Carbon Capture and Storage

Coal is a major pillar of electricity generation worldwide, providing around 40% of total electricity generation (IEA 2006b). Emerging countries like China or India are continuously commissioning new large coal plants in order to meet their massive increases in electricity demand. In Germany, coal and lignite are major domestic energy resources and also dominating inputs to electricity generation. Prospects for escaping this “carbon lock-in” and the related environmental and climate impacts are unfavorable at present (Unruh 2000; 2002; Perkins 2003; Unruh and Carrillo-Hermosilla 2006).

This chapter sets out to explore these issues in more detail. We ask whether CCS could contribute to a sustainable future electricity system, and whether it is likely to be available in terms of time, costs, and regulatory and institutional framework so that the challenges of climate change mitigation currently under discussion can be met. We start with an overview of the current state of CCS technology, its economics and environmental performance, and discuss the challenges facing the technology and its deployment. From this, we portray the process of innovation in Germany and the factors influencing it. As CCS is at an early stage of development, and as its diffusion dynamics are strongly dependent on the engagement of actors, specific attention is given to the setting of the actors and actor constellations in Germany. We then discuss the possibilities and needs for shaping the framework conditions for innovation in such a way that CCS may contribute to a sustainable electricity system to a suitable extent. We conclude with an overview of our findings.