CO2 Capture and Storage: A Geopolitical Issue

AbstractHitherto, no large-scale power plant, fully integrated with CCS, including monitoring and verification, has become operational. It may still take years until this happens on a bona-fide basis. The most plausible reasons are high cost, commercial uncertainty, lack of a foreseeable regulatory framework, problems pertaining to bankability, and, last but not least, liability for the stored CO2. In this paper, attention is paid to the necessity of CCS and to its relative importance in a geopolitical context. The backdrop comprises a subset of global concerns and challenges relating to the growing energy demand and, thus, the harnessing of fossil fuels and their impact on the issue of global warming