Carbon Capture and Storage: It’s not something we hear a whole lot about in Canada, and from talking to people, it’s not something that many people are aware of. Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that it alone could be responsible for over half of our global CO2 reductions by 2100. Pretty big stuff.
So what is it?
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a process where carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) is captured from the gases leaving a fossil fuel burning site, compressed into a liquid, and stored indefinitely in underground geological storage. It allows industries that burn fossil fuels (such as coal fired power stations, oil and gas facilities, cement factories, e.t.c) to continue burning fossil fuels while greatly reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air.
There are a variety of different ways to do this, from chemical absorption processes, to combustion of fuels in pure oxygen, but all of them have the same effect: approximately 90% removal of carbon dioxide from the gases being emitted to the atmosphere.
Why hasn’t anyone heard of it?
Well, while the technology has been around to do this for decades, there is simply no economic reason to do so at the moment. Adding CCS to an existing combustion plant will increase the operating cost of the facility dramatically. A coal fired power plant would expect to see a 20-30% drop in output as a direct result of implementing CCS, meaning less electricity to sell to the public.
A few demonstration plants have sprung up around the world, showing us that it can be done, such as in Weyburn, SK, or Sleipner in the North Sea, or even In Salah in Algeria. The UK government has committed to building the worlds first coal fired power plant with commercial scale CCS, while Norway and the province of Alberta have also committed significant funds for large scale demonstration projects.
Many of these initial projects are driven by enhanced oil recovery, where injection of carbon dioxide assists in the recovery of oil. These projects are useful in the early stages of CCS technology, as the additional revenue from the oil makes CCS more economically attractive, so the technology gets developed; however, in the long term CCS will hopefully be used purely for carbon dioxide storage, and not to increase oil production.
Is it safe?
Carbon dioxide is an inert gas, meaning it doesn’t really react with anything under normal conditions. The idea is to inject the gas deep underground (we’re talking km here), into old, empty oil and gas fields, or even saline aquifers (underground water formations too salty to drink). With correct site identification, we should be confident that these sites can safely contain carbon dioxide indefinitely, since the same rock formations that held oil and gas in place for millions of years will hold the carbon dioxide in place. Obviously there is a need for prudent regulation, to ensure that projects that are developed are safe both for society and the environment.
Isn’t this just like pretending we don’t have a problem?
In a way, yes. It allows us to continue burbing fossil fuels, without having to search for alternative, inherently cleaner forms of energy. However, it does give us the opportunity to act now. I personally see it as a temporary solution. It allows us to take drastic action now to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions at a reasonable cost to society, while giving us perhaps another 50-75 years (hopefully sooner) to find a better long term solution. There is plenty of room out there though, with the US Department of Energy stating that there is potentially enough underground storage capacity in the US and Canada to store 900 years worth of our current emissions from large emitters.
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Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that it alone could be responsible for over half of our global CO2 reductions by 2100. Pretty big [……
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Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that it alone could be responsible for over half of our global CO2 reductions by 2100. Pretty big [……
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