Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is broadly recognised as having the potential to play a key role in meeting climate change targets, delivering low carbon heat and power, decarbonising industry and, more recently, its ability to facilitate the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. However, despite this broad consensus and its technical maturity, CCS has not yet been deployed on a scale commensurate with the ambitions articulated a decade ago. Thus, in this paper we review the current state-of-the-art of CO2 capture, transport, utilisation and storage from a multi-scale perspective, moving from the global to molecular scales. In light of the COP21 commitments to limit warming to less than 2 °C, we extend the remit of this study to include the key negative emissions technologies (NETs) of bioenergy with CCS (BECCS), and direct air capture (DAC). Cognisant of the non-technical barriers to deploying CCS, we reflect on recent experience from the UK's CCS commercialisation programme and consider the commercial and political barriers to the large-scale deployment of CCS. In all areas, we focus on identifying and clearly articulating the key research challenges that could usefully be addressed in the coming decade.

/pdf/carbon-capture-and-storage-ccs-the-way-forward-11rgsqyer0.pdf

Carbon capture and storage (CCS): the way forward

Smart Energy Systems for coherent 100% renewable energy and transport solutions

Using bias-corrected reanalysis to simulate current and future wind power output

http://dspace.khazar.org/bitstream/20.500.12323/4322/1/143WWSCountries.pdf

100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World

Correction for ‘Review of electrical energy storage technologies, materials and systems: challenges and prospects for large-scale grid storage’ by Turgut M. Gur, Energy Environ. Sci., 2018, DOI: 10.1039/c8ee01419a.

/pdf/correction-review-of-electrical-energy-storage-technologies-4cuwys3js4.pdf

Correction: Review of electrical energy storage technologies, materials and systems: challenges and prospects for large-scale grid storage

This study addresses the greatest concern facing the large-scale integration of wind, water, and solar (WWS) into a power grid: the high cost of avoiding load loss caused by WWS variability and uncertainty. It uses a new grid integration model and finds low-cost, no-load-loss, nonunique solutions to this problem on electrification of all US energy sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry) while accounting for wind and solar time series data from a 3D global weather model that simulates extreme events and competition among wind turbines for available kinetic energy. Solutions are obtained by prioritizing storage for heat (in soil and water); cold (in ice and water); and electricity (in phase-change materials, pumped hydro, hydropower, and hydrogen), and using demand response. No natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed. The resulting 2050–2055 US electricity social cost for a full system is much less than for fossil fuels. These results hold for many conditions, suggesting that low-cost, reliable 100% WWS systems should work many places worldwide.

/pdf/low-cost-solution-to-the-grid-reliability-problem-with-100-2kknwpevxt.pdf

Low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/BeckerEnergy14.pdf

Features of a fully renewable US electricity system: Optimized mixes of wind and solar PV and transmission grid extensions

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/16-Frew-Energy.pdf

Flexibility mechanisms and pathways to a highly renewable US electricity future

Temporal and spatial tradeoffs in power system modeling with assumptions about storage: An application of the POWER model

The premise and all error claims by Clack et al. (1) in PNAS, about Jacobson et al.’s (2) report, are demonstrably false. We reaffirm Jacobson et al.’s conclusions.

Clack et al.’s (1) premise that deep decarbonization studies conclude that using nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and bioenergy reduces costs relative to “other pathways,” such as Jacobson et al.’s (2) 100% pathway, is false.

First Clack et al. (1) imply that Jacobson et al.’s (2) report is an outlier for excluding nuclear and CCS. To the contrary, Jacobson et al. are in the mainstream, as grid stability studies finding low-cost up-to-100% clean, renewable solutions without nuclear or CCS are the majority (3⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–16).

Second, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (17) contradicts Clack et al.’s (1) claim that including nuclear or CCS reduces costs (7.6.1.1): “ … high shares of variable RE [renewable energy] power…may not be ideally complemented by nuclear, CCS,...” and (7.8.2) “Without support from governments, investments in new nuclear power plants are currently generally not economically attractive within liberalized markets,…” Similarly, Freed et al. (18) state, “…there is virtually no history of nuclear construction under the economic and institutional circumstances that prevail throughout much of Europe and the United States,” and Cooper (19), who compared decarbonization scenarios, concluded, “Neither fossil fuels with CCS or nuclear power enters the least-cost, low-carbon portfolio.”

Third, unlike Jacobson et al. (2), the IPCC, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and International Energy Agency have never performed or reviewed a cost analysis of grid stability under deep decarbonization. For example, MacDonald et al.’s (20) grid-stability analysis considered only electricity, which is only ∼20% of total energy, thus far from deep decarbonization. Furthermore, deep-decarbonization studies … 

[↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jacobson{at}stanford.edu.

 [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/26/E5021.full.pdf

Bethany A. Frew

Papers

Low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes

Features of a fully renewable US electricity system: Optimized mixes of wind and solar PV and transmission grid extensions

Flexibility mechanisms and pathways to a highly renewable US electricity future

Temporal and spatial tradeoffs in power system modeling with assumptions about storage: An application of the POWER model

The United States can keep the grid stable at low cost with 100% clean, renewable energy in all sectors despite inaccurate claims