Ensuring Containment of Carbon Dioxide: Detailed Investigations of the Structural Integrity of the Captain Sandstone

Limits to Paris compatibility of CO2 capture and utilization

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in the 20th century have led to increasing volumes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere[...]

Will blue hydrogen lock us into fossil fuels forever?

Qatar is the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, LNG, in the world and is a main oil-producing member of The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. A fossil fuel-based industry emerged around the ports of Ras Laffan and Mesaieed, Qatar's industrial cities, perusing industrial diversity and maximising the huge fossil fuel reserves that serve as the primary feedstock for the industrial sector. LNG, crude oil, and petroleum products has given Qatar a per capita GDP that ranks among the highest in the world with the lowest unemployment. This also has given Qatar a per capita CO2 emissions among the highest in the world. A recent report from The World Health Organisation, stated that the capital of Qatar, Doha, is one of the world's most polluted cities and its air ranked the 12th highest average levels of small and fine particles which are particularly dangerous to health [1]. The people and wise leadership of Qatar recognizes the significance of the problem and made environmental develop...

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion is the most significant greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Use of coal alone accounts for 43% of global CO2 emission in 2010. As the most abundant, the most reliable and cheap energy source, coal will continue to play a significant role in the world’s economy and improving people’s standard of living in particular in the developing countries. With the strong demand for coal, there is no doubt that the CO2 emissions will continue to rise. On May 9, 2013, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 ppm for the first time since measurements began in 1958. The rate of increase is ca 2.1 ppm per year during the last 10 years. Without significant reduction of CO2 emissions, it is unlikely to limit the long-term concentration of greenhouse gasses to 450 ppm CO2 by 2050. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a process CO2 is separated from large point sources, including fossil fuel power plants, and transported to a disposal site, normally an underground geological formation, for permanent storage. It is generally agreed that CCS is the only technology available to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions while still using fossil fuels and much of today’s energy infrastructure. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), CCS will account for 19% of total emissions reduction if the global CO2 emissions are halved by 2050. However, looking back, there has been great uncertainty surrounding the commercial implementation of CCS technologies. Despite the fact that all the necessary components of CCS process are commercially available, the question about the large scale CO2 storage remains. The progress towards the commercial deployment of CCS technologies is slow. A number of factors contribute to a slow progress of CCS development. Firstly, the CCS projects are very costly. Most studies estimate that CCS will add more than 50% to the cost of electricity from coal. The costs for the first commercial CCS plants will be much higher than the following projects. No one wants to take the risk to be the first one. Secondly, CCS depends on the political polices to drive it. There is no a legally binding agreement on the emissions reduction applied to all countries and there is no market for CCS. Last but not the least, CCS depends on the government support. In an unfavourably financial environment, the R & D spending is expected to decline. Recently Australian government has announced a budget cut of $500 million over three years to its national CCS flagship program, almost one third of the total funding from the federal government. The Australia’s opposition party has even pledged to abolish the carbon tax if elected in September 2013. So, what is the future for CCS? It is a difficult question to answer. A critical issue is who is going to pay for the development of CCS. It should be pointed out that the majority of the upcoming projects use captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. The reason for that is EOR can facilitate the development of CCS by improving the financial viability of the CCS, building the infrastructure required for CCS, and developing capability along the supply chain. An increase in EOR projects reflexes the importance of CO2 utilisation. Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is gaining increased attention in particular in USA and China. It is unlikely for the developing counties to deploy the CCS technologies with financial support from the government alone. In these countries the priorities are to sustain the economic growth and improve people’s living standard. To move CCS forward, it is important to realise the challenges facing the CCS development and make appropriate adjustment based on the political and economic realities. Considering that the funding on the development of CCS is limited, the international R & D program needs to be well coordinated and have the right focus and the right scale to avoid unproductive overlap between demonstration projects and ensure that limited resources are spent wisely to achieve the highest benefits. As a researcher working on CO2 capture, I am glad to

Carbon capture and storage, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, and the escape from the fossil-fuel lock-in

