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Table Of Contents

1. 2.

Introduction..1 Carbon Dioxide(CO2) Capture...........3 (i) Post Combustion Capture3 (ii) Pre-Combustion Capture.4 (iii) Oxy-fuel Combustion..5

3. 4.

Carbon Dioxide(CO2) Transport6 Carbon Sequestration..7 (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) Biological Processes8 Ocean-related Processes10 Physical Processes.11 Chemical Processes...12

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Recycling of Stored Carbon Dioxide(CO2)..14 Limitations of a CCS Power Project16 Cost Estimation of a CCS Plant...17 Major Concerns Regarding CCS.19 Conclusion..20

10. References...22

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Introduction
Carbon is emitted into the atmosphere (as carbon dioxide, also called CO2) whenever we burn any fossil fuel, anywhere. The largest sources are cars and lorries, and power stations that burn fossil fuels: coal, oil or gas. To prevent the carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere (probably causing global warming and definitely causing ocean acidification), we can catch the CO2, and store it. Carbon Capture and Storage is defined as a system of technologies that integrates three stages: CO2 capture, transport and geologic storage. In a broad term it encompasses a number of technologies that can be used to capture carbon dioxide from point sources, such as power plants and other industrial facilities; compress it; transport it mainly by pipeline to suitable locations; and injects it into deep subsurface geological formations for indefinite isolation from the atmosphere. This technology is a critical option in the portfolio of solutions available to combat climate change, because it allows for significant reductions in CO2 emissions from fossil-based systems, enabling it to be used it as a bridge to a sustainable energy future.

There are currently three primary methods for CO2 capture: post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxy-fuel. Post-combustion involves scrubbing the CO2 out of flue gases from combustion process. Oxy-fuel involves combusting fuel in recycled flue gas enriched with oxygen to produce a CO2-richgas. Pre-combustion uses a gasification process followed by CO2 separation to yield a hydrogen fuel gas. Of these methods, post-combustion CO2 capture using solvent scrubbing is one of the more established for CO2 capture, and there are currently several facilities at which amine solvents are used to capture significant flows of CO2 from flue gas streams. CO2 is captured as a gas. Its transport generally needs it to be compressed and/or cooled requiring energy input decreasing net CO2 emission reduction. Bulk transport may be by tanker or pipeline. Tankers may have a role in smaller projects but for larger volumes pipelines are the only practical option. CO2 transport by pipeline is an established commercial technology. Over 3000 km. of pipelines are currently used to transport several Mt of CO2 per year for EOR in the US and Canada.
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CO2 storage involves the injection of CO2 into a geologic formation to enhance carbon recovery. The three options for geological CO2 storage are saline formations, oil and gas reservoirs, and deep un-minable coal seams. Of the three, it is expected that saline formations will provide the opportunity to store the greatest quantities of CO2, followed by oil and gas reservoirs. Storage of the CO2 is envisaged either in deep geological formations, in Deep Ocean masses, or in the form of mineral carbonates. In the case of deep ocean storage, there is a risk of greatly increasing the problem of ocean acidification, an issue that also stems from the excess of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere and oceans. Geological formations are currently considered the most promising sequestration sites.

Capturing and compressing CO2 requires much energy and would increase the fuel needs of a coal-fired plant with CCS by 25%-40%. These and other system costs are estimated to increase the cost of energy from a new power plant with CCS by 21-91%. These estimates apply to purpose-built plants near a storage location; applying the technology to preexisting plants or plants far from a storage location would be more expensive. Recent industry reports suggest that with successful research, development and deployment (RD&D), sequestered coal-based electricity generation in 2025 will cost less than un-sequestered coal-based electricity generation today.

