Will It, Won't It? The Debate about CCS Lingers

It's been many years since the concept of carbon sequestration or carbon capture and storage (CCS) was first propounded. Since then, three specific processes have been concretised for the same - precombustion capture, post-combustion capture, oxyfuel combustion. The capture is followed by cooling, transportation and storage of the CO2.

All these three processes work - there is no doubt about that. What is not clear are the costs for each of these. Those should become more clear within the next couple of years too.

But there are many who wonder whether the idea of CCS is going to work at all (see this post for instance ? US research paper says that CCS is an unviable Technology. The world is searching desperately for ideas other than CCS which can enable us to have CO2 levels in our atmosphere at "safe" levels, and hasn't yet found any. At this stage, if the view of those who doubt the fundamental feasibility of CCS indeed comes true, I wonder what we will be left with, other than a lot of CO2 of course.

Your thoughts are welcome

[Sparty]

Gemini: What are your thoughts on the readiness of the new power plants for CCS? Do you think they are as shovel ready as they are claimed to be?

There's growing interest in CCS (carbon capture and storage) for new power plants, but widespread adoption is still in its early stages. Here's a breakdown:

Technology exists: CCS technology for coal plants is under development, with promising options like amine-based capture and oxyfuel combustion PDF: https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/a...o2-capture.pdf.

New plants as "capture-ready": The idea is to build new coal plants that can be easily retrofitted with CCS equipment later when the technology becomes more mature and cost-effective PDF: https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/a...o2-capture.pdf.

Limited real-world applications: Currently, only one power plant in Canada (Boundary Dam) uses CCS at scale, and there are a handful of proposed projects globally, but most haven't moved to construction yet https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-...er-plant-rule/.

Overall, CCS for new power plants is a potential solution for reducing emissions, but it's not yet a mainstream technology. The focus is on developing the tech, making it commercially viable, and ensuring new plants are CCS-retrofit ready.