Carbon capture against climate change

INERCO PRESIDENT PRESENTS EXPERIENCE IN CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE PROJECTS

At its centre in Seville, Menéndez Pelayo International University, in collaboration with the ENDESA Chair of the Seville Higher Technical School of Engineering (ETSI), has hosted the “Technology and infrastructure for the European energy challenge” conference. The event was a stage for debate around the current condition and the future development of energy technologies and systems to improve energy efficiency and independence in the European Union. International experts participated in the conference, debating the latest innovations in the sectors of fossil fuels, renewables, energy storage and smart cities and grids.

INERCO president Prof. Vicente Cortés gave a presentation on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, one of the three basic alternatives enabling the reduction of emissions and better energy efficiency and the use of renewable energies. For no small reason, the use of natural gas and coal in electricity generation will continue to be essential in the coming decades, especially in countries such as the United States, China and India. For this reason, it is crucial to implement this technology at a large scale to reduce overall atmospheric CO2 emissions.

In this context, Prof. Cortés, one of Europe’s leading experts on carbon capture and storage, in which capacity he collaborates with the European Commission Directorate General for Energy, stated the need to inform society about this technology “so that people may understand the need for it as a transitional element, enabling the use of fossil fuels until we possess technology for the large-scale storage of electricity from renewable sources.” Nonetheless. uncertainty from an economic or technological viewpoint is holding back investment in CCS, “from the low prices of CO2 emission permits to the difficulty of accessing funding and the short useful life of first-generation facilities.” Despite this, Cortés noted in his address that it was necessary for European and international strategies to account for the role of CCS in reducing emissions.

Apart from carbon capture and storage, the conference at the Menéndez Pelayo International University also included talks from Roberto Martínez Orio of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain on fracking and the opportunities it presents to dynamise fossil fuels, from Miguel García Guerrero of CSIC on the potential of biofuels for sustainable transport, from Roland Marquardt of the German RWE group on energy storage, and Fernando Ferrando Vitales of Endesa on smart grids for sustainable cities.