So I was doing some digging and found some old notes I had made while reading about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) techniques. These are schemes that seek to trap Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) and store it somewhere, usually underground, rather than emit it to the atmosphere. CCS is largely sold as a solution to reduce climate change, but it can also provide a source of CO₂ for end users like oil fields using enhanced oil recovery.

There are literally dozens of different schemes out there, and I wanted to compare the cost of each when it came to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison of is extremely difficult, but what I did was go through three sources:

•  IPCC, 2006. “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage Chapter 3: Capture of CO₂” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
•  EcoBusinessLinks, Feb. 14 2010. “Carbon Emissions Offset Directory – Price study of offsetting emissions of carbon.” http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/carbon_offset_wind_credits_carbon_reduction.htm
•  MacKay, David. 2009. “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air.” UIT Cambridge Ltd., Cambridge, England. http://www.withouthotair.com/ (Relevant old post here)

…and then I tried to put everything in the form of $US per metric ton of CO2 release avoided. All prices are from 2000-2010, for the U.S. lower 48, and I did not make any adjustments for inflation or location. Prices are averaged over the lifetime of the plant or service, so something with high upfront costs but a long lifetime can have a lower cost than a cheap but short-lived solution. None of the prices include compression and storage, because that price varies very heavily based on how close the storage location is.

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