GHG Monitor
5/2/2014
The journal Nature examined the viability carbon capture and storage technology in an article and accompanying editorial in its May 1 edition, concluding that numerous questions remain about CCS and its ability to be widely deployed. While the editorial—headlined “No Magic Fix for Carbon—expressed skepticism about the ability of CCS to fulfill its potential at a global scale, it highlighted the Boundary Dam and Kemper CCS projects as potentially providing answers to settle the questions. “Many questions remain about the long-term viability of a serious and sustained CCS contribution to the global effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, not least how to guarantee that stored carbon stays stored,” the editorial states. “But by this time next year, the coal plants in Saskatchewan and Mississippi could give politicians around the world sufficient proof that the concept can be deployed — not as a fairy godmother to spirit away their problems, but as part of a broader suite of technologies. Then they just have to decide what to wish for.”
The editorial also noted that, “The commercial market for CO2 is small and unlikely to expand any time soon. Schemes to make companies pay for their emissions were intended to penalize polluters and level the playing field for clean but pricey alternatives, but they are struggling. However cheap CCS technology might get, a coal or gas plant that scrubs its exhaust gases to capture the carbon will always be more expensive to run than one that does not — making it the first to be turned off when demand for electricity falls outside peak times.”