Carbon Dioxide(CO2) Capture

Capturing CO2 might be applied to large point sources, such as large fossil fuel or biomass energy facilities, industries with major CO2 emissions, natural gas processing, synthetic fuel plants and fossil fuel-based hydrogen production plants. Air capture is also possible. Air away from the point source also contains oxygen, however, and so capturing and scrubbing the CO2 from the air, and then storing the CO2, could slow down the oxygen cycle in the biosphere. Concentrated CO2 from the combustion of coal in oxygen is relatively pure, and could be directly processed. In other instances, especially with air capture, a scrubbing process would be needed. Broadly, three different types of technologies for scrubbing exist:  Post-combustion,  Pre-combustion  Oxyfuel combustion

Post Combustion Capture: - Post-combustion capture requires the addition of a capture

system (to separate the CO2 from the other flue gas components and concentrate the CO2) and a compression system (to compress the CO2 and prepare it for transport). Leading post-combustion capture technologies also require significant cleaning of the flue gas before the capture device. In particular, sulfur levels have to be low (less than 10 parts per million (ppm) and possibly lower) to reduce corrosion and fouling of the system. Figure 2 shows a sample block diagram for postcombustion capture from a power plant. As shown in Figure 2, after leaving the boiler, flue gas is cleaned with a scrubber that removes sulfur dioxide (SO2) and a device that removes particulate matter (PM). The diagram shows the use of limestone slurry for this purpose, suggesting use of wet flue gas desulphurization (FGD). While wet FGD would not be a required component, it might be needed to reduce the sulfur content to the required level. Also, note that the flue gas cleanup area would include a device for PM collection. The flue gas then enters an absorption column (represented by the CO2 capture box) that contains the amine solution. As the flue gas contacts the amine in the absorption column, the CO2 is absorbed into the amine solution. The flue gas then exits the stack, and the amine solution is sent to a stripping column, where the CO2
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is removed from the amine solution through an increase in the solution temperature. The amine is recycled and sent to the absorption tower, while the CO2 is cooled, dried, and compressed to a supercritical fluid (MIT 2007).

Pre Combustion Capture: - This technology is widely applied in fertilizer, chemical,

gaseous fuel (H2, CH4), and power production. In these cases, the fossil fuel is partially oxidized, for instance in a gasifier. The resulting syngas (CO and H2O) is shifted into CO2 and more H2. The resulting CO2 can be captured from a relatively pure exhaust stream. The H2 can now be used as fuel; the carbon dioxide is removed before combustion takes place. There are several advantages and disadvantages when compared to conventional post combustion carbon dioxide capture. The CO2 is removed after combustion of fossil fuels, but before the flue gas is expanded to atmospheric pressure. This scheme is applied to new fossil fuel burning power plants, or to existing plants where re-powering is an option. The capture before expansion, i.e. from pressurized gas, is standard in almost all industrial CO2 capture processes, at the same scale as will be required for utility power plants.

Oxy-fuel Combustion: - The fuel is burned in oxygen instead of air. To limit the
resulting flame temperatures to levels common during conventional combustion, cooled flue gas is re-circulated and injected into the combustion chamber. The flue gas consists of mainly carbon dioxide and water vapor, the latter of which is condensed through cooling. The result is an almost pure carbon dioxide stream that can be transported to the sequestration site and stored. Power plant processes based on oxy-fuel combustion are sometimes referred to as "zero emission" cycles, because the CO2 stored is not a fraction removed from the flue gas stream (as in the cases of pre- and post-combustion capture) but the flue gas stream itself. A certain fraction of the CO2 generated during combustion will inevitably end up in the condensed water. To warrant the label "zero emission" the water would thus have to be treated or disposed of appropriately. The technique is promising, but the initial air separation step demands a lot of energy.

An alternate method which is under development is chemical looping combustion (CLC). Chemical looping uses a metal oxide as a solid oxygen carrier. Metal oxide particles react with a solid, liquid or gaseous fuel in a fluidized bed combustor, producing solid metal particles and a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapor. The water vapor is condensed, leaving pure carbon dioxide which can then be sequestered. The solid metal particles are circulated to another

fluidized bed where they react with air, producing heat and regenerating metal oxide particles that are re-circulated to the fluidized bed combustor. A variant of chemical looping is calcium looping, which uses the alternating carbonation and then calcination of a calcium oxide based carrier as a means of capturing CO2.

