Regulatory issues controlling carbon capture and storage
Name
56748751-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
4.53 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a8227ab8f53b921d42dc5482a582c871
Author(s)
Smith, Adam (Adam M.), 1978-
Advisor(s)
Howard J. Herzog.
Date Issued
2004
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Climate change is increasingly being recognized by governments, industry, the scientific community, and the public as an issue that must be dealt with. Parties are pursuing various strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions. Renewable energy, energy efficiency, cleaner fuels, terrestrial CO₂ sequestration, and geologic CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) are the major efforts underway. This thesis examines some major regulatory and political issues that may affect geologic sequestration projects in the future. CCS is a technology system that captures CO₂ from a point source (e.g. power plant or industrial facility), pressurizes it into liquid form, transports it, and finally injects it underground into a porous geology for long-term storage. Technical and economic issues of capture, transportation, and injection of CO₂ have been relatively well studied over the past decade. The impacts of how current environmental regulation and political action to curb climate change will affect CCS have not been thoroughly explored. This thesis investigates the Environmental Protection Agency's Underground Injection Control Program and several types of protected and restricted land use areas to evaluate where it would be difficult or impossible to site a CCS project. I also explore state-level action on climate change and categorize them based on their attractiveness for CCS projects. I suggest a methodology for incorporating this regulatory information into a geographic information system based decision analysis tool, designed to aid decision makers dealing with CCS.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2004.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-76).
Subjects
Technology and Policy Program.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division
Technology and Policy Program
Terms of Use
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
Persistent DSpace Link
