Carbon capture and storage

When I first heard about this I thought it daft.  You burn the coal to harvest its energy then you try and capture the exhaust gases to save them somewhere?  Why burn the coal in the first place?  Why not avoid burning coal and use wind and solar instead?  I have seen estimates that carbon capture and storage (CCS) adds 50% to the cost of coal-fired electricity, making it even more uneconomic compared with renewables than it is already.

Actually, though, there are uses for CCS.

The first is to remove the emissions produced by making cement.  Making cement accounts for about 4% of total emissions, and the problem is that emitting CO₂ is intrinsic to the process—limestone is "cooked" to drive off its CO₂.  Even if we use renewable energy sources to "cook" the limestone, we still inevitably produce CO₂ via the process itself.  So we'll need to capture that CO₂ and remove it from the atmosphere.

The second is to remove the CO₂ from the atmosphere which was emitted before we had cheap renewables. 

An active removal of several hundred million tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere annually will be necessary for the EU to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, meaning the bloc has to start developing an adequate policy design, researchers Oliver Geden (SWP) and Felix Schenuit (Universität Hamburg) found in a study for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). Some member states will need to have negative emissions balances by mid-century, as others need more time to reach carbon neutrality, the study found. An interesting political question will be which member states, sectors and companies will be allowed to have net-positive emissions in 2050, Geden, head of the EU research division at SWP, said at the an online presentation of the study. “Who already has to be below zero then? And who will pay?” The study highlights that “unconventional” climate action measures, such as afforestation and direct air capture, make a more flexible climate action policy possible but will exacerbate questions of burden sharing. The researchers stress that avoiding emissions must take precedence over carbon removal, arguing policymakers should subdivide targets into emission reduction and CO₂ removal targets, for example at a 9-to-1 ratio. The EU should put a focus on and increase funding for research and development of carbon removal technologies.

CO₂ removal has so far played a minor role in the European climate policy debate, although it is included in the Commission’s long-term climate strategy, which pursues the goal of becoming the first climate neutral continent by 2050. As some emissions in certain sectors, such as agriculture, aviation and industry, are seen as practically unavoidable, these will have to be tackled by removing carbon from the atmosphere – amounting to several hundred million tons per year, says SWP. In Germany, chancellor Angela Merkel had put the contentious carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology back on the agenda, saying it was crucial for the country to reach climate neutrality by mid-century.

[From Clean Energy Wire]

Currently, 54% of European emissions come from fuel combustion and "fugitive emissions" (=gas leaks).  In other words fuels burnt to produce electricity and to heat buildings, but I don't know whether that includes coal burnt to make steel for example.  Together with fuel burnt for transport, roughly 80% of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels.  It's obvious what needs to be done, and although CCS will be essential, the immediate problem is to stop burning fossil fuels.  As soon as possible.  Also, the costs of CCS will be allocated more efficiently if there is a price on carbon, as any CCS activity will earn credits, while carbon emitters will pay them.