Carbon Dioxide(CO2)Transport
Once CO2 has been captured, cleaned, and compressed, it must be transported and stored in a suitable location. Several options have been suggested, including depleted oil and natural gas fields, deep coal beds, saline aquifers, and the ocean. Although estimated storage costs are small relative to capture, the capacity, storage integrity, technological feasibility, and potential environmental impacts of these storage options are uncertain. Moreover, transport costs often depend on a fortuitous matching of CO2 sources and storage locations, generating considerable variations in cost. The combined costs of transport and storage are typically estimated to range from about $20/tC to $55/tC stored.

Transport in dedicated pipelines is the most promising method for delivering captured CO2 to storage facilities, though other methods, such as barges or ships for ocean storage, have been suggested. The oil and gas industry has years of experience with CO2 pipelines, transporting CO2 hundreds of kilometers for use in EOR operations. Large-scale CO2 transport would undoubtedly require the development of additional infrastructure, though there may be limited opportunities to use existing oil and gas pipelines when the fields they serve are retired and converted to storage sites. Transport costs are dominated by the investment in pipeline infrastructure. According to Blok et al. (1997), investment costs I are given by I = (190 + 955*d0.9 ) *L, where d is the diameter of the pipeline (m), and L is the pipeline length (m). Assuming a pipeline diameter of 0.5m (the optimal diameter for an hourly flow of 135tC/hr, according to the authors), this implies a total investment of about $700,000 per km.24 Operation and maintenance costs are small in comparison, and the average cost of transporting CO2 falls dramatically with scale.
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Transport costs are also reduced significantly when CO2 has been pressurized to its liquid form, though most storage options require pressurized injection of CO2 anyway. Transport costs are estimated to be about $5/tC to $10/tC per 100 km when matched to a coal plant of typical size (Herzog, Drake, and Adams 1997). Although transport of concentrated CO2 presents some concerns for human healthCO2 is denser than air and could cause suffocation in the event of a pipeline break and mass release the avoidance of low-lying and densely populated areas would mitigate the harm from possible pipeline breaks. Further, experience with pipeline transport in the oil and gas industry suggests that these risks are low. Still, the general publics perceptions of risk could pose potential obstacles to the siting of CO2 pipelines.

Carbon Sequestration
Carbon Sequestration is 'The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir. When carried out deliberately, this may also be referred to as carbon dioxide removal, which is a form of geo-engineering. It is the process of carbon capture and storage, where CO2 is removed from flue gases, such as on power stations, before being stored in underground reservoirs. The term may also refer to natural biogeochemical cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and reservoirs, such as by chemical weathering of rocks. It has been proposed as a way to slow the atmospheric and marine accumulation of greenhouse gases, which are released by burning fossil fuels. Carbon sequestration describes long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon to either mitigate or defer global warming. Carbon dioxide is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical or physical processes. CO2 may be captured as a pure by-product in processes related to petroleum refining or from flue gases from power generation. CO2 sequestration includes the storage part of carbon capture and storage, which refers to large-scale, permanent artificial capture and sequestration of industrially

produced CO2 using subsurface saline aquifers, reservoirs, ocean water, aging oil fields, or other carbon sinks. There are various processes by which the sequestration of carbon take place. Some of them are as followed-

Biological Processes

Bio-sequestration or carbon sequestration through biological processes affects the Global carbon cycle. Examples include major climatic fluctuations, such as the Azolla event, which created the current Arctic climate. Such processes created fossil fuels, as well as clathrate or limestone. By manipulating such processes, geoengineers seek to enhance sequestration.

i.

Forestry: - Reforestation is the replanting of trees on marginal crop and pasture lands
to incorporate carbon from atmospheric CO2 into biomass. For this process to succeed the carbon must not return to the atmosphere from burning or rotting when the trees die. To this end, the trees must grow in perpetuity or the wood from them must itself be sequestered, e.g., via biochar, bio-energy with carbon storage (BECS) or landfill.

ii.

Agriculture: - Globally, soils are estimated to contain approximately 1,500 gigatons

of organic carbon, more than the amount in vegetation and the atmosphere. Modification of agricultural practices is a recognized method of carbon sequestration as soil can act as an effective carbon sink offsetting as much as 20% of 2010 carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Carbon emission reduction methods in agriculture can be grouped into two categories: reducing and displacing emissions and enhancing carbon removal. Some of these reductions involve increasing the efficiency of farm operations (i.e. more fuel-efficient equipment) while some involve interruptions in the natural carbon cycle. Also, some effective techniques (such as the elimination of stubble burning) can negatively impact other environmental concerns (increased herbicide use to control weeds not destroyed by burning).

