Its concisely titled report Carbon Capture and Storage for Coal Fired Plants – Opportunity Assessment and Key Country Analysis to 2025 explains CCS techniques such as enhanced oil recovery have been used in other sectors for decades.
As the report points out, the concept of long-term carbon storage has only recently been viewed as a viable means of reducing the amount of carbon released from power plants.
Correspondingly, a modest 238 megawatts of CCS capacity was installed globally at the end of 2011.
According to government plans and other initiatives, a more substantial 10 gigawatts is expected to come online by the end of the decade.
CCS is the technology of capturing carbon dioxide before or after the combustion of fossil fuels, transporting it and pumping it into underground geological formations.
The process prevents large quantities of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere by storing it between impermeable rock or similar material.
China, the US, Australia, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK all have invested heavily in CCS research and development and are global leaders in the industry.
Despite this, there are no large-scale CCS demonstration projects active for coal-fired plants.
According to GlobalData, governments are showing a lack of commitment in significantly reducing fossil fuel consumption so CCS could offer the most realistic answer to a major predicament.
However, the technology has to be employed much more widely in order for CCS to make the level of impact its potential suggests.
