Carbon Capture and Storage

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Context

• To fight climate change, clean-up of industries like cement and chemicals is necessary.
• However oil companies are failing in capturing carbon.

Other Details

• It is concerning that these company lobby against cut down of fossil fuel production and intend to maximise profits only.
• They are using Carbon capture technology to extract more oil from ground.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS)

• It is a method where the gases, which are making planet warm, could be captured and stored underground.
• In fossil fuel plants and factories, for eg cement and fertiliser, this technique prevents the gas emission itself.
  • Please note Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) works a little different from CCS – CDR reduces carbon dioxide level in atmosphere by sucking CO2 out of it. Hence in this way it contributes in cooling of planet.

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Significance and effectiveness of CCS

• it will help in dealing with global warming and issue of pollution.
• There is also a need to avoid CO2 in the first place, using all green options.
• In few bioethanol plants, in case of pure gas stream, more than 95% of the carbon emissions are captured. Hence it shows a potential.

Challenges/Concerns

• The CCS technique is used by Oil companies to ease the extraction of fossil fuel not as a climate solution which defeats its purpose.
• Industry is lacking commitment in using this technology. For instance –
  • Only 30 working CCS facilities
  • 150 more facilities were planned however 100 out of these are either scrapped or put on hold.
• In case of dirtier gas stream, it seems a little costly and not so effective.
• The technology has not reached its maturity level and hence not fully commercialized at scale
  • Commercial project are broken down or only capture a small part of the total carbon emissions.
• Building infrastructure to capture carbon is an expensive process and companies see a little incentive in doing this.

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Green alternatives as per some environmental groups/Scientists

• Making electricity using wind turbines and solar panels would be economic in long run.
• Making of green steel and hydrogen should be encouraged.

A silver lining in the cloud

• Heidelberg Materials, a German industrial giant, building a capacity in Norway to capture and store carbon from cement.
• It claims that a 100% capture is possible, thus gives a cue for adopting such practices and to develop more efficient technology and infrastructure.
• There seems to be a shift in focus of companies from extracting more oil to storing CO2.

Way ahead

• Adopting best practices and development of economic technologies
• Legal provisions to make it mandatory for companies operating in oil, cement, fertilizers etc. sectors.
• Government to tax carbon.
• Approval of CCS projects should be made easier.
• Incentives and subsidies to be provided for developing the required infrastructure.

Must Read Article:

Carbon capture utilisation technologies

https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/carbon-capture-utilisation-technologies-26

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-climate/can-we-capture-carbon-and-store-it-8821800/