CCUS Pathways to Synergistic Fossil and Renewable Energy Infrastructure

This presentation focuses on practical and reliable solutions to climate change issues associated with power plants and how such solutions can enable far more effective use of both renewable and fossil fuels in a much more environmentally benign fashion.

The mounting concerns over global warming stand at odds to the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels in the global energy supply. Global CO2 emissions continue to increase rapidly despite great efforts to increase renewable energy. System analyses suggest that these renewable energy benefits sometimes come at very high prices and with less reliability than the fossil fuels they strive to replace.

To address climate change, fossil fuel utilization must decrease dramatically. However, many analysts agree that fossil fuels will remain major contributors to global energy supplies for generations. The probable continued use of fossil fuels means that any successful climate change mitigation strategy must find some means of reducing or eliminating fossil fuel climate change contributions. One method of such reductions is carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).

The current CCUS technologies are both expensive and require large amounts of energy, but developing technologies offer some realistic hope of both reducing the cost and energy of CCUS and of improving the effectiveness of renewable energy systems. Such synergistic systems could prove to be important technology pathways to a more sustainable future.