It’s been hailed as a game-changer, a get-out-of-jail-free card that would allow us to burn fossil fuels without precipitating dangerous climate change. But the potential for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to clean up coal – the cheapest and dirtiest fossil fuel – is now in doubt.
In recent weeks, it has become clear that a world-leading CCS project in Saskatchewan, Canada is struggling.
The country’s largest coal-fired power plant, Boundary Dam, was retrofitted in 2014 with state-of-the-art technology in a bid to capture 90 per cent of its CO2 emissions and then pump them deep underground into a nearby oilfield. If successful, the scheme would prevent almost 1 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere each year, equivalent to taking around 250,000 cars off the road.
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But three years on, Boundary Dam’s performance is under-par and doubts about the expansion of CCS are rising. Since start-up, the facility has captured on average just 46 per cent of its CO2. Overall, it has stored or re-used 1.75 million tonnes of CO2, far less than the 3 million tonne target.
Hopeful future
What happens next matters a lot. Coal-fired electricity generation is still popular. Some . If they are all built, this would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 per cent.
If adoption of CCS slows, that would be a blow to hopes that it can help put us on track to avoid the most damaging levels of climate change. Carbon capture is a key part of three-quarters of the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that chart a path to a more hopeful future.
One interpretation of the Boundary Dam quandary is that CCS can’t slash emissions from coal plants on the scale needed. But there is another, more charitable, reading – that nascent technologies need time, and government support, to come to fruition. After all, it’s been a long and bumpy road to developing renewable energy options that are cost-effective and trouble-free.
Despite Boundary Dam’s poor figures over the past three years, yet. Partly due to upgrades installed over the summer, 85 per cent of its CO2 emissions were captured.
Unfortunately, SaskPower – the company that owns Boundary Dam – now has to make a call as to whether to expand use of CCS technology, or to change tack. The reality is that electricity generated from coal with CCS costs twice that from burning natural gas.
Face the mood music
Its choice will be noted by energy investors worldwide. The mood music really matters. Yet arguably, there’s too little evidence to make an informed decision. Boundary Dam is one of just two industrial power plants fitted with a CCS system. The other, Petra Nova in Texas, kicked off in January and has already .
We need to do much more – and quickly – if we are to understand the potential of this approach. There are many avenues to explore, from developing more efficient capture methods to considering an entirely new style of fuel combustion.
The shame is that CCS is developing at a glacial pace while the atmosphere warms at unprecedented speed. There’s little commercial incentive for companies to invest in the technology, and to spend the time and money ironing out its inconsistencies. But governments must make it happen, by subsidising energy from CCS during its infancy, or by putting a price on carbon-emitting fuels, including coal’s main rival natural gas, that reflects their true cost to society.
Voters won’t welcome these costs, but neither will they welcome a climate-altered Earth. Unless we make these investments now, we are asking future generations to pay a much higher price.
Read more: Instant Expert: Carbon capture and storage
