Carbon Capture, Use and Sequestration

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCUS) is a tried and tested technology that can capture and sequester Carbon Dioxide from the flue gas of thermal fossil fuel/biomass burning power stations. Rich countries are the biggest polluters in terms of GHG emissions. As per the principle of Polluter Pays, rich countries must start immediately to retrofit CCUS technology to their fossil fuel power stations. It costs millions in CAPEX and many more millions in OPEX but this is the ONLY way forward until the switch to Nuclear and Renewables is complete.

The way it works is the flue gas is first cooled, then treated with an amine based solution which absorbs the CO2 then the CO2 rich solution is heated and the CO2 is captured. Sometimes water vapor has to be removed because CO2+H2O makes carbonic acid is corrosive to steel.

Ofcourse trees capture CO2 beautifully and transform it into cellulose and lignin i.e wood but the process is slow and it takes trillions of trees to offset our CO2 environmental footprint globally. Ideally we would stop burning C-based fuels all together and switch to renewables and nuclear.

Rami Elias Kremesti M.Sc., CSci, CEnv, CWEM