考研阅读精选：低碳计划之碳收集及储存技术
『碳收集及储存技术是实施全球低碳计划的一项很好的技术，它的发展势头很好，目前有很多相关项目正在进行，但是它也遇到了很多阻碍。』Deep storage
低碳计划之碳收集及储存技术
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IN the push to tackle climate change, most attention is devoted toditching fossil fuels for low-carbon power sources. But the fight hasanother prong: stripping carbon dioxide out of the smokestacks of powerplants and other factories and storing it safely underground. Thedistinct parts of this process, known as carbon capture and storage(CCS), are already in operation. But no one has yet joined them togetheron an industrial scale. So it was a blow when the government recentlyscrapped plans to build the country’s first CCS unit at the Longannetcoal-fired power station in Scotland, claiming it cost too much.
The prospect is appealing. In Britain, 72% of electricity is generatedfrom gas and coal; China and America are even more reliant on fossilfuels. Finding a way to remove 90% of the carbon, as CCS promises to,would be a giant leap towards cutting global emissions. And Britain is apromising location. Its geology is ideally suited to storing carbondioxide—in depleted oil-and-gas fields in the North Sea, as well as insaline aquifers, deep porous rocks full of salty water. Commercialopportunities might follow: Britain could import waste gas from northernEurope, where pilot CCS projects have stumbled because of opposition toonshore stores. There is a potential export market for the technology:the International Energy Agency reckons 850 projects will be neededglobally by 2030.
Longannet was the last project standing from agovernment-funded competition launched in 2007 to build a Britishcapture facility. The consortium behind it, comprising Scottish Power,National Grid and Shell, says its engineering design shows CCS is nowtechnically feasible. But building the plant would cost up to £1.5billion, the consortium predicted. This didn’t cover operatingcosts—around £2 billion over 15 years—or the price of storing CO2. Sincethe scheme overshot the government’s £1 billion budget, it pulled theplug.
Critics say the idea of putting a whizzy new piece of kit on a40-year-old power station was always daft, and that the pilot should beat a newer coal- or gas-fired plant. The business case for Longannet hascertainly worsened recently. Of all fossil fuels, coal has been hithardest by two new pieces of legislation. A carbon floor price,announced in late 2010, makes dirty coal-generation more expensive. Andthe European Industrial Emissions Directive, agreed in June 2009, meansold belchers like Longannet would anyway have to make priceymodernisations by 2020.
Still, any first go at such an unproventechnology would be expensive and hard to cost precisely, says StuartHaszeldine of Edinburgh University: “You can’t just rock up at asupermarket and buy a CCS project.” The government is now inviting a newround of pilot proposals, but it needs to ensure that it does notrepeat the drawn-out debacle of Longannet. That means addressing aconcern raised last year in a government-commissioned report. Thiswarned that developing storage sites “may be an uncertain,time-consuming, costly and risky business opportunity” which may requirefinancing prior to, and distinct from, any pilot capture scheme.Industry is also unlikely to invest speculatively on the pipelineinfrastructure needed to transport CO2.
Ministers needs to get amove on. A quarter of the country’s generating capacity is due to comeoffline within a decade. And since capturing carbon itself uses a lot ofenergy—25-30% of a plant’s generation, by most estimates—if CCStechnology is widely deployed then Britain will need even more of it.The technology may yet have a future—if the government is prepared toput a little more of its money where its carbon is.(605words)
文章地址：http://www.economist.com/node/21534822
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