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Sustainable Energy Blog was launched in July 2005, and is Leonardo ENERGY's longest running blog, covering technology, policy, finance, roadmaps, actors, ...

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Energy efficiency is said to be "the cheapest form of energy we can get" and a great opportunity towards sustainability and environmental protection. Efficient and clean technology is many times available and needs to be leveraged.

The objective of this project is to allow easy access to knowledge and to facilitate the development of new initiatives developing, delivering or promoting energy efficient technology.

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Technologies for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

Submitted by Bruno De Wachter on Tue, 2006-10-31 06:30.

A thorough assessment

In August, the German Federal Environment Agency released its report "Assessment of Technologies for CO2 Capture and Storage". The report presents the results of a research project conducted by the Fraunhofer-Institut in Karlsruhe.

Capture, transport, storage

The report compares the three main technologies for capture: pre-combustion capture, post-combustion capture, and oxy-fuel combustion. It also investigates the consequences of CO2 capture on the emissions, efficiency, and operational cost of power stations, and it analyses the impact of CO2 transport to the storage site. Finally, various possibilities for long-term storage were studied. Particular emphasis was placed on storage in gas fields and saline aquifers, since those are the most promising options in Germany.

A bridging technology, but not "sustainable"

The main conclusion of the report is that power plants with CCS technologies are not sustainable energy producers. The main disadvantages of CCS are that it significantly reduces the efficiency of the power plant and that the available storage capacity in Germany would only be sufficient for about 50 to 100 years. However, CCS could conceivably be a bridging technology until renewable energy sources are sufficiently developed to be widely available at reasonable cost.