Enhancing Carbon Removal

All crops absorb CO2 during growth and release it after harvest. The goal of agricultural carbon removal is to use the crop and its relation to the carbon cycle to permanently sequester carbon within the soil. This is done by selecting farming methods that return biomass to the soil and enhance the conditions in which the carbon within the plants will be reduced to its elemental nature and stored in a stable state. Methods for accomplishing this include:
 

Use cover crops such as grasses and weeds as temporary cover between planting seasons Concentrate livestock in small paddocks for days at a time so they graze lightly but evenly. This encourages roots to grow deeper into the soil. Stock also till the soil with their hooves, grinding old grass and manures into the soil.

Cover bare paddocks with hay or dead vegetation. This protects soil from the sun and allows the soil to hold more water and be more attractive to carbon-capturing microbes.

Restore degraded land, which slows carbon release while returning the land to agriculture or other use.

Agricultural sequestration practices may have positive effects on soil, air, and water quality, be beneficial to wildlife, and expand food production. On degraded croplands, an increase of 1 ton of soil carbon pool may increase crop yield by 20 to 40 kilograms per hectare of wheat, 10 to 20 kg/ ha for maize, and 0.5 to 1 kg/ha for cowpeas. Many factors affect the costs of carbon sequestration including soil quality, transaction costs and various externalities such as leakage and unforeseen environmental damage. Because reduction of atmospheric CO2 is a long-term concern, farmers can be reluctant to adopt more expensive agricultural techniques when there is not a clear crop, soil, or economic benefit. Governments such as Australia and New Zealand are considering allowing farmers to sell carbon credits once they document that they have sufficiently increased soil carbon content.


i.

Ocean-related Processes

Iron fertilization:- Ocean iron fertilization is an example of such a geo-engineering

technique. Iron fertilization attempts to encourage phytoplankton growth, which removes carbon from the atmosphere for at least a period of time. This technique is controversial due to limited understanding its complete effects on the

marine ecosystem, including side effects and possibly large deviations from expected behavior. Such effects potentially include release of nitrogen oxides, and disruption of the ocean's nutrient balance.

ii.

Mixing layers:- Encouraging various ocean layers to mix can move nutrients and
dissolved gases around, offering avenues for geo-engineering. Mixing may be achieved by placing large vertical pipes in the oceans to pump nutrient rich water to the surface, triggering blooms of algae, which store carbon when they die. This produces results somewhat similar to iron fertilization. One side-effect is a short-term rise in CO2, which limits its attractiveness.


i.

Physical processes

Biomass-related: - Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

BECCS refers to biomass in power stations and boilers that use carbon capture and storage. The carbon sequestered by the biomass would be captured and stored, thus removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This technology is sometimes referred to as bio-energy with carbon storage, BECS, though this term can also refer to the carbon sequestration potential in other technologies, such as biochar.

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ii.

Ocean storage:- River mouths bring large quantities of nutrients and dead material
from upriver into the ocean as part of the process that eventually produces fossil fuels. Transporting material such as crop waste out to sea and allowing it to sink exploits this idea to increase carbon storage. International regulations on marine dumping may restrict or prevent use of this technique.

iii.

Subterranean injection:- Carbon dioxide can be injected into depleted oil and gas
reservoirs and other geological features, or can be injected into the deep ocean.

The first large-scale CO2 sequestration project which began in 1996 is called Sleipner, and is located in the North Sea where Norway's State oil Hydro strips carbon dioxide from natural gas with amine solvents and disposed of this carbon dioxide in a deep saline aquifer. In 2000, a coalfueled synthetic natural gas plant in Beulah, North Dakota, became the world's first coal using plant to capture and store carbon dioxide, at the Weyburn-Midale Carbon Dioxide Project. CO2 has been used extensively in enhanced crude oil recovery operations in the United States beginning in 1972. There are in excess of 10,000 wells that inject CO2 in the state of Texas alone. The gas comes in part from anthropogenic sources, but is principally from large naturally occurring geologic formations of CO2. It is transported to the oil-producing fields through a large network of over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) of CO2 pipelines.