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a new technology considered to have the potential to decarbonise economies. However, nationally and internationally the use of CCS has also been raising concerns about its potential global risks and adverse impacts on the environment. CCS was part of the discussions at the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in March 2019 and in side-events in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference that took place in Glasgow in November 2021. The UK Government aims to deploy CCS at scale during the 2030s, subject to cost reduction. At the same time, the UK Government has recently enacted the Environment Act 2021, which provides a set of five environmental principles: the integration principle, the principle of preventative action, the precautionary principle, the rectification at source principle and the polluter pays principle. This work seeks to analyse the application of the UK environmental law principles to carbon capture and storage policies in the United Kingdom and its balance with other considerations. Given the concerns surrounding the use of CCS, the debate about its legality may arise in the United Kingdom and in other countries. To this end, this paper initially carries out a systematic review of CCS policy documents to discover the policy considerations that support the development of CCS. It then examines the application of the UK environmental law principles to CCS initiatives and its balance with other considerations, such as reduction of carbon emissions, security of energy supply, economic growth and technological leadership. In doing so, this paper aims at contributing to the debate surrounding recent technological developments that have been utilised to help address climate change and some of the legal challenges emerging through the use of CCS under UK environmental law.

In today’s world, owing to industrial expansion, urbanization, the rapid growth of the human population, and the high standard of living, the utilization of the most advanced technologies is unavoidable. The enhanced anthropogenic activities worldwide result in a continuous increase in global warming potential, thereby raising a global concern. The constant rise in global warming potential forces the world to mitigate greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is considered as the primary contributor responsible for global warming and climatic changes. The global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere can eventually deteriorate the environment and endanger the ecosystem. Combating global warming is one of the main challenges in achieving sustainable development. Carbon capture and storage is a potential solution to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. There are three main methods for carbon capture and storage: post-combustion, pre-combustion, and oxy-fuel combustion. Among them, post-combustion is used in thermal power plants and industrial sectors, all of which contribute a significant amount of carbon dioxide. Different techniques such as physical and chemical absorption, physical and chemical adsorption, membrane separation, and cryogenic distillation used for carbon capture are thoroughly discussed and presented. Currently, there are various materials including absorbents, adsorbents, and membranes used in carbon dioxide capture. Still, there is a search for new and novel materials and processes for separating and capturing carbon dioxide. This review article provides a comprehensive review of different methods, techniques, materials, and processes used for separating and capturing carbon dioxide from significant stationary point sources.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important material in many industries but is also representing more than 80% of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Anthropogenic carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) in power plants and energy production facilities, and solid waste, trees, and other biological materials. It is also the result of certain chemical reactions in different industry (e.g., cement and steel industries). Carbon capture and storage (CCS), among other options, is an essential technology for the cost-effective mitigation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and could contribute approximately 20% to CO2 emission reductions by 2050, as recommended by International Energy Agency (IEA). Although CCS has enormous potential in numerous industries and petroleum refineries due their large CO2 emissions, a significant impediment to its utilization on a large scale remains both operating and capital costs. It is possible to reduce the costs of CCS for the cases where industrial processes generate pure or rich CO2 gas streams, but they are still an obstacle to its implementation. Therefore, significant interest was dedicated to the development of improved sorbents with increased CO2 capacity and/or reduced heat of regeneration. However, recent results show that phase equilibria, transport properties (e.g., viscosity, diffusion coefficients, etc.) and other thermophysical properties (e.g., heat capacity, density, etc.) could have a significant effect on the price of the carbon. In this context, we focused our research on the phase behavior of physical solvents for carbon dioxide capture. We studied the phase behavior of carbon dioxide and different classes of organic substances, to illustrate the functional group effect on the solvent ability to dissolve CO2. In this chapter, we explain the role of phase equilibria in carbon capture and storage. We describe an experimental setup to measure phase equilibria at high-pressures and working procedures for both phase equilibria and critical points. As experiments are usually expensive and very time consuming, we present briefly basic modeling of phase behavior using cubic equations of state. Phase diagrams for binary systems at high-pressures and their construction are explained. Several examples of phase behavior of carbon dioxide + different classes of organic substances binary systems at high-pressures with potential role in CCS are shown. Predictions of the global phase diagrams with different models are compared with experimental literature data.

