Global learning is needed to save carbon capture and storage from being abandoned

Governments should not be abandoning carbon capture and storage, argues a Cambridge researcher, as it is the only realistic way of dramatically reducing carbon emissions. Instead, they should be investing in global approaches to learn what works – and what doesn’t.

 

If we’re serious about meeting aggressive national or global emissions targets, the only way to do it affordably is with carbon capture and storage.
- David Reiner

Carbon capture and storage, which is considered by many experts as the only realistic way to dramatically reduce carbon emissions in an affordable way, has fallen out of favour with private and public sector funders. Corporations and governments worldwide, including most recently the UK, are abandoning the same technology they championed just a few years ago.

In a commentary published this week in the inaugural issue of the journal Nature Energy, a University of Cambridge researcher argues that now is not the time for governments to drop carbon capture and storage (CCS). Like many new technologies, it is only possible to learn what works and what doesn’t by building and testing demonstration projects at scale, and that by giving up on CCS instead of working together to develop a global ‘portfolio’ of projects, countries are turning their backs on a key part of a low-carbon future.

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Image: Power plant
Credit: John Fowler


Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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