![]() Other alternatives include, chemical looping, and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), in which coal is converted into syngas, and the carbon capture process involves separation from H 2. In oxy-combustion, however, one needs to separate oxygen from the air, which is also an energy intensive separation. ![]() One such example is oxy-combustion in which coal is burned with pure oxygen, and CO 2 is captured simply by condensing the water. Research is therefore focused on increasing the efficiency of the absorption process and on finding alternatives (e.g., solid adsorption or membranes).īuilding a new power plant in which carbon capture would be added from the very beginning would give more possibilities to optimize the efficiency of combined power generation and carbon capture. As a consequence, a power plant with carbon capture will not only be more expensive to build, but also will have reduction in efficiency as high as 35% ( Herzog et al., 1993). The problem, however, is that the regeneration of the amine solution and the subsequent compression of CO 2 for transport and geological storage is very energy intensive. There is very little doubt in the engineering community that this amine absorption technology can be scaled-up and implemented to capture flue gases. A very similar process can be used to remove CO 2 from flue gas. Hence, gas companies use the amine scrubbing process developed by Bottoms (1930) to separate CO 2 from methane. Most natural-gas contains more CO 2 than is allowed to put in pipelines. Removing CO 2 from gases emitted from stationary sources can be done, using quite old technology. At present, there are no practical solutions for on-board capture CO 2 directly from mobile sources therefore, we focus in the remainder on capturing CO 2 from stationary sources. Carbon Captureįor carbon capture ( Wilcox, 2012), it is important to distinguish between stationary sources (power plants, factories, etc.) and mobile sources (cars, airplanes, etc.) of CO 2. Thus, CO 2 utilization next to storage will be an integral component of carbon management. In this scenario, the price of carbon will be so high that any technology that uses CO 2 as a source of carbon will have such an economic advantage that CO 2 will replace fossil fuels for those applications (e.g., plastics and soaps). In such a scenario, it is very likely that we also need to deploy technologies that can achieve negative emissions (i.e., direct CO 2 capture from air). ![]() The consequence is that we may significantly overshoot CO 2 levels in the atmosphere before any serious action is taken. Thus, the adaptation of large-scale CCUS might be inevitable to mitigate ever-increasing CO 2 emissions with given population growth predictions.Īt present, there are still very few signs of starting a war against climate change soon. In such a scenario, a war against climate change without CCUS implies that we have to dramatically reduce our current energy consumption, and hence, accept a dramatic reduction in GDP. This is simply because the growth in renewable energy will not be able to keep up with our increasing energy demand associated with a growing world population. Most, if not all, of the energy scenarios predict an increase in the share of the renewables, but in absolute numbers the fossil fuels will continue to provide most of our energy needs in the foreseeable future. At present, the contribution of fossil fuels in our energy supply is over 80%, while the renewable is only 10% ( International Energy Agency (IEA), 2013). Some argue that if we fight the war against climate change via CCUS, this implies that we are promoting the continued use of fossil fuels instead of replacing fossil fuels by renewable energy such as solar and wind. If we were in a global war against climate change, we would carry out large-scale carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) ( Smit et al., 2014).
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