Why Is CCUS Important For Our Sustainable Energy Future?
Actually, CCUS is not only important… it is vital.
Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) is a pivotal technology in our push to decarbonize our energy production. CCUS uses technology that captures the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from the use of fossil fuels in power generation and other industrial processes, and stores it away securely instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
CCUS Is Important Because:
1. It Is The Only Viable Way For Us To Drastically Reduce Our Emissions.
While renewable energy facilities are growing in number and becoming more common in our energy mix, their deployment cannot scale sufficiently to meet global energy demands. Despite trillions of dollars invested in wind and solar energy production, they have barely made a dent in our total energy mix.
The post-COVID-19 bounce in energy demand demonstrated that renewable energy cannot provide the power we need to grow economically or even sustain our current lifestyles.
Let alone provide energy security to the billions of people currently living in energy poverty.
Because energy demand is growing, the construction of coal-fueled power plants continues to grow. Particularly in Asia. Coal, which accounts for almost 40% of global power generation, is cheap and abundant.
We cannot ignore the fact that energy demand will continue to rise, particularly in developing economies, and we need to meet that demand. Renewable energy sources, while likely part of the energy mix going forward, will not be able to meet energy demand in growing economies at the scale required. Not now, and probably not ever.
2. Fossil Fuels Still Dominate Our Energy Production And Will Continue To Do So In The Future.
Fossil fuels still dominate our energy production and are also the most significant cause of rising atmospheric CO2 levels. CCUS solves that.
Coal and gas-fueled power plants provide almost two-thirds of global power generation. Despite the growing use of alternative sources of energy, that share has barely changed from 2000 levels, and in absolute terms has grown by around 70%.
Given the surge in investments and interest in renewables, the fact that renewable energy is yet to replace fossil fuels to any notable extent indicates that coal and gas-generated electricity cannot be replaced by renewable energy sources.
The sheer scale of traditional energy sources compared to any other source, the continued growth in demand for energy, and our desire to decarbonize, all point to the drastic need to scale up Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage to immediately, quickly, and verifiably reduce our CO2 emissions.
3. It Doesn’t Matter Where Our Carbon-Free Energy Comes From.
CCUS makes fossil fuel-generated energy carbon-free. The technology already exceeds a 90% capture rate of CO2, and as it scales, will approach 100%.
It will also become more affordable over time as its deployment expands.
With CCUS, we can continue to use fossil fuels while reducing the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. Carbon-free fossil fuel-based power generation is the sustainable energy mix of our collective, prosperous future.
CCUS is the sole technology that can help us continue to meet our energy needs in a carbon-neutral way.
The end goal is to decarbonize. And CCUS is the most viable path forward to achieve that.
The sooner we concede that fossil fuel-based energy production cannot be replaced by less reliable sources like the sun and the wind (and we would argue we shouldn’t be trying to do that anyway), the sooner we can get to the serious business of decarbonizing our energy production using CCUS.
CarbonKerma. Minted For Good.
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