Geological sequestration of carbon dioxide – implications for the coal industry

A typical medium-sized coal-fired power plant produces about 600 tonnes of CO₂ per hour, or more than 4 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. Because of its high carbon content, the CO₂ emissions of coal are almost double those of natural gas per kW of energy produced This has clear implications for the continued use of coal as a fuel in power plant in a world increasingly conscious of greenhouse gas emissions. Underground sequestration of carbon dioxide is a viable method of storing industrial quantities of CO₂ such as might be separated from the flue gases of power plant. Indeed, Statoil are currently injecting 1 million tonnes of CO₂ per year from the Sleipner West gas field into porous and permeable reservoir rocks beneath the North Sea. The main barriers to implementation of CO₂ sequestration from power plant are financial, approximately 85% of the costs result from the need to separate the CO₂ from the flue gas. More research and development in this field is urgently required, to develop the prospect of coal-fired power generation in the next century with minimum CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere.