
Energy startup NetPower, led by MIT alums, is about to fire up a 25 MW natural gas-burning power plant that produces no net carbon emissions.The key is producing a waste stream of pure carbon dioxide, which can be directly stored in rock formations ("carbon capture and sequestration") without the need for the costly purification required by traditional power plants. If scaled up, such plants could reduce the carbon emissions of the electricity sector, but it still requires the extraction of fossil fuels. Could this be a component of the transition to a renewable energy economy?