ROLE OF CARBON CAPTURE

TECHNOLOGIES IN GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGMENT
WHAT IS CARBON CAPTURE AND
STORAGE
• CCS is a technology that will attempt to
prevent large quantities of CO2 from being
released into the atmosphere from the use of
fossil fuels in power generation and other
industries .
• It is often as a means of mitigating the
contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global
warming.
 CAPTURING CARBON

• There are essentially three ways to capture

the carbon dioxide from a power plant :
• Before the fuel is burned (precombustion),
• After the fuel is burned (postcombustion),or
• By burning the fuel in more oxygen and
storing all the gases produced as a result
(oxyfuel).
 PRECOMBUSTION
• In precombustion ,the aim is to remove the
carbon from coal fuel before its burned.
• The coal is reacted with oxygen to make syngas
(synthesis gas) ,a mixture of carbon monoxide
and hydrogen gases.
• The hydrogen can be removed and either burned
directly as fuel or compressed and store for use in
fuel-cells,cars .
• Water is added to the carbon monoxide to make
carbon dioxide and additional hydrogen ,which is
added to the hydrogen previously removed .
 POSTCOMBUSTION
• In post combustion: to remove carbon dioxide
from a power stations output after a fuel has
been burned .
• That means waste gases have to capture and
scrubbed clean of their CO2 before they travel
up smokestacks.
• The scrubbing is done by passing the gases
through ammonia ,which is then blasted clean
with steam ,releasing the CO2 for storage.
 OXYFUEL
• Power plants don't produce pure CO2:because
there often not enough oxygen for complete
combustion they produce other pollutant gases
ass well .
• One way to purify the exhaust is to blow extra
oxygen into the furnace so the fuel burns
completely producing relatively pure steam and
CO2.
• Once the steam is removed (by cooling and
condensing it to make water ),the CO2 can be
stored .
 TRANSPORTATION
• After capture,the CO2 would have to be
transported to suitable storage sites.
• This is done by pipeline,which is generally the
cheapest from of transport .
• A conveyor belt system or ship could also be
utilized for transport .
 STORING CARBON
• Storing carbon dioxide under Earths surface is
called geo-sequestration and uses things like
worked out oil fields, aquifers,or other rock
formations deep underground.
• Oil companies already pump CO2 into
underground rocks to flush oil to the surface .
• Storing CO2 in the oceans .
• Storing CO2 by reacting it with minerarls
,though that requires a lot more energy .
 ADVANTAGES
• CCS applied to a modern conventional power
plant could reduce CO2 emisssions to the
atmosphere by 80-90% compared to a plant
without CCS.
• The solvents used to capture CO2 from the
flue gases will remove some nitrogen oxides
and sulphur oxides.
 DISADVANTAGES
• Increase significantly the emissions of acid gas pollutants.

• Capturing and compressing CO2 requires much energy and would

increase the fuel needs of a coal-fired plant with CCS by 20-40%

• These and other system costs are estimated to increase the cost of

energy from a new power plant with CCCS by 21-90%

• Water consumption ,however may be an issue for carbon capture

systems which rely on solvents to remove CO2 from flue gases .

• This increase in water consumption may make these systems less

suited to dry regions .

 Carbon Capture :Environmental
impacts
• In ocean storage carbon dioxide reacts with
water to form acid ,so the oceans could
become significantly more acidic.
• Another difficulty is that the CO2 would also
eventually return to the atmosphere .
• In addition to the global climate change
impact of CO2 returning to the atmosphere ,
leakages pose local risks health and
ecosystems.