Chemical Processes

Carbon, in the form of CO2 can be removed from the atmosphere by chemical processes, and stored in stable carbonate mineral forms. This process is known as 'carbon sequestration by mineral carbonation' or mineral sequestration. The process involves reacting carbon dioxide with abundantly available metal oxideseither magnesium oxide (MgO) or calcium oxide (CaO)to form stable carbonates. These reactions are exothermic and occur naturally (e.g.,

the weathering of rock over geologic time periods). CaO + CO2 MgO + CO2 CaCO3 MgCO3

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Calcium and magnesium are found in nature typically as calcium and magnesium silicates (such as forsterite and serpentinite) and not as binary oxides. For forsterite and serpentine the reactions are: Mg2SiO4 + 2CO2 = 2MgCO3 + SiO2 Mg3Si2O5(OH)4+ 3CO2 = 3MgCO3 + 2SiO2 + 2H2O The following table lists principal metal oxides of Earth's Crust. Theoretically up to 22% of this mineral mass is able to form carbonates. Earthen Oxide Percent Of Crust Carbonate Enthalpy Change (KJ/mol) SiO2 Al2O3 CaO MgO Na2O FeO K2O Fe2O3 59.71 15.41 4.90 4.36 3.55 3.52 2.80 2.63 21.76 CaCO3 MgCO3 Na2CO3 FeCO3 K2CO3 FeCO3 All Carbonates -179 -117

These reactions are favored at low temperatures. This process occurs naturally over geologic time frames and is responsible for much of the Earth's surface limestone. The reaction rate can be made faster, for example by reacting at higher temperatures and/or pressures, or by pretreatment, although this method requires additional energy.

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i.

Industrial use:- Traditional cement manufacture releases large amounts of carbon

dioxide, but newly developed cement types from Novacem can absorb CO2 from ambient air during hardening. A similar technique was pioneered by TecEco, which has been producing "EcoCement" since 2002.

In Estonia, oil shale ash, generated by power stations could be used as sorbents for CO2 mineral sequestration. The amount of CO2 captured averaged 6065% of the carbonaceous CO2and 10 11% of the total CO2 emissions.

ii.

Chemical scrubbers:- Various carbon dioxide scrubbing processes have been

proposed to remove CO2 from the air, usually using a variant of the Kraft process. Carbon dioxide scrubbing variants exist based on potassium carbonate, which can be used to create liquid fuels, or on sodium hydroxide. These notably include artificial trees proposed by Klaus Lackner to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using chemical scrubbers.

iii.
a.

Ocean-related
Basalt storage:- Carbon dioxide sequestration in basalt involves the injecting
of CO2 into deep-sea formations. The CO2 first mixes with seawater and then reacts with the basalt, both of which are alkaline-rich elements. This reaction results in the release of Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions forming stable carbonate minerals.

Underwater basalt offers a good alternative to other forms of oceanic carbon storage because it has a number of trapping measures to ensure added protection against leakage. These measures include geothermal, sediment, gravitational and hydrate formation. Because CO2 hydrate is denser than CO2 in seawater, the risk of leakage is minimal. Injecting the CO2 at depths greater than 2,700 meters (8,858 ft) ensures that the CO2 has a greater density than seawater, causing it to sink.

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Recycling Of Stored Carbon Dioxide

