Carbon Capture and Storage is fast emerging as the go-to mantra for countries hoping to attain carbon neutrality quickly. Germany joined the bandwagon recently after Berlin announced its decision to bring in legal changes to capture carbon at the source point and store it in offshore underground facilities. The move is aimed at achieving its goal of being carbon neutral by the year 2045.
As CO2 levels soar to new heights and their effects on the weather pattern become more visible the world over, the process of carbon capture and storage (CCS) has gained momentum in developed nations, particularly in Europe and the United States. Since 2020, over a hundred projects, related to CCS and CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage), have been initiated.
According to a report published in energyfocus, Energy Industries Council’s online magazine, “the US leads the way in terms of the number of projects, followed by the UK, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands and Indonesia. While some of these projects, particularly in Europe, are linked to the decarbonisation of industry, the EIC is seeing projects announced in the ASEAN region linked to gas field developments with high CO2 content.” Governments are allocating huge budgets for technology development related to CCS and CCUS. The report quotes an estimated investment of around US $48 billion globally.
Germany will change its CO2 storage law to facilitate gas transport and is eyeing carbon capture in industry and the power sector while taking steps to become an emission-negative country past 2050.
As of now, it is illegal to store CO2 indefinitely on German soil or transport it by pipeline, which has prompted Germany to bring in the required change in the law. Robert Habeck, German Vice-Chancelor and green minister of economy, recently gave a statement at a news conference in Berlin saying, “We are taking a pragmatic and responsible decision today: Carbon Capture and Storage and Carbon Capture and Utilisation should be made possible in Germany. The technology is safe.”
What is meant by Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)?
As the term suggests, carbon capture and storage are processes through which carbon is captured at the source and then transported and stored in offshore facilities. The process is costly but less time consuming and highly effective as it prevents the release of excess carbon into the atmosphere, while still continuing the use of fossil fuels.
With rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, there is an urgent need to cool down the Earth’s surface, which would require capturing and storing emissions. The process, though expensive, is a quick-fix way to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.
In its natural state, carbon dioxide forms an important part of Earth’s atmosphere, and is the key element that nourishes the green cover of the planet. Through forests, soil and oceans, it gets naturally removed from the atmosphere. However, it is a time-consuming process. The human carbon footprint has resulted in dangerously high levels of concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, an increase of almost 50% since the Industrial Revolution, which requires an urgent remedial action.
How is it Done?
In the past few years, Europe’s interest in CCS, as a key tool to mitigate climate change, has seen an unprecedented surge. Governments have been funding technology development to capture carbon at source points (heavy industries) before it is emitted into the atmosphere and transport it to offshore undersea facilities for storage, or use it in chemical processes.
The process involves artificially separating carbon dioxide and other gases released by burning fossil fuels, or by steel mills, cement and fertiliser plants and refineries. The captured gas is then compressed and converted into liquid, and transported, through pipelines, to underground storage sites. The storage sites can be underwater, like a seabed; abandoned oil and gas reservoirs or coal mines; or porous rock formations.
The captured carbon can either be permanently deposited in underground geological storages or, alternatively, can be utilised (CCU) as a valuable resource in other industries or as feedstock for new products like synthetic fuels, which are currently based on fossil imports such as oil and gas.
Can there be a negative impact?
The issue, however, is still highly controversial, with environmentalists cautioning against its hazardous implications. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has listed out the risks involved in CCS.
The major concern relates to potential leakage, or seepage, of the captured gases from the storage sites over time due to wear and tear or infrastructure and storage malfunction. In such a scenario, it could spell disaster for both the ecosystem as well as human life. Besides, combining carbon emissions collected from multiple industrial facilities, carrying various types of impurities, could pose technical challenges and risks to the infrastructure as well as the people involved with the process, as it can lead to chemical reactions that are so far unknown.
Whether onshore or offshore, injecting CO2 under the Earth’s surface presents several risks to the environment. It can contaminate groundwater, cause earthquakes, and displace deposits of brine, which can be toxic. Moreover, monitoring underwater storage hubs could be difficult. Another concern is that it will exert undue pressure on our already-stressed oceans.
But the most concerning fact pointed out by CIEL is that the “proposed CO2 storage hubs are concentrated in areas most prone to leaks. The single biggest risk of CO2 leakage comes from the interaction of injected CO2 with legacy oil and gas wells. And yet the sites being heavily targeted for offshore CCS development are zones of long-standing, intensive oil and gas drilling, such as the US Gulf of Mexico and the European North Sea, where old wells abound.” (https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Deep-Trouble-The-Risks-of-Offshore-Carbon-Capture-and-Storage.pdf)
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