Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is the technology that aims to reduce CO2 emissions by capturing it when it is produced and storing it so it won’t enter the atmosphere. The technology is unproven and highly contentious, but it has attracted a lot of attention and funding.
The Australian Government has taken a significant lead on CCS, setting up the non-profit Global CCS Institute in 2008 with $100 million in funding. The Institute is also receiving funding from other governments and from corporations with an interest in developing and publicising the technology
Yesterday the Institute published its Global Status of CCS report, an annual exercise intended to summarise CCS efforts around the world. The report is, as you would expect, bullish about the prospects for CCS. It identifies 74 large-scale integrated projects (LSIPs) around the world, of which 14 are operating or under construction. This is down from 77 last year, due to a number of cancellations of previously announced projects. The number at the primary “indentify” stage has halved over the last two years, from 19 to 8, indicating that the number of new projects is declining.
Large Scale CCS Projects, 2009-11
Source: Global CCS Institute
The Institute dismisses these numbers as unimportant – the report says it is not because of the technology, but because of weak economic conditions or the failure of many governments to put a price on carbon. CCS has attracted much criticism as an ineffective solution to reducing carbon emissions. It requires CO2 to be compressed and transported to a storage facility, both of which are themselves carbon-intensive processes.
The Global CCS Institute report has a section outlining the relative costs of CCS with other technologies such as solar. The report concludes that the “avoided cost” of CCS technology in power stations when the technology matures will be in the range of $US68 to $US123 a tonne, compared to more than twice that for PV and other solar technologies.
These prices are purely speculative – no-one knows until the technology matures. By that time the world will be a very different place. But is does show that whatever technology is used, there is a price to pay for reducing carbon emissions. It is one of the great tragedies of the modern world that so few people are prepared to pay this price.
