The CCS process seems to be a sophisticated, uneconomical,and effort consuming process which leaves doubtful future fate to the captured and stored CO2. It is a well known fact that CO2 is captured naturally by plants in their eternal cycle of existence. I think all people of the world especially the rich if they can join together in a huge project to make all parts of beloved world green by planting most deserts and mountains then we will enjoy greener and healthy environment all over the globe.

There are uncertainties around the viability of CCS, since CCS requires energy and thus reduces the efficiency of the plants where it is used. CCS cannot be used on all emission sources, e.g. vehicles. The stored CO2 could potentially leak. CCS is not solving the cause of the problem, but rather deal with the consequences. This is not the optimal solution, but could be needed if we are not able to reduce the emissions fast enough by targeting the root causes.

Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) is where the captured CO2 is used instead of being stored, e.g. to produce fuels. This could perhaps be a better way forward than CCS, since the CO2 is exploited and it avoids some of the challenges of CCS, e.g. leakages from storages. CCS or CCU combined with biomass could provide net reduction of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Nearly all practical projections for global future energy use show fossil fuel playing a major role well into the future. If these prove accurate, and if we are to meet the 2 degree temperature rise target, it is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which CCS does not play a major role. This is reflected in the road maps, projections, and wedges published by many institutions, essentially all of which show CCS as a significant contributor to CO2 reduction and several of which show it as the most significant contributor aside from conservation/energy savings. However, Joakim and Kamal bring up some valid issues with respect to cost and efficiency. Current CCS technologies are both inefficient and costly, though by most system-wide analyses they are less costly than most alternatives. Generally, wind and solar can reduce CO2 more cheaply than CCS in a new installation if you only consider the power they produce, but when you account for the need to backup the wind and solar plants with something (typically fossil) to manage their intermittency, CCS might be (generally is) more cost effective.

I am not sure how CCS could be characterized as a scam. The process does capture carbon (actually CO2), does store it outside the atmosphere for significant time periods, does reduce CO2 accumulation, and has been demonstrated to work, including at large scale. The costs and inefficiencies are high, but that does not make it a scam and they are by many analyses among the lowest of CO2 reduction technologies.

There are developing technologies that compete much better in cost and efficiency than the current technologies. Full disclosure - I am deeply involved in cryogenic carbon capture(TM), or CCC, one of the leading ones (www.sesinnovation.com). The CCC process is a retrofit technology suitable to any continuous CO2 point source that reduces cost and energy demand substantially and can provide grid-significant energy storage that makes renewables more useful.

A great number of discussions about carbon management show little appreciation for the magnitude of the problem. For example, we put a little over 30 times as much carbon into the atmosphere each year as we use in all manufacturing processes that use carbon (except fuel production, e.g., petroleum, natural gas, and coal). That is, if we were to use capture CO2 to manufacture every chemical, plastic, or other product that contains carbon, that would reduce the atmospheric emissions by about 3%. If we were to consider realistically accessibly processes, the number drops to 1%. The squabbling that is common about how to address our enormous emission seems largely oblivious to the fact that if we use every reasonable approach we have, and even several unreasonable ones, we will still fall far short of solving the problem. CCS is one of the most effective approaches by many independent analyses. While individual projects for renewables and CCS might be, and often are, structured poorly and produce few meaningful results, there is nothing about the technology that is a scam.

I agree with Joakim " Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) is where the captured CO2 is used instead of being stored, e.g. to produce fuels." is better solution for me.

Interested

It will always take more energy to convert CO2 to fuel than you can derive from burning the fuel. Therefore, this type of utilization will increase total energy consumption unless you can find a source of energy that is otherwise wasted and that can be used to drive the CO2 utilization process (which happens sometimes, but quite rarely). If you consider a power plant, for example, it might be intuitive to most people that the process will not work if you burn the fuel and then try to use the energy you make to convert the products back to fuel. Thermodynamics quantifies this. If you use solar energy, for example, to make the fuel, it will take much more solar energy to make the fuel than you will be able to generate from the fuel. The times when this might make sense are (a) if you have excess solar or wind power on the grid that is otherwise going to be grounded and therefore wasted, or (b) if plants/biomass use solar power to convert CO2 to a fuel (photosynthesis), and you use the biomass. This latter process equals biomass combustion if the plants grew recently, fossil combustion if the plants are very old.

Obviously CCS is a good method for reducing carbon from the environment. In this process, the coal is chemically washed of minerals and impurities and sometimes gasified, burned. The resulting flue gas treat the steam with the purpose of removing SO 2 and re-burned to make the CO 2 in the flue gas economically recoverable & storable. Fossil fuel power plants generate significant amounts of CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere, which demonstrated as the main cause of climate change.

