Europe Faces $1.3 Trillion Bill without Carbon Capture

Without carbon capture and storage (CCS), it will cost an additional €1.2 trillion ($1.3 trillion) to reach the European Union’s CO2 reduction target for the power sector, according to a new report from European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants (ZEP). The report, Modeling the Lowest-Cost Route to Decarbonizing Europe, also concluded that many energy intensive industries would not be able to achieve the necessary emissions reductions without CCS.

Other conclusions from the report include:

• The absence of CCS support measures not only delays CCS deployment to 2040, but leads to a CO2 reduction of only 68 percent by 2050 – well below EU targets of 80 percent to 95 percent for power and industry.
• Investment in CO2 transport and storage infrastructure must start now in order to deploy CCS widely from 2025. A delay of even 10 years will cost power and industry an extra €200 billion ($215 billion) to reach EU targets. It will also result in a forced doubling of the annual CCS deployment rate to 15-20 GW for power alone, which is unrealistic given supply constraints for the delivery of power plants and CCS infrastructure, among other things.

The costs of CO2 transport and storage — 10 to 30 percent of the total CCS costs — can be significantly reduced by clustering power and industrial emitters, according to ZEP.

There are around 220 CCS projects operating or under construction worldwide, according to the Global CCS Institute's annual report. CCS projects are being successfully deployed across power and industrial sectors in Canada, the United States, Norway and the Middle East. Once complete, CCS projects in the Netherlands and the UK could serve as a framework for continued investment in CCS across Europe.