Integrated assessment model simulations are often cited when recommending  carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an important component of decarbonization for the power industry. Here, we use a simplified setting to analyze the economic sensitivity of post-combustion fossil-fuel CCS to a set of parameters including fuel costs, electricity prices, and subsidies. We formulate the model to represent coal and natural gas power plants fitted with CCS. We then ask what level of subsidies are necessary to make CCS profitable for the operator. Our results indicate that: (1) With current US subsidies and under most market conditions, CCS is much more profitable when injected carbon dioxide is used for enhanced oil recovery than for geologic storage. For this reason, CCS is likely to continue to be used for enhanced oil recovery and so will increase system-wide emissions because the combustion of the oil produced emits more carbon dioxide than is injected to produce the oil. (2) CCS subsidies can drop the marginal cost of electricity generation to near zero, making CCS fossil fuel electricity competitive with renewables in the power market, even as these power plants continue to emit a portion of their carbon dioxide. (3) With CCS subsidies, coal-fired power production can become more profitable than natural gas power because coal produces more carbon dioxide and hence harvests more subsidies. To be profitable, natural gas power plants require higher tax subsidies than coal, and their cash flow is more sensitive to changes in the price of power, which disadvantages natural gas plants when coupled to CCS. (4) In the US, subsidies are provided per ton of carbon dioxide stored rather than per ton of carbon dioxide kept out of the atmosphere. Our calculations demonstrate how the effective subsidy per ton of emissions avoided is more than the subsidy paid per ton of carbon dioxide captured unless the grid is completely decarbonized, because of the energy penalty of CCS. (5) The value of natural gas CCS for reducing emissions diminishes as the carbon intensity of the local power grid increases. We recommend that these insights be used in integrated assessment models such that these models more accurately represent the influence of market dynamics and provide better insights for reducing emissions. 

The highly urbanized area around Los Angeles is dotted with oil fields and refineries. Oil wells perch in yards, parking lots, even schools. The Wilmington oil field, which stretches beneath much of the land between Los Angeles and its port, as well as for miles off the coast, supplies numerous local refineries that in recent years have shut down repeatedly during power outages. Restarting the facilities often causes clouds of odorous and potentially hazardous gas to be released. After a 3 October 2007 shutdown, for example, a ConocoPhillips refinery released a cloud of “yellow, metallic dust” containing what company representatives called “a mixture of iron, copper, nickel, aluminum, carbon, and other elements,” according to the local DailyBreeze.com news service.

Spatial clustering and carbon capture and storage deployment

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the provisional technologies to mitigate the rise of greenhouse gases emission which comes from carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. The growth and development of CCS technology leads to existence of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies due to immature technologies of CO2 storage. Criticality of carbon reduction attracts researchers to study the efficiency of implementing CCS and CCUS latest technologies with economic and environmental goals. This paper discusses the overview of the technologies and the work done by researchers on strategies of implementation of CCS and CCUS. This paper also focuses on the optimal planning of CCS and CCUS technologies. A new framework for carbon reduction, capture, utilization and storage (CARSUS) is introduced for future development. CARCUS is expected to present the best route for carbon dioxide avoidance.

Global warming and climatic changes due to pollution have triggered the global efforts to reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide capture and storage method is considered as a strategy or plan of action for meeting carbon dioxide emission reduction targets. This paper aims at providing an intensive review of various carbon capture and storage techniques, transportation of carbon dioxide & the utilization of this captured carbon dioxide in the construction industry. It also provides a huge perception of the manufacturing process of various construction materials using carbon dioxide. This review may present a clear understanding of the carbon upcycling technologies & everything we do is geared towards a goal of creating a circular economy & awaken new ideas to promote its practical application in construction materials.
 Keywords-Carbon abatement technology, Carbon capture, Carbon storage, Carbon transportation, Safety and tracking.

The global impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on climate change is undeniable, with carbon dioxide (CO2) identified as the primary contributor to global warming. Urgent action is required to mitigate global warming by reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions to achieve net-zero levels. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) stands as a proven technology to curtail CO2 emissions from various sources by capturing and sequestering CO2 in geological formations. To address the challenge of deploying CCS on a global scale, it is crucial to accurately quantify the captured, transported, and stored CO2 since quantification underpins regulations and commercial contracts. However, the lack of standardization in CCS projects and measurement methodologies poses a significant challenge, necessitating a common measurement framework to ensure the transparency and reliability of these efforts. This article provides a comprehensive review, with 211 references, of the latest results and operating conditions for current measurement technologies covering the entire measuring system and not just a single instrument. As such, it is a first-of-its-kind effort at establishing a comprehensive framework for CCS measurement. This article serves as a source of references and as a step toward developing an international documentary standard for the transferred CO2 measurement. By addressing measurement challenges and providing comprehensive recommendations for future research, it contributes to the ongoing efforts to mitigate global warming through the widespread deployment of CCS technology.