Abrupt climate changes and global warming have triggered Global measures to decrease the concentration of atmospheric Carbon dioxide (CO2) – the volume of this GHG with a substantial role in playing havoc with the World climate is shooting up (now 412.5 ppm) due to the recent anthropogenic activities.
As part of a comprehensive portfolio of thought-out strategies against the current climate crisis, CCS shows promising results in ‘rapidly’ meeting Carbon dioxide emission reduction goals. However, several snags like associated risks and financial hiccups keep this new technology from thriving and turning into the mainstream.
But is CCS safe? Let’s unpack everything essential you should know about CCS.
What is CCS?
CCS (Carbon capture and storage) is a set of climate crisis mitigation technology for capturing anthropogenic Carbon dioxide emitted by commercial product manufacturing companies, power plants, and refineries as a byproduct and trapping it in underground geological formations instead of releasing it straight into the atmosphere. It is better known as a bridge technology that enables companies to keep using non-renewable energy sources and fossil fuels until the use of low-carbon energy options is effectuated.
This advanced technology makes incredible strides worldwide against the backdrop of recent severe climate changes and helps reverse them. The Global Status of CCS 2021 reveals the vital role of CCS in reducing GHG emissions as more companies and countries now head towards a net-zero future at a breathtaking pace
Is CCS Safe?
If we don’t want the World ecosystem to be thrown off balance and face catastrophic changes, we have no choice but to gain the long-term two-degree goal – limiting global warming to below 2°C or 1.5°C.
The 2°C limit target may seem too effortless to hit just by turning off the use of conventional energy sources for industrial processes. But the truth is that the World would have to depend on fossil fuels for more decades to come – switching to technologies that can powerfully tackle the climate crisis is the only path to follow.
Based on the reports of the UN Climate panel and IEA (International Energy Agency), it is evident that the more the concentrated atmospheric Carbon dioxide gets, the faster the weather patterns and temperature would shift.
Global CO2 emissions have increased by 90% since 1970. Thanks to fossil fuels and industrial processes – they added 78% of the total increase between 1970 and 2011. The fossil emissions were 36.4bn tonnes in 2021. And the role of this leading GHG in increasing the Earth’s surface temperature by about 1.0°F in the last century is worth mentioning.
To check these horrifying changes, we must implement strategies that can decrease GHG, more specifically, Carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5Gt by the coming three decades. Thanks to the Carbon Capture and Storage technique that targets limiting global warming to 2ºC by trapping 400 MT CO2 emissions per year by 2025 – It alone can curb 14-17% of this toxic gas and help hit the negative CO2 goal.
How Many CCS Plants Are There Around the World?
With more than 27 industrial CCS plans already in action and 110 more in the row to be implemented, the World’s carbon storage capacity shot up by 32% in 2021 from 2020. They combinedly would be able to trap around 40 MMT C02/year.
Even better, the concentrated CO2 captured from point sources can sometimes be used to manufacture different goods and in industries using CCUS (Carbon Capture Usage and Storage) technology.
How Does CCS Work?
Implementing a CCS facility at an industry or power plant entails three main steps:
- Capture
- transportation
- Storage
Let’s go through each step precisely.
Capture
The first step involves separating CO2 from other exhaust gases generated in large point sources – gas-fired power generation plants, refineries, cement industries, etc. You can follow any of the following three methods:
- Post-combustion Capture: It involves absorption technology (amine-based CO2 capture). The CO2 mixed in the combustion exhaust gas is run through a solvent inside a stripper (separation unit) before it gets into the chimney. This liquid solvent binds to the C02 and absorbs it. Once the absorption process ends, it is heated to create a high purity ready-to-store CO2 stream. Post-combustion is the most popular CO2 capture technique that can pull around 90% CO2 out of the flue gas. The factories that manufacture steel, cement, chemical-based fertilisers, etc., can cut down on their carbon footprint and go Net Zero using the post-combustion carbon capture technique.
- Pre-combustion Capture: In this step, the IGCC technique (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) is utilised – the fuel is partly oxidised in steam and air/oxygen under high pressure and temperature and turned into syngas (blend of H2 and CO). A shift reactor then turns CO into CO2. Then it is captured, condensed, and dried. As this technology involves complicated techniques and methods, it becomes challenging for today’s in-action power plants to deploy and run it.
- Oxyfuel Capture: With a high CO2 capture rate, oxyfuel is suitable for getting retrofitted in some of today’s functioning power plants. It is the process of using pure oxygen instead of air during fuel combustion and produces water vapour and C02 that are easily separable.
Transport
Once the CO2 is captured and turned into liquid form of above 8 MPa pressure, it is transported. Two options are available:
- Pipeline: An interconnected pipeline network with temporary storage facilities to serve multiple point sources should be deployed.
- Ship: Expensive than the pipeline system and requires temporary CO2 reservation and refrigeration facility implemented at the dockyards.
- Storage: Finally, the transported liquified CO2 gets injected underground for long-term storage (sequestration).
How Safe is CCS?
What if massive amounts of CO2 leak from the underground reservoirs, taint nearby water supplies, and cause a catastrophic health hazard, especially to people living nearby the storage site? So is CSS potentially hazardous? Thankfully, it’s not. A study published in PNAS found that the death possibility from CO2 seepage is just 1 in 100 million.
While the Earth has been trapping Carbon dioxide in natural pockets for millions of years, injecting compressed CO2 from industrial processes into subsurface porous formations and rocks seems completely safe. Plus, it’s not new that the USA has been depositing their natural gas underground until they require it. CO2 is a non-combustible safe gas, and the conventional techniques of storing commercially produced large-scale CO2 in CCS technology are backed by years of research and experiments.
If you are concerned about transporting CO2 through pipes, note that these pipelines are designed especially for transporting CO2, and sophisticated simulation models are available to track and prevent fracture propagation in pipelines.
However, despite curving CO2 emissions and contributing to attaining decarbonization, CCS is controversial – it seems to promote the dependence on fossil fuels instead of making industrial processes greener and sustainable. Plus, the upscaling process of CCS plants is still under research.
Benefits of CCS
- CO2 captured from point sources is effortless to reduce. Separating CO2 from the air is challenging and involves complex processes.
- Oxyfuel makes it easier to remove other toxic components like Sulphur dioxide and Nitrogen oxide gases from the flue gas.
Disadvantages of CCS
- CCS deployment is expensive and may cost you around $600 per ton of CO2. However, as more industries are trying to go greener and reduce their carbon footprint, innovative technologies are being invented, and the cost involved in CCS projects is declining substantially.
- The capacity of many countries for storing CO2 for the long term is uncertain.
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