions protecting environment. By doing good, the company can show its concerns towards the climate changes to the public and can gain a good reputation from this action. Corporate social responsibility is a hot and tough issue facing by big corporations nowadays and actually it is one of determinant factors of companies’ competitive strength. By doing good, a company can gain a good corporate social responsibility and an increasing market share.
In conclusion, citizens should support the CFP. It is economical as a new technology, and it is our responsibility to protect the planet.