The IPCC special report on carbon dioxide capture and storage

This paper presents a concise summary of a comprehensive report totaling 430 pages written up by some 100 international experts under the auspices of the UN IPCC. It is an overview of the current knowledge on CO2 capture, transport and storage technologies and is in no way a comparison of technologies from modelings and calculations on a common basis. All the data are collected and quoted as such from the open literature and gathered in a single volume. The goal of the report is in no way either a classification or a recommendation among the different considered options. A summary for policy makers has been written separately. The report covers the sources of CO2 worldwide, the existing and emerging capture technologies, the transport, the storage options with 3 separate chapters on geological storage, ocean storage and mineral carbonisation and industrial uses of CO2, the associated costs, the legal aspects, the inventories and accounting. Existing and emerging technologies are examined on their performance, economics and environmental impacts. For sake of conciseness, the costs are included in the presentation of technologies and not as a separate sub-section as in the report. The objective is to provide a source of information for all decision-makers and more particularly to put in perspective the potential role of CCS in the port-folio of measures aimed at reducing world CO2 emissions.