Prospects of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in China’s power sector – An integrated assessment

Abstract

Objective The aim of the present article is to conduct an integrated assessment in order to explore whether CCS could be a viable technological option for significantly reducing future CO 2 emissions in China.Methods In this paper, an integrated approach covering five assessment dimensions is chosen.Each dimension is investigated using specific methods (graphical abstract). ResultsThe most crucial precondition that must be met is a reliable storage capacity assessment based on site-specific geological data. Our projection of different trends of coal-based power plant capacities up to 2050 ranges between 34 and 221 Gt of CO 2 that may be captured from coal-fired power plants to be built by 2050. If very optimistic assumptions about the country's CO 2 storage potential are applied, 192 Gt of CO 2 could theoretically be stored as a result of matching these sources with suitable sinks. If a cautious approach is taken, this figure falls to 29 Gt of CO 2 . In practice, this potential will decrease further with the impact of technical, legal, economic and social acceptance factors. Further constraints may be the delayed commercial availability of CCS in China; a significant barrier to achieving the economic viability of CCS due to a currently non-existing nation-wide CO 2 pricing scheme that generates a sufficiently strong price signal; an expected life-cycle reduction rate of the power plant's greenhouse gas emissions of 59 to 60%; and an increase in most other negative environmental and social impacts. Conclusion and practice implicationsMost experts expect a striking dominance of coal-fired power generation in the country's electricity sector, even if the recent trend towards a flattened deployment of coal capacity and reduced annual growth rates of coal-fired generation proves to be true in the future. In order to reduce fossil fuel-related CO 2 emissions to a level that would be consistent with the long-term climate protection target of the international community to

Integrated Assessment of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in South Africa’s Power Sector

“…In order to be able to compare the results of this article with former analyses for India and China, the same methods and general assumptions are used as described in [1,2], but applied to the individual situation in South Africa.…”

“…Internationally, experts expect a later large-scale availability than previously assumed due to the low carbon pricing level, delayed demonstration projects, a lack of commercial cases, uncertainties in climate change policy and a lack of public acceptance in potential storage regions [1,2,9,[21][22][23][24]. Although the South African government recognizes the potential of CCS to become an important CO 2 mitigation technology and activities for promoting CCS have been initiated, the country has competing policy targets, such as electrification, an affordable electricity supply and resilience to the impacts of climate change [12,25].…”

“…The European Commission recently analyzed the barriers that are preventing CCS from developing successfully in the European Union (EU) [9]; however, no such analysis has been conducted for South Africa. The intention of this article is, therefore, to close this gap by exploring whether CCS could be a viable low-carbon option for South Africa in the power sector-as previously analyzed for India and China [1,2]. This implies identifying potential barriers and presenting ways of overcoming these barriers at both national and the global level.…”

“…For the time being, however, unabated use of coal is on the rise [5]. This development is mainly driven by coal-consuming emerging economies, which are experiencing a rapidly growing demand for energy [1,2]. Key countries in this respect are China, India and South Africa.…”

“…Carbon capture and storage (CCS) for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants and industrial sources is the subject of intensive global debate [1,2]. CCS is considered one technology option that could contribute significantly to achieving the objective of decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by between 50% and 85% by 2050 [3].…”