The European and global potential of carbon dioxide sequestration in tackling climate change

M. C. Grimston, V. Karakoussis, Roger Fouquet, R. van der Vorst, Peter Pearson () and M. Leach

Climate Policy, 2001, vol. 1, issue 2, 155-171

Abstract: Although, it has received relatively little attention as a potential method of combating climate change in comparison to energy reduction measures and development of carbon-free energy technologies, sequestration of carbon dioxide in geologic or biospheric sinks has enormous potential. This paper reviews the potential for sequestration using geological and ocean storage as a means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Considerable quantities of carbon dioxide separated from natural gas deposits and from hydrogen production from steam reforming of methane are already used in enhanced oil recovery and in extraction of coalbed methane, the carbon dioxide remaining sequestered at the end of the process. A number of barriers lie in the way of its implementation on a large scale. There are concerns about possible environmental effects of large-scale injection of carbon dioxide especially into the oceans. Available technologies, especially of separating and capturing the carbon dioxide from waste stream, have high costs at present, perhaps representing an additional 40-100% onto the costs of generating electricity. In most of the world there are no mechanisms to encourage firms to consider sequestration. Considerable R&D is required to bring down the costs of the process, to elucidate the environmental effects of storage and to ensure that carbon dioxide will not escape from stores in unacceptably short timescales. However, the potential of sequestration should not be underestimated as a contribution to global climate change mitigation measures.

Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.3763/cpol.2001.0120 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tcpoxx:v:1:y:2001:i:2:p:155-171

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tcpo20

DOI: 10.3763/cpol.2001.0120

Access Statistics for this article

Climate Policy is currently edited by Professor Michael Grubb

More articles in Climate Policy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().