Future solutions

Our first challenge is to ensure that coal and gas power plants are built with CCS. But what do we do afterwards? How can we excel and take CCS to new heights and ensure huge CO2 emissions cuts? The list below could be a report from 2050 on how CCS contributed to combat global warming. The list presents a vision for CCS development, but it is possible to obtain these achievements by 2050 if world leaders establish the right incentives and regulations to further CCS.

Possible CCS success stories by 2050:

Carbon negative
Large biomass power plants combined with CCS will take us carbon negative and ensure that CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere and stored underground. The CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere when the biomass grows as well as when the biomass is combusted in a power plant with CCS and the CO₂ is stored underground.
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Industrial factories free of CO₂ emissions
The first CCS plants were built for coal and gas power plants, but by 2050 CCS is also a standard part of industrial factories with large CO₂ emissions. As a result the power sector and the industrial sector have eliminated most of their CO2 emissions by 2050.

Technology transfer
The costs of developing CCS technology was shared by the industrialized countries, and a successful technology transfer to developing countries has taken place, ensuring that CCS is available worldwide.

Large scale CCS infrastructures
The initial projects were mainly on CO₂ capture plants linked by ship or pipelines to a storage site. But as there were continuously new CCS plants popping up from 2020 and onwards, the projects became connected into large networks of CO₂ pipelines. Now in 2050 there are large infrastructures for CO₂ transport worldwide, just like there were natural gas infrastructures back in 2009.

Hydrates and coal bed methane recovery
CO₂ is injected into hydrate reservoirs and deep coal beds to replace methane with CO₂. The methane is used for power production, with CCS of course.

Hydrogen production with CCS
The hydrogen society is finally here. Hydrogen for power plants and vehicles is produced in large-scale plants with CCS

Transport without CO₂
The transport sector has reduced most of its CO₂ emissions due to vehicles running on hydrogen, biofuel or electricity, which are produced in large plants with CCS.

Fuel cells combined with CCS
Fuel cells are the most effective power production technology, and combined with CCS they represent one of the most environmentally friendly ways to produce power.

Extinction of coal mine fires
In 2009 coal mine fires were the origin of 1 to 2 percent of global CO₂ emissions. Today most of these fires are extinct thanks to CO₂ capture technology that created a pure CO₂ stream to blow out the fires.

The renewable energy society is emerging
Renewable energy is continuously increasing its share of the total energy supply, and energy efficiency has ensured a much lower global energy demand than predicted back in 2009. In 2050 the energy sector is dominated by wind, solar, biomass and CCS as depicted in the figure below.

Energy production in 2050: Offshore wind, solar cells and biomass power plants with CCS.