Recycling CO2 is likely to offer the most environmentally and financially sustainable response to the global challenge of significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from major stationary (industrial) emitters in the near to medium term. This is because newly developed technologies, such as Bio CCS Algal Synthesis, value captured, pre-smokestack CO2 (such as from a coal fired power station) as a useful feedstock input to the production of oil-rich algae in solar membranes to produce oil for plastics and transport fuel (including aviation fuel), and nutritious stock-feed for farm animal production. The CO2 and other captured greenhouse gases are injected into the membranes containing waste water and select strains of algae causing, together with sunlight or UV light, an oil rich biomass that doubles in mass every 24 hours. The Bio CCS Algal Synthesis process holds a number of key advantages over conventional CCS in that it is based on well established earth science photosynthesis: the technology is entirely retro-fittable and collocated with the emitter, and the capital outlays offer a return upon investment due to the high value commodities produced (oil for plastics, fuel and feed). Carbon cature and storage, on the other hand, represents substantial logistical difficulty, very high cost without any financial return and extremely limited applicability to the bulk of existing major industrial emitters. Another advantage of Bio CCS Algal Synthesis is that it offers consumption of the full cocktail of greenhouse gases normally found in smokestack emissions not just CO2 as is the case with most CCS proposals. Bio CCS Algal Synthesis test facilities are being trialed at Australia's three largest coal fired power stations (Tarong, Queensland; Eraring, NSW; Loy Yang, Victoria) using piped preemission smokestack CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) as feedstock to grow oil-rich algal biomass in enclosed membranes for the production of plastics, transport fuel and nutritious animal feed. Another potentially useful way of dealing with industrial sources of CO2 is to convert it into hydrocarbons where it can be stored or reused as fuel or to make plastics. There are a number of projects investigating this possibility. Carbon dioxide scrubbing variants exist based on potassium carbonate which can be used to create liquid fuels. Although the creation of fuel from atmospheric CO2 is not a geo14

engineering technique, nor does it actually function as greenhouse gas remediation, it nevertheless is potentially very useful in the creation of a low carbon economy, as transport fuels, especially aviation fuel, are currently hard to make other than by using fossil fuels. While electric car technology is widely available, and can be used with renewable energy for carbon neutral driving, there are no electric jet airliners available, nor are there likely to be in the foreseeable future. The electric aircraft built to date have been mostly demonstration aircraft with modest performance reflecting the low specific energy of available storage batteries. For more on the energy requirements of flight including discussion of the critical factor of the specific energy of aircraft fuel see David J.C. MacKay's appendix C.

Single step methods: Methanol

A proven process to produce a hydrocarbon is to make methanol. Methanol is rather easily synthesized from CO2 and H2 (See Green Methanol Synthesis). Based on this fact the idea of a methanol economy was born.

Single step methods: Hydrocarbons

At the department of Industrial Chemistry and Engineering of Materials at the University of Messina, Italy, there is a project to develop a system which works like a fuel-cell in reverse, whereby a catalyst is used that enables sunlight to split water into hydrogen ions and oxygen gas. The ions cross a membrane where they react with the CO2 to create hydrocarbons.

Two step methods

If CO2 is heated to 2400C, it splits into carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen. The FischerTropsch process can then be used to convert the CO into hydrocarbons. The required temperature can be achieved by using a chamber containing a mirror to focus sunlight on the gas. Rival teams are developing such chambers, at Solarec and at Sandia National Laboratories, both based in New Mexico. According to Sandia these chambers could provide enough fuel to power 100% of domestic vehicles using 5800 km ; unlike biofuels this would not take fertile land away from crops but would be land that is not being used for anything else. James May, the British TV presenter, visited a demonstration plant in a program in his 'Big Ideas' series.

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Limitation Of CCS for Power projects

One limitation of CCS is its energy penalty. The technology is expected to use between 10 and 40 percent of the energy produced by a power station. Wide-scale adoption of CCS may erase efficiency gains of the last 50 years, and increase resource consumption by one third. Even taking the fuel penalty into account, however, overall levels of CO2 abatement would remain high at approximately 80-90%, compared to a plant without CCS. It is theoretically possible for CCS, when combined with combustion of biomass, to result in net negative emissions, but this is not currently feasible given the lack of development of CCS technologies and the limitations of biomass production. The use of CCS can reduce CO2 emissions from the stacks of coal power plants by 85-90% or more, but it has no effect on CO2 emissions due to the mining and transport of coal. It will actually "increase such emissions and of air pollutants per unit of net delivered power and will increase all ecological, land-use, air-pollution, and water-pollution impacts from coal mining, transport, and processing, because the CCS system requires 25% more energy, thus 25% more coal combustion, than does a system without CCS". Another concern regards the permanence of storage schemes. It is claimed that safe and permanent storage of CO2 cannot be guaranteed and that even very low leakage rates could undermine any climate mitigation effect. The IPCC concludes, however,, that the proportion of CO2 retained in appropriately selected and managed geological reservoirs is very likely to exceed 99% over 100 years and is likely to exceed 99% over 1,000 years. Finally, there is the issue of cost. Greenpeace claims that CCS could lead to a doubling of plant costs. CCS though may remain economically attractive in comparison to other forms of low carbon electricity generation. It is also claimed by opponents to CCS that money spent on CCS will divert investments away from other solutions to climate change.

