Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) - current situation and future potential

Table of Contents

DATAMONITOR VIEW

• CATALYST
• SUMMARY
• SOURCES

ANALYSIS

• The technologies involved in CCS are not novel, but have not yet been demonstrated together as a chain or at the scale necessary for a commercial fossil fuel power station.
  • CCS is the technical term used to refer to the process chain involved in separating out and storing carbon dioxide

• Carbon capture can occur pre-combustion, post-combustion and in oxyfuel combustion
  • The transportation of CO2 is similar to that of natural gas and employs mature and commercially available technologies
  • There are currently three ways to store CO2, but geological formations are considered the most promising sequestration sites

• CCS is the only technology option currently available that could allow abundant, flexible and entrenched fossil fuels to continue to be used for electricity generation without adding to the damaging effects of climate change.
  • Despite record growth in renewables, emission levels will continue to rise as fossil fuel power generation dominates in the long term
  • The challenge: reconciling the use of abundant and flexible fuel sources with the urgent need to drive long-term carbon abatement
  • The EU intends to provide the regulatory and policy framework to deploy CCS across new fossil fuel plants
  • New combustion plant construction will be regulated on a ‘carbon capture ready' basis
  • The proposed regulatory framework is plagued by several key limitations which will delay the introduction of CCS
  • Technical, economic and regulatory frameworks are urgently needed to bring environmentally safe CCS to deployment
  • The wider EU ‘green' policy landscape lacks credibility and provides inadequate regulatory support for CCS

• The potential for CCS is undeniable and stakeholders are already competing to take the technological lead. However, the costs and risks of CCS made more apparent by the lack of regulatory framework stand in the way of its widespread deployment.
  • The current investment environment is unlikely to facilitate the uptake of CCS
  • The Green ‘New Deal' is a necessary but insufficient condition to drive a mass market transition to CCS
  • Government action and regulation will be the best signal to invest in CCS
  • The EU Climate Package allocates funding for the building of CCS demonstration plants, yet it will fail to completely tame king coal
  • Although many CCS projects are underway across the world, most of them are in the research and small-scale pilot phase
  • Three large scale CCS demonstration plants currently stand out
  • Based on levels of coal-powered generation, the potential for CCS is highest in Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Greece
  • All other things equal, it is unlikely that CCS will make a credible contribution without strong legislative and regulatory change

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FIGURES

• Figure: The CCS lifecycle calls on a number of technologies and processes, all at different levels of technical, commercial and political maturity
• Figure: Carbon capture can occur pre-combustion, post-combustion and in fuel combustion
• Figure: In this illustration, a CO2 capture plant is added to a coal power plant to remove CO2 flue emissions. In the most likely scenario, the CO2 is then transported in a pipeline to a suitable storage site deep underground.
• Figure: CCS is widely recognized as the only technology able to largely de-carbonize widespread fossil fuel power generation
• Figure: CCS speaks to issues such as security of supply and significant carbon abatement in a way renewable power generation cannot
• Figure: The choice of new combustion plant CCR is unlikely to be left to plant operators
• Figure: Perceived limitations of CCS
• Figure: The wider EU ‘green' policy landscape lacks credibility and provides inadequate regulatory support for CCS
• Figure: The eventual economic recovery will bring about conditions that benefit the introduction of CCS coal power generation
• Figure: The Stern Review - summary of climate change and global economic growth
• Figure: The Green ‘New Deal' is a necessary but insufficient condition to drive a mass market transition to CCS
• Figure: The good , the bad and the ugly - the climate change directive fails to address 3 key areas
• Figure: Although many CCS projects are underway across the world, most of them are in the research and small-scale pilot phase
• Figure: Three large scale CCS demonstration plants currently stand out
• Figure: Coal-powered generation output in 2006 (as a proportion of total power generation) puts Poland far ahead of other Member States