Carbon Capture Storage

This week I will finally be looking at the technology that can potentially facilitate industries in reducing global carbon emissions. Haszeldine (2009) evaluates the current status of a technology going by the name of Carbon Capture Storage (CCS); he promotes this as one of, if not the only realistic option to achieving some of the global emissions targets set at Kyoto and other summits, or even those set by individual governments.

How does CCS work?

There are 3 methods of CCS currently being investigated, they are Postcombustion, Precombustion and Oxyfuel, all of which essentially serve the same purpose, but simply take place at different stages of production. Common to all three methods, is that CO₂is pressurised, liquefied and transported to storage sites (i.e. specific porous rock deep underground) via networks of pipelines.

Advantages

• Postcombustion technology can be applied to almost any industry and future upgrades will almost definitely increase efficiency substantially
• In the long term, conversion of power plants to CCS would aid UK households in avoiding substantial future energy costs, after an initial increase of around 10%.
• CO₂has been transported in pipes since the 1970s, so theoretically it should be ‘just’ a case scaling-up to a continent-wide pipeline network, serving multiple countries and feeding to various storage locations.
• Injected CO₂into rocks will stay securely sequestered for tens of thousands of years
• There is evidence to suggest that CCS will be cheaper to deploy and maintain in the long term than other renewable options, the main hurdle being the initial start-up costs (or rather acquiring funding for them) 

Challenges

• There are, unfortunately, a number of challenges that still hinder the progress of this technology, but not all are endogenous. 
• Chief among the drawbacks, certainly from the industry point of view, is that currently these methods significantly reduce the efficiency of production, with large amounts of solvents, heavy machinery and high maintenance efforts required.
• More learning cycles are required to refine the technology, before being able to meaningfully scale it up to the level needed – this will take time and money.
• Huge amounts of geological storage are required to have an impact on worldwide CO₂levels; this may be a tried and tested method, but only at a relatively small scale and in a restricted number of locations.

What is needed?

Power plant capture, pipeline transportation and geological injection of CO₂can technically be implemented now, but with inefficiencies and many energy losses. So what is needed to make this technology a viable option?

• More intricate details of the storage process must be worked on, along with the sourcing of suitable locations, before any large-scale commitments can be made to converting industries to CCS
• Aside from the resolvable limitations of the technology itself, legal permission, business development, a lack of supporting policies and public opposition represent genuine hurdles to the progress of CCS.
• The largest blockage is not technological, but rather the lack of a market to provide revenue that justifies large investment

It is important to bear in mind that CCS is a solution that deals with CO₂emissions, rather than one that prevents emissions entirely. In this respect it cannot truly be considered ‘green production’, but I see this as its main potential strength, too – the fact that almost any existing industry can be equipped with CCS technology, without drastically disrupting the production process.

In reviewing something like CCS, we can begin to understand what is needed to tackle global CO₂levels. More specifically, we can start to get an idea of what is required to help industries drive the change. By this I mean a supporting legislative infrastructure provided by both governments and multi-regional organisations that can provide incentives for businesses of all sizes and sectors, to make the leap.