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Cost Estimation of a CCS Plant

Although the processes involved in CCS have been demonstrated in other industrial applications, no commercial scale projects which integrate these processes exist; the costs therefore are somewhat uncertain. Some recent credible estimates indicate that a carbon price of US$60 per US-ton is required to make capture and storage competitive, corresponding to an increase in electricity prices of about US 6c per kWh (based on typical coal fired power plant emissions of 2.13 pounds CO2 per kWh). This would double the typical US industrial electricity price (now at around 6c per kWh) and increase the typical retail residential electricity price by about 50% (assuming 100% of power is from coal. Similar (approximate) price increases would likely be expected in coal dependent countries such as Australia, because the capture technology and chemistry, as well as the transport and injection costs from such power plants would not, in an overall sense, vary significantly from country to country. The reasons that CCS is expected to cause such power price increases are several. Firstly, the increased energy requirements of capturing and compressing CO2 significantly raise the operating costs of CCS-equipped power plants. In addition, there are added investment and capital costs. The process would increase the fuel requirement of a plant with CCS by about 25% for a coal-fired plant, and about 15% for a gas-fired plant. The cost of this extra fuel, as well as storage and other system costs, are estimated to increase the costs of energy from a power plant with CCS by 30-60%, depending on the specific circumstances. Pre-commercial CCS demonstration projects are likely to be more expensive than mature CCS technology; the total additional costs of an early large scale CCS demonstration project are estimated to be 0.5-1.1 billion per project over the project lifetime.

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An estimate of costs of energy with and without CCS (2002 US$ per kWh)

Natural combined cycle

gas Pulverized coal

Integrated combined cycle

gasification

Without capture (reference plant)

0.03 - 0.05

0.04 - 0.05

0.04 - 0.06

With capture and geological storage

0.04 - 0.08

0.06 - 0.10

0.06 - 0.09

(Cost

of

capture

and

geological storage)

0.01 - 0.03

0.02 - 0.05

0.02 - 0.03

With capture and Enhanced oil recovery

0.04 - 0.07

0.05 - 0.08

0.04 - 0.08

The cost of CCS depends on the cost of capture and storage, which varies according to the method used. Geological storage in saline formations or depleted oil or gas fields typically cost US$0.508.00 per tonne of CO2 injected, plus an additional US$0.100.30 for monitoring costs. When storage is combined with enhanced oil recovery to extract extra oil from an oil field, however, the storage could yield net benefits of US$1016 per tonne of CO2 injected (based on 2003 oil prices). This would likely negate some of the effect of the carbon capture when the oil was burnt as fuel. Even taking this into account, as the table above shows, the benefits do not outweigh the extra costs of capture.

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Major Concerns Regarding CCS

Although CCS may be economic under stringent climate policies, a number of technical, environmental, and political issues arise with regard to transportation and storage of captured CO2. Despite significant experiences with storage of CO2 and other substances in underground reservoirs, there is substantial uncertainty regarding how much CO2 such reservoirs can hold, how long injected CO2 would remain trapped, and whether injected CO2 would escape from storage reservoirs to other formations. The effects of ocean storage are even more uncertain, raise additional environmental concerns, and are more likely to generate controversy. Storage of CO2 as carbonates could lessen many of the concerns related to ocean storage but would generate other environmental concerns and would entail substantially higher storage costs.

