There has been much criticism of the government’s recent decision to pull the funding on the Longannet carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Scotland, but according to a new study from the European Environment Agency (EEA), the technology behind such schemes could actually cause the emissions of some pollutants to increase.
The new report from the European Union’s environmental agency suggests that carbon capture and storage would overall have a positive environmental effect and could prove a useful method to cut emissions from power stations and other industrial sources until we can shift to a low carbon economy.
Because CCS technologies require approximately 15 – 25 per cent more energy than plants operating without the carbon storage function; plants with CCS need more fuel than conventional plants. This in turn can lead to increased ‘direct emissions’ occurring from facilities where CCS is installed, and increased ‘indirect emissions’ caused by the extraction and transport of the additional fuel.
According to the new study, CCS would result in a reduction of carbon dioxide by as 60 per cent as well as reduce sulphur dioxide (SO) emissions. However the increase in fuel use would increase particulate emissions and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. Even worse, ammonia levels would increase significantly, possibly by as much as a factor of three. This would be caused to the degradation of the amine-based solvents used to capture the CO2, however, the Agency is quick to point out that in absolute terms the increase is small compared to existing ammonia emissions in Europe. Currently, 94 per cent of which comes from agriculture.
It is hoped that carbon capture and storage technology could play a central role helping Europe achieve its long-term greenhouse gas emission reduction objectives in a cost-effective way, reducing domestic GHG emissions by 80-95 per cent by 2050. But the Agency warn that implementing CCS should be considered as a bridging technology, and should not introduce barriers or delays to the EU’s objectives of moving toward a lower-energy and more resource-efficient economy.
In the EU, there are plans to build several demonstration plants for CO2 capture and storage in order to commercialise the technology from 2020. Currently, there are around 80 large scale CCS projects at various stages of development around the world but only a few are operational.
There are as yet no large-scale CCS plants in operation which cover all three elements of the CCS chain – the capture, transport and storage of CO2.
