Carbon Capture and Storage

2008

This publication is part of Green Alliance's climate change theme (www.green-alliance.org.uk/climatechange), which is kindly supported by Shell. Green Alliance's work on the financing of CCS demonstration projects is kindly supported by BP.

2008

Climate change is at the forefront of today's environmental concerns. The scientific consensus is that climate change is a reality and human activities are largely responsible for the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere. Yet we are only beginning to fully comprehend the complex relationships between climatic variation and ecosystem degradation, biodiversity, clean water access and poverty. While the world focuses on many of the damaging implications of global warming, we hear less frequently about the opportunities that climate change presents. Many of the world's leading companies, including Goldman Sachs and other large financial institutions, have implemented impressive and farreaching environmental programs. Many companies are discovering that taking steps to mitigate the environmental harm of their operations ultimately produces important benefits to their businesses, including lower energy costs, more efficient business practices, less waste, new business opportunities and markets, satisfied customers and more engaged employees. In short, responding to climate change is a very smart way to do business. Yet business action alone is insufficient, both in scale and speed, to sufficiently develop the suite of technologies required to avert a dangerous climate scenario. We cannot lose sight of the fact that government action is vital to addressing the challenge. A number of legislative bills currently pending in both the U.S. House and Senate attempt to put a price on the externality associated with greenhouse gas emissions. This will narrow the cost gap between current and cleaner technologies, but it is unlikely that a carbon price alone will stimulate the levels of investment that are needed to develop the needed technologies fast enough to avoid dangerous levels of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Further policies are needed to stimulate both the scale and pace of technology deployment. The following research report by the World Resources Institute studies one such opportunity for companies, investors and policymakers to have a significant impact on the global emissions trajectory: carbon capture and storage, or CCS. This process would enable coal-fired power plants to capture their carbon dioxide and store it permanently, preventing its release into the atmosphere. Today, the chain of technologies that comprise the CCS process is complex, expensive and not often well understood in its entirety. Yet the potential importance of this process as a means of addressing the climate challenge cannot be understated. Coal-fired power remains both abundant and inexpensive -in both the United States and key developing regions of the world such as India and China. Leaders of these nations are facing unprecedented domestic and international pressures to balance dramatic growth and associated increases in energy needs with global environmental trade-offs. As WRI highlights in the following pages, the challenges to scaling up low-carbon solutions are many. For new technologies such as CCS, early government demonstration support to help overcome investor concern is critical. In this respect, the recent cancellation by the U.S. Department of Energy of the FuturGen project does not bode well. For there to be any prospect of achieving significant emission reductions through carbon capture and storage, U.S. climate policy support will need to be in place fairly quickly. Climate change is a complex problem, and with 50 percent of electricity in the United States coming from coalfired power, CCS should likely be a part of the solution if we are to achieve the necessary emission reductions. We look forward to engaging in considerable discussion -and meaningful actionwith our clients and partners on how to evaluate and potentially bring these technologies to market.

Nature Climate Change, 2012

Anthropogenic energy-related CO2 emissions are higher than ever. With new fossil-fuel power plants, growing energy-intensive industries and new sources of fossil fuels in development, further emissions increase seems inevitable. The rapid application of carbon capture and storage is a much heralded means to tackle emissions from both existing and future sources. However, despite extensive and successful research and development, progress in deploying carbon capture and storage has stalled. No fossil-fuel power plants, the greatest source of CO2 emissions, are using carbon capture and storage, and publicly supported demonstration programmes are struggling to deliver actual projects. Yet, carbon capture and storage remains a core component of national and global emissions-reduction scenarios. Governments have to either increase commitment to carbon capture and storage through much more active market support and emissions regulation, or accept its failure and recognize that continued expansion of power generation from burning fossil fuels is a severe threat to attaining objectives in mitigating climate change.

2009

Nature Climate Change, 2020

Energy Resource Conflict, 2025

Coal’s damaging effects begin before it is taken out of the ground. It causes biodiversity loss and environmental damage as forests are felled and mountains are disfigured to clear surfaces. This land can never be returned to its exact prior ecological balance or used for planting crops. The mining process then releases numerous environmental toxins, including high amounts of mercury that can poison waterways, wildlife, and human populations. Both extracting and burning coal for use discharge carbon monoxide, carbon and sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, lead, arsenic, and toxic heavy metals and soot that cause global warming and acid rain. Methane is particularly concerning because it is eighty-six times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over twenty years (Jackson et al. 2020). To keep global warming within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels, researchers argue that in most scenarios, there needs to be a complete cessation of coal use by 2050 (Dessler 2016, 72). The causal link between coal and climate change is clear.

Energies

Energy security is a main challenge in today’s economies [...]

2016

The importance of coal to global energy is still largely underestimated and often misunderstood. In fact, the public is still largely uninformed. I am lucky enough to have four children and when I speak in their schools about coal and its role in energy and power, so far every single teacher has had only little idea about the magnitude of coal’s importance to global electricity and power generation. By now, my message for everyone in the world with regard to coal has almost become a mantra.

This literature review is the first chapter in a series focused on carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques, specifically pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxyfuel combustion. It comprehensively examines their advantages, disadvantages, and associated challenges. Additionally, the study delves into the environmental impacts of CCS. By exploring these key aspects, this review provides a foundational understanding of CCS for researchers, policymakers, and industry professionals, facilitating informed decisions in pursuing effective carbon mitigation strategies and a sustainable future.