There are many questions surrounding carbon capture and storage, ranging from feasibility, to the question where to store captured carbon, and how reliable – safe these storage sites are over time.

Costs

James Hansen calculated the costs of carbon and capture and storage in June 2019:[1]

The gap between reality and RCP2.6 can be closed by extracting CO2 from the air. A realistic cost estimate for CO2 capture and storage is now possible. The pilot industrial-scale plant of Keith et al. yields a cost estimate of $123-252/tCO2 including the relatively small cost of storage. This corresponds to $451-924/tC (tC = ton of carbon).

Let us look at the cost of CO2 extraction for a single year.

In 2017 the excess growth of the climate forcing was 0.016 W/m2 . Atmospheric CO2 must be reduced 1.14 ppm to achieve that forcing reduction. Attaining a CO2 reduction of 1.14 ppm requires extracting about 2 ppm from the air. Thus we must extract 4.24 GtC (15.5 GtCO2). The cost in 2017 would thus be $1912-3918B. In rounder numbers the annual cost of extracting CO2 is now about 2-4 trillion dollars, and rising. That is the annual cost.

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Teaser image via Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

Further readings

1. What if negative emission technologies fail at scale? Implications of the Paris Agreement for big emitting nations https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2017.1346498 study discussion https://climatestrategies.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/what-if-negative-emissions-fail-at-scale/

References

1. James Hansen, Saving Earth http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2019/20190627_SavingEarth.pdf