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WORLD ENERGY [R]EVOLUTION
A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY OUTLOOK
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energy technologies | FOSSIL FUEL TECHNOLOGIES
Deploying the technology on coal power plants is likely to double
construction costs, increase fuel consumption by 10-40%, consume
more water, generate more pollutants and ultimately require the
public sector to ensure that the CO2 stays where it has been buried.
In a similar way to the disposal of nuclear waste, CCS envisages
creating a scheme whereby future generations monitor in perpetuity
the climate pollution produced by their predecessors.
carbon dioxide storage In order to benefit the climate, captured
CO2 has to be stored somewhere permanently. Current thinking is
that it can be pumped under the earth’s surface at a depth of over
3,000 feet into geological formations, such as saline aquifers.
However, the volume of CO2 that would need to be captured and
stored is enormous - a single coal-fired power plant can produce 7
million tonnes of CO2 annually.
It is estimated that a single ‘stabilisation wedge’ of CCS (enough to
reduce carbon emissions by 1 billion metric tonnes per year by
2050) would require a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to the
current flow out of the ground - and in addition to the associated
infrastructure to compress, transport and pump it underground. It
is still not clear that it will be technically feasible to capture and
bury this much carbon, both in terms of the number of storage sites
and whether they will be located close enough to power plants.
Even if it is feasible to bury hundreds of thousands of megatons of
CO2 there is no way to guarantee that storage locations will be
appropriately designed and managed over the timescales required.
The world has limited experience of storing CO2 underground; the
longest running storage project at Sleipner in the Norweigian North
Sea began operation only in 1996. This is particularly concerning
because as long as CO2 is present in geological sites, there is a risk
of leakage. Although leakages are unlikely to occur in wellcharacterised,
managed and monitored sites, permanent storage
stability cannot be guaranteed since tectonic activity and natural
leakage over long timeframes are impossible to predict.
Sudden leakage of CO2 can be fatal. Carbon dioxide is not itself
poisonous, and is contained (approx. 0.04%) in the air we breathe.
But as concentrations increase it displaces the vital oxygen in the
air. Air with concentrations of 7 to 8% CO2 by volume causes death
by suffocation after 30 to 60 minutes.
There are also health hazards when large amounts of CO2 are
explosively released. Although the gas normally disperses quickly
after leaking, it can accumulate in depressions in the landscape or
closed buildings, since carbon dioxide is heavier than air. It is
equally dangerous when it escapes more slowly and without being
noticed in residential areas, for example in cellars below houses.
carbon storage and climate change targets Can carbon storage
contribute to climate change reduction targets? In order to avoid
dangerous climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions need to
peak by between 2015 and 2020 and fall dramatically thereafter.
Power plants capable of capturing and storing CO2 are still being
developed, however, and won’t become a reality for at least another
decade, if ever. This means that even if CCS works, the technology
would not make any substantial contribution towards protecting the
climate before 2020.
Power plant CO2 storage will also not be of any great help in
attaining the goal of at least an 80% greenhouse gas reduction by
2050 in OECD countries. Even if CCS were to be available in 2020,
most of the world’s new power plants will have just finished being
modernised. All that could then be done would be for existing power
plants to be retrofitted and CO2 captured from the waste gas flow.
Retrofitting power plants would be an extremely expensive exercise.
‘Capture ready’ power plants are equally unlikely to increase the
likelihood of retrofitting existing fleets with capture technology.
The conclusion reached in the Energy [R]evolution scenario is that
renewable energy sources are already available, in many cases
cheaper, and lack the negative environmental impacts associated
with fossil fuel exploitation, transport and processing. It is
renewable energy together with energy efficiency and energy
conservation – and not carbon capture and storage – that has to
increase worldwide so that the primary cause of climate change –
the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas – is stopped.
Greenpeace opposes any CCS efforts which lead to:
• Public financial support to CCS, at the expense of funding
renewable energy development and investment in energy efficiency.
• The stagnation of renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy
conservation improvements
• Inclusion of CCS in the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) as it would divert funds away from the stated
intention of the mechanism, and cannot be considered clean
development under any coherent definition of this term.
• The promotion of this possible future technology as the only
major solution to climate change, thereby leading to new fossil
fuel developments – especially lignite and black coal-fired power
plants, and an increase in emissions in the short to medium term.
The dangers from such leaks are known from natural volcanic CO2
degassing. Gas escaping at the Lake Nyos crater lake in Cameroon,
Africa in 1986 killed over 1,700 people. At least ten people have
died in the Lazio region of Italy in the last 20 years as a result of
CO2 being released.
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