Leakage:- A major concern with CCS is whether leakage of stored CO2 will compromise CCS
as a climate change mitigation option. For well-selected, designed and managed geological storage sites, IPCC estimates that risks are comparable to those associated with current hydrocarbon activity. CO2 could be trapped for millions of years, and although some leakage occurs upwards through the soil, well selected storage sites are likely to retain over 99% of the injected CO2 over 1000 years. Leakage through the injection pipe is a greater risk. In 1986 a large leakage of naturally sequestered carbon dioxide rose from Lake Nyos in Cameroon and asphyxiated 1,700 people. While the carbon had been sequestered naturally, some point to the event as evidence for the potentially catastrophic effects of sequestering carbon artificially.

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Conclusion
A great contribution is made towards the accumulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily through the unchecked combustion of fossil fuels. The significant wealth invested in fossil fuel reserves and infrastructure, combined with relatively costly and limited alternative energy resources (e.g., solar power, wind, and biomass), suggests that the worlds economies will continue to consume significant fossil fuel resources in the foreseeable future. Carbon capture and storage technologies could provide a partial solution to this dilemma by facilitating less costly reductions in carbon emissions through the continued use of fossil fuels. Experience with these technologies in the oil, gas and other niche industries shows that their application to carbon mitigation is technically feasible.

Leakage from storage facilities would weaken CCS as a source of permanent emissions reductions, though CCS could still provide valuable temporary storage while less costly permanent means of mitigation are being developed (e.g., renewable energy sources). Several modeling studies suggest that CCS could play an important role in mitigating carbon emissions, conditional on policies that impose a sufficiently high implicit or explicit price on such emissions. The results indicate that fuel switching from coal to natural gas and energy efficiency improvements would be the least costly options for moderate reductions in emissions. For larger reductions and higher carbon prices, however, CCS substantially lowers mitigation costs. Assuming no barriers to implementation other than cost (i.e., ignoring political and environmental issues) and given certain assumptions (e.g., regarding fuel prices and energy demand), these studies suggest that a significant number of new plants with CCS would enter the power supply sector within the next few decades, though CCS retrofits could enter in just a few years given a sufficiently high price on emissions. The availability and use of CCS technologies would decrease reliance on renewable energy sources while encouraging electricity production to shift from natural gas to coal power. CCS would significantly reduce the present value of the cost of mitigation over time. Finally, CCS would result in the capture of significant quantities of CO2 without exceeding most current storage capacity estimates.

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In estimation, both practical experience and detailed technical and engineering cost studies have demonstrated that CCS is both technologically and economically feasible, given policies that place a significant constraint on carbon emissions. What has not been demonstrated is the integrity of potential transportation networks and storage reservoirs and public acceptance of these systems. CCS, even if it proves a competitive mitigation option, will not succeed if the publics and environmental advocates concerns regarding the efficacy and safety of CO2 transport and storage are not addressed. It would seem, then, that policymakers should help facilitate this discussion so that if and when CCS technologies are truly needed to bury CO2, they themselves are not buried by controversy.

In sum, at the present time prospects appear to be most promising for carbon capture from electric power generation and some industrial sources, with storage in geologic formations, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs and deep aquifers. It would therefore seem prudent for analysts, advocates, and policymakers to seriously consider carbon capture and storage in the portfolio of options for addressing global climate change, alongside energy efficiency and fuel switching to less carbon-intensive energy sources. Further efforts are needed, however, in demonstrating the economic and technical feasibility of large-scale CCS, exploring options for lowering the cost of CCS technologies, researching technical aspects and environmental consequences of various storage options, and considering the constraints and opportunities provided by legislation, regulation, and public opinion on widespread application of CCS.

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References
1. World Resources Institute (WRI). CCS Guidelines: Guidelines for Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport, and Storage. Washington, DC: WRI. Published by World Resources Institute10 G Street, NE Suite 800 Washington, DC 20002 2008 World Resources Institute 2. IEA (International Energy Agency) (2009), Technology Roadmaps: Carbon Capture and Storage, IEA/OECD, Paris. 3. EST: What Future for Carbon Capture and Sequestration? April 1, 2001 / Volume 35 , Issue 7 / pp. 148 A 153 A Copyright 2001 American Chemical Society 4. Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology: Post note Number 238, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). March 2008 5. Soren Anderson and Richard Newell. January 2003. Prospects For Carbon Capture and Storage Technologies.RFF DP 02-68 6. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

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