The Future of Carbon Sequestration: Key Drivers and Resistors, Costs and Technologies

Additional Information

• Enhanced oil recovery. Today, carbon dioxide (CO2) is being pumped into oil fields in order to try and release more oil from older fields and this can provide a way of storing quite significant quantities of CO2 since the gas should remain underground once pumped there. But potential capacity within oil fields is limited, and other ways of storing CO2 will have to be found.
• Prevailing societal preferences. Despite nuclear power emerging as the most economically competitive technology, it remains controversial in may countries. There are however, signs of change, with environmentalists beginning to change their position and executives rating nuclear power as increasingly competitive.
• Cost of carbon transportation. Currently, working models of carbon transportation are quite limited - in order for carbon sequestration to become a functional part of the power generation mix, more work needs to be done to establish the true cost of the sequestration.
• Fossil fuels vs. renewables. In many cases, fossil fuels remain more economical than renewable alternatives in a primary analysis of the cost of power generation with carbon capture. However, when all factors are considered, there is little to choose between them.

• Assess how macro-environmental factors affect demand for carbon sequestration using the key political and legislative issues highlighted in this report.
• Identify the key steps of carbon sequestration and the costs associated with each based on this report’s chapter-by-chapter analysis of the ways in which CO2 can be captured, transported and stored.
• Analyze the impact of carbon capture on the cost of electricity building upon a comprehensive analysis of the capture technologies in practice and different costing models.
• Evaluate the pros and cons of using alternative technologies for carbon sequestration using the analysis of key environmental and cost considerations of eight renewable energy technologies.
• Identify the most cost-effective power generation technologies, based on an independent, expert analysis of diverse studies and research data that directly compares how carbon sequestration affects the cost of power.