Carbon Capture and Storage – A responsible bridge to a low-carbon future?

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is considered by many research groups working on climate change mitigation as a necessary element of a (more) sustainable energy future. For instance, WBGU in its 2011 “Great Transformation” report concludes, “CCS is a necessary mitigation measure for countries that continue to use fossil energies, if anthropogenic global warming of more than 2°C is to be avoided.” More recently, the “1.5 degrees Special Report” of the IPCC comes to the conclusion that “In the majority of low-stabilization scenarios, the share of low-carbon electricity supply (comprising RE, nuclear and CCS) increases from the current share of approximately 30 % to more than 80 % by 2050, and fossil fuel power generation without CCS is phased out almost entirely by 2100.” In addition, even assumed all power generation could be done with renewable energies, CCS might be a crucial technology to avoid GHG emissions in industrial processes, reaching 7% of all GHG emissions in the case of Germany.

However, in Germany, one of the globally leading energy and engineering R&D hubs, large-scale CCS research was discontinued in 2014, following a complicated legislative process, very much driven by worries about possible dangers related to the technology.

On a panel on 19 June 2019, we discussed the opportunities and risks of CCS as a climate mitigation technology. The focus was on the “ethics of responsibility”. Would it be responsible to bet on a technology that may imply a residual risks (e.g. of leakages) in the near or more remote future? Is it, on the other hand, responsible to discontinue the development of a technology that many climate researcher consider important to contain global warming?

Panel:

• Robin Batterham, University of Melbourne
• Eve Tamme, Senior Advisor - International Climate Change Policy, Global CCS Institute
• Evelyn Nyandoro, Manager for the South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage (SACCCS), South Africa (via Skype)