Carbon Dioxide Capture and Sequestration

Besides energy conservation and using renewable energy resources, there are also the
ways in which the content of CO2 in the atmosphere could be decreased directly.
And this is what we call carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS), which is a
set of technologies that can greatly reduce CO2 emissions from new and existing
coal-and gas-fired power plants and large industrial sources. Here Id like to make it
clear, that there are two major types of CO2 sequestration: terrestrial and geologic.
And terrestrial or biologic sequestration means using plants to capture CO2 from the
atmosphere and then storing it as carbon in the stems and roots of the plants as well as
in the soil. We have learned this carbon storage process in previous lessons. And
Geologic sequestration is putting CO2 into long-term storage in geologic zones deep
underground. This figure illustrates the general CCS process and shows a typical
depth at which CO2 would be injected. We could see that CCS is a three-step process
that includes:

Capture of CO2 from power plants or industrial processes

Transport of the captured and compressed CO2 (usually in pipelines).
Underground injection and geologic sequestration (also referred to as
storage) of the CO2 into deep underground rock formations. These
formations are often a mile or more beneath the surface and consist of
porous rock that holds the CO2. Overlying these formations are
impermeable, non-porous layers of rock that trap the CO2 and prevent it
from migrating upward.

After knowing what it is and how it functions, we may wonder what role could
CO2 capture and storage play in the fight against climate change?
Most scenarios for global energy use project a substantial increase of CO2
emissions throughout this century in the absence of specific actions to mitigate
climate change. They also suggest that the supply of primary energy will
continue to be dominated by fossil fuels until at least the middle of the century.
Therefore, techniques to capture and store the CO2 produced combined with
other technological options could play a role in the fight against climate change.
IPCCs Third Assessment Report suggests that use of CCS in conjunction with
other measures could significantly reduce the cost of achieving stabilization and
would increase flexibility in achieving these reductions. The heavy worldwide
reliance on fossil fuels today (approximately 80% of global energy use), the
potential for CCS to reduce CO2 emissions over the next century, and the
compatibility of CCS systems with current energy infrastructures explain the
interest in this technology.
Therefore CCS would be an option for countries that have significant sources
of CO2 suitable for capture, that have access to storage sites and experience with oil or
gas operations, and that need to satisfy their development aspirations in a carbonconstrained environment. Yet literature assessed in the IPCC Special Report
Methodological and Technological Issues and Technology Transfer indicates that

there are many potential barriers that could inhibit deployment in developing
countries, even of technologies that are mature in industrialized countries. Addressing
these barriers and creating conditions that would facilitate diffusion of the technology
to developing countries would be a major issue for the adoption of CCS worldwide.
Only a handful of specialized facilities like natural gas-processing plants, coal
gasification plants, and ethanol plants currently have processes that separate CO2 and
make it available for geologic sequestration. Actions are under way now to develop
economical methods of separating and capturing CO2 at other large-scale systems like
power plants that produce relatively large quantities of anthropogenic CO2.
Although pure CO2 has been stored as a gas in natural underground deposits for
millions of years and oil field operators have safely pumped millions of tons of CO2
underground into oil-producing formations to increase production (CO2 flooding), we
need validation demonstrations in geologic environments to ensure that we understand
the best ways to site the systems as well as monitor the CO2 in storage over the long
term.
Scientific and economic challenges still exist, writes Harvard geoscientist Daniel
Schrag, but none are serious enough to suggest that carbon capture and storage will
not work at the scale required to offset trillions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions
over the next century

2.1 Carbon dioxide could be captured from power plants or industrial facilities that
produce large amounts of carbon dioxide. Technology for CO2 capture from small or
mobile emission sources, such as home heating systems or cars, is not sufficiently
developed yet. More...
2.2 A significant proportion of the CO2 produced by fossil fuel power plants could
potentially be captured. By 2050 the amount captured could represent 21 to 45% of all
the CO2 emitted by human activities.