CCS Can’t Solve the Climate Crisis

A report by the Tyndall centre says that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology cannot meet the urgent need to reduce climate emissions - it is not a viable option for the rapid emissions cuts required in energy over the crucial years to 2030. It notes that there are no operational CCS plants in the UK today and significant deployment is not expected until at least the next decade. The report, commissioned by Friends of the Earth Scotland and Global Witness, notes that globally, there are just 26 CCS plants in operation, with 81% of carbon captured globally to date being used to extract more oil via the process of Enhanced Oil Recovery(EOR).  So that is adding to emissions.

Overall it says the technology has in any case consistently failed to deliver on projections, with several schemes initiated and ultimately abandoned: the two £1bn CCS competitions run by successive UK Governments over a period of 8 years failed to produce a demonstration scheme.  In the UK Governments’ recent 10-point climate plan, Boris Johnson pledged a further £200 m investment into CCS initiatives. In December’s update to its Climate Change Plan, the Scottish Government announced £80 million of funding to support the development of Carbon Capture and Storage and other 'Negative Emission Technologies' in Scotland.

However, campaigners are instead calling for a re-direction of investments to back a range of readily deployable renewables and energy efficiency for homes which would create more jobs, more quickly, cut climate emissions and improve people’s quality of life. Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Climate Campaigner Jess Cowell said: ‘The world needs urgent cuts to climate emissions every year of this decade but CCS can’t deliver anything meaningful until the 2030s, if at all. Politicians and CCS’ backers in the fossil fuel industry want us to trust them with a technology with a long history of over-promising and under-delivering. The shocking revelations that the small number of existing Carbon Capture plants in existence are almost all being used to increase fossil fuel extraction must give pause to anyone who is pushing this as a realistic solution to the climate crisis. The Scottish Government plan of relying on CCS to do the heavy lifting of emissions cuts by 2030 isn't remotely credible when there isn't a single working CCS plant anywhere in the UK.  Public money would deliver more jobs, faster emissions cuts and bigger boosts to wellbeing if it was invested in a range of renewables and energy efficiency measures instead of being wasted on more illusory Carbon Capture projects’.  

Dead end? 

At one time, CCS was seen by some as a key way ahead for reducing emissions from fossil fuel burning in power stations. However, things did not go well with CCS energy projects around the world.  In addition to the failure of the UK programme, Norway, once a CCS/EOR pioneer, cut its CCS funding, and then work on the flagship US Kemper coal CCS project was halted, after massive cost over-runs (to $7.5 billion); it has been converted to a gas plant. More recently, the much touted Petra Nova scheme in Texas has been abandoned. 

So progress on CCS for energy projects has been very slow, with the Tyndall centre saying ‘CCS deployment in the energy system for power, heat and transport decarbonisation has to-date been largely non-existent, with significant deployment now not expected 26 until 2030. As such the role of natural gas- and coal-based CCS for power generation has been downgraded in future energy pathway scenarios’. However, instead, there has been more of a policy emphasis on carbon removal by direct air capture and also carbon capture for industrial process applications- sometime labelled carbon capture and utilization (CCU). For example, some of the focus has shifted to the role of CCS used to carbonise fossil fuel-derived hydrogen production as a new ‘low carbon’ fuel vector. However, the Tyndall report says ‘there are at present disparities in the extent to which CCS is featured in future hydrogen pathways, relative to electrolysis based hydrogen and electricification alternatives. The European Commission assume limited if any role for CCS in hydrogen provision, while in the UK its application varies across scenarios considerably. This reflects concern about residual emissions from capture and fuel supply stages of the CCS hydrogen life cycle in the context of constrained carbon budgets, and that commercial applications of this technology are still forthcoming’. 

Basically, CCS seems to have issues, including residual carbon emissions- it can’t capture it all. However, going against the view sometimes heard, the review claims that sufficient space should in theory be available around the world to safely store large volumes of CO2 indefinitely. Nevertheless it has technical and economic reservations in relation to full scale CCS, based on the limited practical progress so far. So at present it says energy supply based systems do not look like a very viable way forward in many contexts, although CCU may perhaps prove to be in some niche industrial clean up/chemical processing markets, and some also look to CCS playing a key role in DAC-  carbon removal via direct air capture.  

However, in terms of energy plant CCS, as FoE Scotland conclude: ‘This report makes it clear that Carbon Capture and Storage is a dangerous distraction from the necessary action to cut climate emissions from our energy sector in this crucial decade. Instead we need a bold plan setting out steps to phase out fossil fuel extraction and use, while ensuring a just transition for workers and communities dependent on the industry. Carbon is already captured and stored underground in fossil fuels. We should be leaving it there instead of spending billions trying to invent technology to solve this problem of our own creation.’ 

The report does note that, nevertheless, some new EOR energy projects are still planned around the world, and that, within the UK, there are five proposed CCUS ‘cluster’ projects, including some involving hydrogen production, which have received funding to develop plans under the first stage of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Fund. It will be interesting to see how they fare. CCS does still have some strong backing from those who see it as a viable way to clean up emissions. The debate goes on!