Deployment of CCS Technology – Will it Send Renewable Energy Technologies Back to the Dark Ages?

Abstract

In July 2007, the National Petroleum Council in the United States released a report of the global oil and gas situation out to 2030 entitled ‘The Hard Truths: Facing the Hard Truths about Energy’. One of the conclusions was that the world is not running out of energy resources immediately but there are “accumulating risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production from the conventional sources relied upon historically”. As pressure mounts to limit greenhouse gas emissions and diversify the energy mix, expansion of all economic energy sources will be required such as coal, nuclear, biomass, other renewables, and unconventional oil and natural gas. So how do we stop the planet from burning? We can either switch over completely to clean energy technology and rid ourselves of the problem of carbon emissions; or strip the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been hailed as a promising reduction option with potentially important environmental, economic and energy supply security benefits. But can the CCS technology be hailed as the silver bullet? This paper aims to dissect the CCS Technology and its implications on the development of renewable technology. The author will take a brief look at the background of CCS within the risk frame of climate change. Subsequently, the author will do a comparative analysis between CCS and Renewable Energy Technologies on the basis of the ecological and economic criterions. Lastly, the author will examine the significance of CCS for the national energy sector and whether it can serve as a bridge to a complete reliance on renewable energy.