Carbon Sequestration
What is Carbon Sequestration?
What is carbon sequestration? Carbon sequestration is the capture and long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). Geologic carbon sequestration captures CO2 from power plants, oil refineries, and other industrial facilities (point sources) and stores it in underground geologic formations such as deep saline formations, depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs, and unmineable coal seams. Terrestrial carbon sequestration is the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere by vegetation and soil. People can influence and even enhance this process by protecting and maintaining ecosystems that store carbon as well as improving land management practices and technologies that increase carbon uptake.
What is Carbon Capture and Storage?
CCS is another way of refering to carbon sequestration that usually indicates geological storage. CCS technologies are used to capture CO2 from various industrial sources, power plants, compress and transport it, and then inject and permanently store it in suitable geological formations underground.
What is Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage?
CCUS means the CO2 is used for additional purposes. There are a number of emerging applications in this regard, but the major near-term opportunity is in CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR), or injecting CO2 into depleted oil wells to recover untapped oil.