Carbon Capture and Storage - CCS

The recent talks at Bali on Global Warming, where everyone talks about CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) Emission and ways to reduce Carbon Emission, has once again reminded nations of dangers emanating from Carbon Emission. As per the Kyoto Protocol all the developed Nations which are emitting Carbon more than specified volumes need to buy credits from other nations which are selling such credits. The motive behind this is to support or fund all projects that help reducing carbon emission or its effects in those nations. Lets me elucidate this with an example: US emits carbon at a rate which is higher than the permissible rate for US, but it cannot put in efforts to work on projects which help in carbon control. So US buys Carbon Credits from countries like Ireland that will use the funds in building ways to curb carbon emission.

There have been a number of ways of curbing carbon emission and of reducing the effects of carbon being emitted in the atmosphere. One of the methods is called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The main idea as the name suggests is capture CO2 being emitted and then stored, preventing its release to the atmosphere. The industry will opt for this approach will need to invest into carbon storage in terms of storage space and also machinery and/or energy used by the project. Once CO2 is collected it needs to be transported to a place where it can be stored without any leakage to the atmosphere.

The various forms in which carbon can be stored are:

1. Under water in oceans. CO2 collected will be disposed off in the ocean bed where there is no chance for carbon to escape to the atmosphere. The disadvantage of this approach is carbonic acid that will be generated out of the carbon present will increase the acid levels of water and may harm flora and fauna flourishing at sea bed.

2. Geological storage which is also called geo-sequestration, which involves injecting CO2 directly into underground geological formations. This will help in enhancing sites which are acting as current Oil resources. But because such places are not much in number and also at far away place huge cost will be involved in moving CO2 from factories to these sites.

3. Last one is reacting metals like Magnesium and Calcium with CO2 to form carbon compounds of these metals which are not harmful.

As of now all the above methods are under review and nothing has been planned as of now. But as the awareness on Global Warming gains momentum, global economies will be pushed to go for some or the other method of lowering CO2 emission to atmosphere.