Abstract
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities coupled to coal-fired power plants provide a climate change mitigation strategy that potentially permits the continued use of fossil fuels whilst reducing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Potential design routes for the capture, transport and storage of CO2 from United Kingdom (UK) power plants are examined. Energy and carbon analyses were performed on coal-fired power stations with and without CCS. Both currently available and novel CCS technologies are evaluated. Due to lower operating efficiencies, the CCS plants showed a longer energy payback period and a lower energy gain ratio than conventional plant. Cost estimates are reported in the context of recent UK industry-led attempts to determine opportunities for cost reductions across the whole CCS chain, alongside international endeavours to devise common CCS cost estimation methods. These cost figures should be viewed as ‘indicative’ or suggestive. They are nevertheless helpful to various CCS stakeholder groups [such as those in industry, policy makers (civil servants and the staff of various government agencies), and civil society and environmental ‘non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs)] in order to enable them to assess the role of this technology in national energy strategies and its impact on local communities.
Highlights
In March 2010 the United Kingdom (UK) Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced that funding would be awarded to E.On and a consortium led by ScottishPower to develop two end-toend carbon capture and storage (CCS) power plants at Kingsnorth in Kent and at Longannet near Kincardine, Fife (Scotland) respectively
It can be seen that these figures are well below the 735–850 gCO2/kWh emitted by modern Pulverised Coal (PC) coal-fired power stations without CCS
The UK Government in their 2007 Energy White Paper (EWP [48]) accepted that Britain should put itself on a path to achieve a goal by adopting various low-carbon options, principally energy efficiency measures, renewable energy sources, and generation nuclear power plants
Summary
Energy systems pervade industrial societies and weave a complex web of interactions that affect the daily lives of their citizens. Human development is heated and powered by energy sources of various kinds, but these put at risk the quality and longer-term viability of the biosphere as a result of unwanted, ‘second order’ effects [1] Many of such adverse consequences of energy production and consumption give rise to resource uncertainties and potential environmental hazards on a local, regional and global scale. One of the world’s most abundant fossil fuel sources, currently meets about 23% of the total world primary energy demand, some 38% of global electricity generation [4] It is an important input, for example, in steel production via the basic oxygen furnace process that produces approximately 70% of world steel output [5,6]. Transport of the CO2 can be by ship or by pipeline [4,8]
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