Among CO 2 mitigation options, carbon capture and storage is considered the only technology that can significantly reduce the emissions of CO 2 from fossil fuel combustion sources. There are mainly three technological routes for CO 2 capture from power plants: post-combustion, pre-

combustion and oxy-fuel combustion. There is a standard limit of GHG emission from power plants provided by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on August 3, 2015 . One of the limit is new natural gas power plants can emit no more than 1,000 pounds (lbs) of CO 2 /MWh of electricity produced using latest combined cycle technology. Another limit for new coal power plants can emit no more than 1,400 lbs CO 2 /MWh, with the use ofcarbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. I think, effective use of CCS technology will be the best solution for Carbon mitigating from fossil fuel combustion.

It's preferable to leave fossil fuels and replace them with renewable electric energy. Contrary to Larry say, it's not necessary to make backup plants with fossil fuels for solar and wind power plants. The solution is in the storage of water at height. At present they are very profitable, as it happens with the Cortes de Pallas plant in Spain, which can be seen in the following link:

https://www.cortesdepallas.es/cortes-de-pallas/de-hidroelectrica-a-iberdrola/

Also the change to electric vehicles is a good solution. In the calculations that I have made, more than 60% of emissions are saved up by changing the fossil fuel vehicle to electric vehicle.

100 km with fossil fuel vehicle aprox. 11600 gr of emissions

100 km with electric vehicle aprox. 4500 gr of emissions

These calculations have been made with average values in Spain, both of emissions in fossil fuel vehicles and in the measurement of CO2 emissions in electricity production. Logically, if it were to reach a complete production of electricity with renewable energy, the value of emissions with electric vehicles would be almost nil. Even with the current electricity production situation, global savings would be very significant and the proposed global objectives would be achieved.

Depends. Underground storage may be not the ideal solution. Neither storage in the ocean. A sustainable solution is fixing it and transforming it into a new chemical. See this article:

Dr Aga thanks for sharing. I checked your link.

I agree with Joakim Haraldsson answer. But I think whatever is needed to reduce the earth temperature, we should do it fast since theres is no time left, every year the earth gets warmer and warmer! And this is really bad.

By theory and application CCS works (maybe slowly but works), you mentioned some groups claim it as a scam. What are the reasons? Arguing about an idea without any significant scientific reasons is absurd.

But lets say "maybe" it is a scam. Ok then, what is the alternative? Do they have any other solutions? I am open to hear all possible solutions for decreasing carbon emission. I am currently working to find one. But till then CCS is the only and best method we have. We stick to it.

Lets hope we can find better solution, if CCS is not the best.

Can we transfer the stored carbon dioxide to the space?

In a real world, Spain for example, 23.500 MW of photovoltaic power plants will be installed in the next two years.

Without subsidies, without publics aids. It’s private initiative. The cost is 0.69 euro / Wpp or 0.77 $ / Wpp, including a high voltage transformation center and a grid connection line.

They will contribute more than 20% of all Spain electricity and avoid the emission of 27 million tons of CO2

It's just an example of what can be done.

However, also in Spain, the right-wing government, which has recently been dismissed, has blocked renewable energy installations for the past six years and has wasted valuable time to reduce CO2 emissions. It also allowed or encouraged the use of more coal to produce electricity, despite being the system that produces the most emissions.

Society, scientists, universities, the press, we must provide correct information for politicians to make decisions that reduce CO2 emissions.

If you burn the carbon to the monoxide rather than the dioxide you can then combine 5 monoxide molecules with an iron atom to form iron pentacarbonyl which is an oily liquid at room temperature so you could just pour it back into the coalmines. But it wouldn't provide a lot of energy.

CCS does not offer any solution to the problem because it does not deal with the cause but rather offers some palliative solutions by attempting to reduce the consequence carbon. Additionally, in capturing and storing CO2, a lot of resources are needed to effective store in and therefore keep it under check. If a leakage occurs, more resources will be used to tackle it. It thus appears that the CCS technique is a potential problem that the present generation is creating for future if the present generation can even escape it. However, in a world where technology is very dynamic, it could happen that the stored carbon is a huge mine that present generation is creating for future generation.

In my opinion, a more sustainable approach will be to attack the source of carbon by regulating land and planting more trees that will naturally absorb the carbon. Again, all efforts to ensure that all persons embrace a carbon less society like using renewable energy resources, riding bicycles, etc should be strongly encouraged. Finally, developing technologies that will utilize the stored carbon will also be a very attractive option.

good idea

Although the CCS process has advantage, it is at the same time reducing the energy in the natural budget. In its entirety, pollution by carbon containing fuel can best be efficiently controlled by constant forestation, which recycles CO2 between plants and animals efficiently.

I think CCS is a very good idea. In future, climate changing will affect too much rapidly and CCS will be more helpful than anything at that time. We should make CCS useful in better way- like we can store Carbon within the gas and oil fields from their lower production stage. As a result the production will increase a bit and some more recovery can be gained which is helpful to minimize the cost of CCS. Their will be no extra charge needed as the infrastructure is quite available in a gas/oil production field. However, efficient technology must be developed to control the process before applying. If we can make the industrialists more concern about the fact, I think CCS can be highly useful in future.

