Carbon capture and storage could also impact air pollution

"Carbon capture and storage can bridge the gap for the next few decades, cutting emissions until we can shift to a low carbon economy", Professor Jacqueline McGlade EEA Executive Director said. "Our report shows that while CCS may have an overall positive effect on air pollution, emissions of some pollutants may increase. Understanding these types of trade-offs are extremely important if we are to deploy this technology across Europe and the world."

What does CCS mean for air pollutants?

CCS technologies require approximately 15 – 25 % more energy depending on the particular type of technology used, so plants with CCS need more fuel than conventional plants. This in turn can lead to increased 'direct emissions' occurring from facilities where CCS is installed, and increased 'indirect emissions' caused by the extraction and transport of the additional fuel.

The EEA report identifies some of the potential benefits and trade-offs for the main air pollutants. It also presents a life-cycle case study for 2050 considering three different scenarios, showing the potential impacts on emissions of air pollutants if CCS were widely implemented in Europe. Key findings include:

• Sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions from power plants are predicted to fall when carbon dioxide (CO₂) is captured, as SO₂ must also be removed after the fuel combustion stage for technical reasons. Although the extraction and transportation of additional coal will lead to higher SO₂ emissions from these stages of the CCS life-cycle, SO₂ emissions should decrease overall.
• Particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions are expected to increase in line with the amount of the additional fuel consumed if no additional measures to reduce emissions are installed.
• Ammonia (NH₃) is the only pollutant for which a significant increase in emissions is expected to occur, with emissions potentially increasing by a factor of 3 or more. The foreseen increase is due to the degradation of the amine-based solvents used to capture the CO₂. However, in absolute terms the increase is small compared to existing ammonia emissions in Europe, 94% of which comes from agriculture. Ammonia contributes to acidification and eutrophication of the environment and also can form harmful fine particulate matter when released in the atmosphere.  
• Potential carbon dioxide (CO₂) savings from CCS vary greatly across the three scenarios in the report. Emissions of CO₂ in the EU would fall by around 60 % by 2050 if CCS were implemented at all coal-based power generation plants. Implementing CCS at all coal, gas and biomass plants would result in net negative emissions – in effect removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. This assumes that all biomass is harvested sustainably without any net changes to the carbon stock.
• The case study also shows clearly that the extraction and transport of additional coal can contribute significantly to the life-cycle emissions for coal-based CO₂ capture technologies.  Overall, however, CCS is considered to be generally beneficial both in terms of climate change and air pollution. However, the potential increase in certain pollutants such as NH₃, NO_x and PM is important.

Carbon capture and storage technologies are assumed to play a central role in helping Europe achieve its long-term GHG reduction objectives in a cost-effective way, reducing domestic GHG emissions by 80-95 % by 2050. Implementing CCS is therefore considered as a bridging technology, and should not introduce barriers or delays to the EU’s objectives of moving toward a lower-energy and more resource-efficient economy.

In the EU, there are plans to build several demonstration plants for CO₂ capture and storage in order to commercialise the technology from 2020. Currently, there are around 80 large scale CCS projects at various stages of development around the world but only a few are operational. There are as yet no large-scale CCS plants in operation which cover all three elements of the CCS chain – the capture, transport and storage of CO₂.