Carbon Capture and Storage

The main object of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies is the reduction of CO2 emissions produced in the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, or natural gas. CCS involves first the capture of the emitted CO2, mainly from power and industrial plants, its transportation and, finally, its injection in underground reservoirs for storage. In this chapter, we describe the four main technologies for CO2 capture: post-combustion capture, pre-combustion capture, oxy-fuelling and chemical looping. Evidently, any of these capture techniques result in a significant energy penalty to the base plant. However, it is expected that in the future CCS will contribute to reduce global CO2 emissions. After the CO2 is captured, it should be compressed for transportation through high-pressure pipelines or ships, and finally stored into geological formations such as depleted gas reservoirs, saline formations and deep unmineable coal seams. Depending on the capture technology, the additional costs for generating electricity from a coal plant with CCS have been evaluated. © Springer-Verlag London 2013.