Bit late to the party but I hope that the answer is still of interest

Currently, low-carbon power generation capacity is being added progressively selecting the lowest cost technologies. Under these circumstances wind and solar are generally the preferred choice. Adding a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) with carbon capture and storage (CCS) in geological strata is too expensive. The process can be made economic if circumstances allow use of the CO2 for enhanced oil or gas recovery but when the recovered fossil fuel is used it releases CO2 thereby lowering the overall capture efficiency.

An issue with a generating system (replacing all fossil fuel applications for heating and motive power) based entirely on renewable sources is accommodating their intermittent nature. The installed capacity would have to serve the market under the worst conditions, low wind, heavy cloud cover, high demand, scheduled outages for repairs etc. To achieve this some estimate that the installed renewable capacity would have to be over 300 percent of the peak demand. This means for much of the time the resources are under-utilized, greatly increasing the cost of energy to the consumer, despite wind and sun being free.

As a previous answer indicated hydro dams and pump storage can be used for back up power provided you have hills (not really suitable for The Netherlands) and adequate land area. Moreover, what to do once the water level has fallen and there is still a generating shortfall? In northern Europe wind-free, sunless days have been know to last for two or more days.

In an integrated approach to achieving lower-carbon power production at a minimum cost (still much higher than costs today), CCS has a role to play. A fossil-fuelled power system requires less than 20 percent excess production capacity and even when coupled with CCS the cost of energy to the consumer is projected to be lower than for a system based solely on renewables. Renewables will remain first in the dispatch order but whenever there is a power shortfall, NGCC with CCS is available at the flick of a switch any time it is required.

So, is carbon capture and storage a good idea or not? If consumers want the lowest cost power available whenever required then it most certainly is a brilliant idea. However, nations collectively need to get serious about reducing CO2 emissions as no nation acting individually is going to penalise itself incurring the costs involved.

On the 29th 2018 November, I attended a conference “Accelerating CCUS” held in Edinburgh at the Hub, an impressive former Victorian church. The message of deliverance from the evils of global warming was received with enthusiasm by the congregation of the faithful, but it remains to be seen whether the message will lead to the conversion of non-believers. Following is the briefest of summaries of the day’s discussions.

· On October 8th 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report requested at the Paris Agreement, “The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C”. The report concludes that to avoid the worst impacts of global warming the mean temperature rise should be limited to 1.5°C not the 2°C agreed in Paris. At the current rate of GHG emissions, on average, the 1.5°C limit will be reached by 2040 and the 2°C limit by 2052. These limits could be reached earlier depending on the interaction of various feedback loops. Current global CO2 emissions are 40 billion tonnes per year and need to become net zero by around 2050. In addition, releases to atmosphere of methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon black need to be reduced markedly. All to be done in less than 30 years, the time required to count to just 1 billion. No latitude for delay, need to act now.

· For reference, the UK’s CO2 emissions are 0.37 billion tonnes per year (less than 1 percent of global total) and 90 percent come from oil and gas utilization. Eliminating the use of these fossil fuels in the short-term is not feasible, but using them to produce hydrogen and storing the CO2 is feasible.

· There is no single technological solution to reduce CO2 emissions: efficiency improvements, eliminating coal for power generation, widespread deployment of renewables, reforming methane to hydrogen, CCS, CCUS, and nuclear are all required.

· Governments will determine what solutions best fit their economic circumstances in meeting their Paris Agreement obligations. A concern is that of stranded assets; for example, many coal-fired power plants are less than 10-years old and have been costed for 25-year life spans. Similar considerations apply to other industries such as transitioning shipping from diesel to hydrogen.

· Without CCS and CCUS achieving global climate goals will be practically impossible. Because of this, the IEA has made these technologies a priority to be discussed at all Ministerial meetings.

· To achieve this Ulyssean task, negative emission technologies (NETs) will have to be deployed. Further, once achieved the atmospheric CO2 burden will maintain the global temperature at the elevated level so NETs will remain in service for many tears. The most promising is bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) whereby biomass is burned for power generation and the resulting CO2 stored below ground. An issue with this vital approach is land usage with biomass for energy competing for space with crops for food. With respect to food growing efficiency, as meat production requires a lot more space than growing vegetables, eating beans in preference to meat will help free space for biomass energy crops.

· If the populace is serious about saving the planet then some hard choices need to be made to lower personal CO2 footprints: travel less (air, sea, and auto), modify your diet, use energy and water more efficiently, etc. Perhaps most importantly make saving the planet a ballot box issue so politicians have to take notice if they want to get elected and remain in office. Force them to make the difficult choices to lower GHG emissions with the budget available. For example, spend less on space research and seeking out other planets until ours is safe and secure.