User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox

Today, and independent of whatever carbon constraints may be chosen, the priority objective with respect to coal should be the successful large-scale demonstration of the technical, economic, and environmental performance of the technologies that make up all of the major components of a large-scale integrated CCS system — capture, transportation and storage. Such demonstrations are a prerequisite for broad deployment at gigatonne scale in response to the adoption of a future carbon mitigation policy, as well as for easing the trade-off between restraining emissions from fossil resource use and meeting the world’s future energy needs

What is needed is to demonstrate an integrated system of capture, transportation, and storage of CO2, at scale. Th is is a practical goal but requires concerted action to carry out. Th e integrated demonstration must include a properly instrumented storage site that operates under a regulatory framework which includes site selection, injection and surveillance, and conditions for eventual transfer of liability to the government aft er a period of good practice is demonstrated. An explicit and rigorous regulatory process that has public and political support is prerequisite for implementation of carbon sequestration on a large scale. Th is regulatory process must resolve issues associated with the definition of property rights, liability, site licensing and monitoring, ownership, compensation arrangements and other institutional and legal considerations. Regulatory protocols need to be defined for sequestration projects including site selection, injection operation, and eventual transfer of custody to public authorities after a period of successful operation. Th ese issues should be addressed with far more urgency than is evidenced today.

CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) is the critical enabling technology that would reduce CO2 emissions significantly while also allowing coal to meet the world’s pressing energy need.

Th e scale of CCS required to make a major diff erence in global greenhouse gas concentrations is massive. For example, sequestering one gigatonne of carbon per year (nearly four gigatonnes of carbon dioxide) requires injection of about fi ft y million barrels per day of supercritical CO2 from about 600 1000MWe of coal plants.

Amine absorption and regeneration. Cool, dry and compress CO2 to 150 atmosphers (15 MPa). Compression to super critical fluid. Reduces plant thermal efficiency by 5% (amine) plus 4% (compression). Thus from 34% down to 25%.

CCS = Carbon Capture and Sequestration.