While Japan is already taking steps to launch a carbon capture and storage (CCS) program, Taiwan is still assessing the feasibility of the technology and has concerns about high costs and potential leaks.
A Japanese newspaper reported that Tokyo would work jointly with electricity and oil companies to initiate a large-scale experiment aimed at capturing and storing carbon dioxide emitted from a coal-fired power plant. The goal is to store the carbon emissions in an expended undersea natural-gas field.
Under the plan, the carbon dioxide emitted by the coal-fired power plant will be processed and piped into the gas field, which lies 70km off the country’s Pacific coast, the newspaper reported.
Some Taiwanese experts have suggested launching CCS projects to deal with the nation’s soaring carbon emissions, especially given that Taiwan will continue to depend on fossil fuels in the foreseeable future, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research said.
But businesses and the government have been reserved about developing the technology involved in such a program.
“The CCS technique is not a problem. The question is whether the technique will be of economic benefit to us,” said an employee of CPC Corp, Taiwan, the nation’s largest petroleum company.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the cost of transporting carbon dioxide from the source of emission to a storage location could be high and that potential leaks were another concern.
“Foreign petroleum companies can profit from developing the CCS technique because when greenhouse gases are pumped into depleted oil wells, deposits of oil at the bottom of the well can be extracted,” said Yeh Fung-luh (葉芳露), a senior specialist of the Environmental Protection Administration’s Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control.
Among other factors, Taiwan must take into account violent earth movements that could cause leakage of the stored carbon dioxide, he said.
CCS is seen as a means of combating global warming by capturing carbon dioxide from large sources such as fossil fuel power plants and storing it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
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