Retrofitting coal power plants with carbon capture may lead to increased water stress

• As much as 32 percent of the world’s coal-fired power plants globally are exposed to water scarcity for at least five months per year. 15 percent of those power plants are in India, a study has said.
• Retrofitting coal power plants with water and energy intensive carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) will lead to a substantial increase in freshwater consumption for India.
• Researchers recommend developing water-efficient CCS technologies or locate CCS technologies in regions not affected by water scarcity.

Addition of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to reduce emissions could stress water resources in a vast proportion of coal-fired power plants in India that are already exposed to water scarcity, a study has warned. 

LINK TO STUDY

Abstract

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a strategy to mitigate climate change by limiting CO2 emissions from point sources such as coal-fired power plants (CFPPs). Although decision-makers are seeking to implement policies regarding CCS, the consequences of this technology on water scarcity have not been fully assessed. Here we simulate the impacts on water resources that would result from retrofitting global CFPPs with four different CCS technologies. We find that 43% of the global CFPP capacity experiences water scarcity for at least one month per year and 32% experiences scarcity for five or more months per year. Although retrofitting CFPPs with CCS would not greatly exacerbate water scarcity, we show that certain geographies lack sufficient water resources to meet the additional water demands of CCS technologies. For CFPPs located in these water-scarce areas, the trade-offs between the climate change mitigation benefits and the increased pressure on water resources of CCS should be weighed. We conclude that CCS should be preferentially deployed at those facilities least impacted by water scarcity.

SOURCE

Taxonomy

• Compliance & Voluntary Carbon Credits Markets
• Clean Coal
• Carbon Trading
• Clean Coal
• Clean Coal
• Carbon Emissions