Carbon capture and storage (CCUS) is an expensive yet vital technology that helps bring down power prices. Renewable technologies are quickly progressing but reaching net zero would be much harder without CCUS technology.
CO2 captured is compressed and delivered via pipelines or ships directly to storage sites, including depleted oil and gas reservoirs or deep saline aquifers.
Capture
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology captures carbon emissions from power plants and industrial facilities before it enters the atmosphere, either using it beneficially in building materials or permanently storing it underground in geological formations.
Biological CCS involves natural environments like forests, oceans and grasslands sequestering carbon dioxide while engineering CCS involves injecting CO2 into deep underground geological formations such as saline aquifers or depleted oil and gas reservoirs to sequester it.
CO2 is injected into vast expanses of porous rock to be stored for long-term. Monitoring is in place to ensure no significant amounts of CO2 leak back into groundwater systems or atmosphere.
Compression
Carbon capture technology captures carbon emissions generated from fossil fuel combustion at power plants and other industrial facilities that rely on them as a source of energy, and transports and stores them underground, helping meet international climate targets in an integrated process known as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).
CO2 gas must be compressed and chilled into liquid form in order to be transported efficiently, which requires considerable amounts of energy and capital investment in pipelines that maintain high pressure/low temperature conditions.
Captured CO2 can be utilized on-site in processes such as manufacturing building materials or for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) at existing oil fields. Carbon capture and utilization system (CCUS) technology is also often employed to remove historic emissions from the atmosphere through carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Otherwise, captured CO2 is typically stored for long-term storage purposes in deep geological formations like depleted oil reservoirs or coal beds for future use.
Transport
As global efforts towards net-zero emissions ramp up, so will the demand for carbon capture and storage. Transporting captured CO2 from industrial sites to geological storage facilities requires transport operators who connect industrial emitters with storage providers – this new breed of transport and storage operators is emerging to meet this need.
CO2 captured from fossil fuel power plants or industrial processes is typically mixed with nitrogen, oxygen and other gases before being separated out to reach an acceptable purity level for pipeline transportation that meets stringent temperature and pressure specifications.
Compressed and liquefied CO2 is then compressed and liquefied to create a supercritical state, 50-80% less dense than water but with gaseous viscosity, before being transported via pipeline or tanker ship for geological storage sites. Some CO2 may also be injected into oil fields to aid enhanced oil recovery (EOR), while pure geological storage began when Norway started pumping CO2 into deep saline formations such as Sleipner in 1996.
Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage technology is one of the key solutions needed to meet the climate goals outlined by the Paris Agreement. It involves collecting and storing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants, industrial facilities and gas fields underground in geologic formations.
Today, several large scale CO2 capture projects are in progress around the globe – an array of projects employing post-combustion carbon capture (mainly at coal and natural gas power plants), pre-combustion carbon capture technology (mainly at coal power plants), pre-combustion CO2 capture, and oxy-fuel technology are underway. Two examples are Norway’s Sleipner CCS site and Weyburn-Midale CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project as two such global undertakings.
Once captured, carbon dioxide can either be permanently stored away for later use – such as building materials and enhanced oil recovery – or utilized through carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). This technology contributes to reduced emissions than would otherwise occur; for this reason the International Energy Agency considers CCUS an essential element in any zero emission scenario.