Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other energy-intensive industries by capturing extra CO2, transporting it, and permanently storing it.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an air pollutant that builds up in the atmosphere, however current technologies exist to capture it from both natural and fossil fuel combustion and inject it underground in porous rock formations such as depleted oil fields or basalt formations.
Capture
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an emerging pollution control technology which captures excess CO2 from industrial emissions before permanently storing it underground. CCS reduces greenhouse gas production while fulfilling international commitments to limit climate change; though its deployment requires incentives that support its deployment; CCS technology is already well established compared with their adoption policies, which remain relatively recent.
CCS projects generally only manage a fraction of an industrial site’s emissions due to energy requirements for powering capture equipment limiting how much carbon dioxide the plant can process at one time.
EOR is the primary use for captured CO2, wherein it is injected into active oil reservoirs to enhance oil extraction. Unfortunately, using CO2 this way does not result in net climate benefits and may even have harmful indirect and other consequences when all aspects are taken into consideration. Furthermore, some companies are exploring turning captured CO2 into building materials or fuels through chemical and biological processes.
Transport
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCUS) technology is an indispensable way to lower emissions by extracting CO2 from the air and storing it underground, thus mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that rely on fossil fuels as well as industrial processes like cement production or steel making.
CCUS technologies can be implemented at coal, natural gas and biomass power plants. Three main techniques can be used: post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion – this involves burning hydrogen/carbon monoxide mixture in almost pure oxygen to generate electricity as well as CO2.
Captured CO2 is typically transported by pipeline or ship to onshore or offshore sites for underground storage, often to porous rock formations buried under layers of impermeable seal rock. Structural trapping involves physically trapping supercritical CO2 in rock pore spaces within rock formations while other techniques include carbon dioxide injection for enhanced oil recovery or injection into basaltic formations where it mineralizes over time.
Injection
CO2 is then injected into underground geological formations for long-term storage, such as those at Sleipner CO2 Storage Site in Norway or Weyburn-Midale Carbon Capture and Storage Project in Canada. Such projects offer extensive baseline environmental monitoring as well as post injection site management programs to ensure safe CO2 injection into underground storage locations.
CO2 captured is compressed and chilled until it becomes liquid-like, then transported for storage via pipeline, ship or train to its injection sites – usually underground geological formations like former oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers.
Fossil fuel companies promote carbon capture and storage (CCUS) as part of their “green energy” plans, even though its effectiveness on a broad scale remains unverified. Furthermore, much of its infrastructure resides disproportionately within Black and Indigenous communities – meaning if ever used this unproven technology will bear all risks and expenses while benefitting petrochemical and fossil fuel corporations instead.
Storage
Carbon dioxide emissions contribute significantly to climate change, and most greenhouse gas mitigation pathways require geological storage of CO2. CCS technologies are used to capture, transport and store the emissions released by fossil fuel power plants and other industrial processes.
CO2 can be captured from exhaust streams of coal-fired power plants and other sources using various capture technologies that make its purity greater for transport and storage purposes. After being isolated from other gases, it is injected deep underground in porous rock formations so as to be trapped permanently within the subsurface.
CO2 is transported to its storage site using pumps, where it may either be physically trapped in structures (structural trapping) or chemically bound into minerals that will become stable over time. Geologic storage capacity already exists worldwide within depleted oil and natural gas fields as well as deep saline formations.