Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Technical and economic review of dealing with CO2 in Europe and Australia

This thesis aims to provide the reader with an overview of climate change caused by the greenhouse effect by analysing policies and strategies adopted by countries, both presently and historically, with a focus on the situations in Europe and Australia. The main character of the work is going to be introduced, the CO2, and one of the main method to deal with it is deeply discussed and evaluated in detail: the Carbon Pricing. Following this, comparisons among countries are made, highlighting differences and calculating key performance indicators to determine which country has been the most polluting now and in the past. The goal of the study is to analyse one potential solution to reduce CO2 emissions: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology. This technology is explained, and an overview of CCS plants in Europe and Australia is provided. The outcomes include the calculation of two main parameters: the cost of CCS plants and their storage capacity. Finally, these are compared with the price of carbon emissions and current emissions levels in Australia and Europe. The results underscore the theoretical feasibility of CCS in terms of available storage sites. However, the cost remains a limiting factor for this technology, particularly in the case of Australia, where it may currently be cheaper to pay for emissions than to store them. Fortunately, the price of CO2 emissions has been increasing in recent years, suggesting that the cost of CCS, along with its widespread implementation and associated investments, may decrease, creating favourable conditions for the adoption of this technology.