本文转自《Scientific American》发表的题为“A Different Kind of Clean Energy”的报道。

日期：2018.05.07

作者：Madison Freeman and David Yellen

原文链接：https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-different-kind-of-clean-energy/

The world needs carbon-capture technology now more than ever in the fight against climate change.

全球现在比以往更需要碳捕集技术来应对气候变化。

Exhaust from a coal-fired power plant. Credit: Drbouz Getty Images

来自燃煤电厂的废气

The signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 was supposed to be a turning point in the fight against climate change, with almost every nation committing to reduce their carbon emissions. But many countries have already fallen behind on the targets they set, and emissions worldwide have continued to rise.

2015年巴黎协定的签署应该是应对气候变化的转折点，几乎每个国家都承诺减少碳排放量。 但是许多国家已经落后于他们制定的目标，全球排放量仍旧继续上升。

Beyond that, the targets were too conservative to successfully limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, the goal set out in the agreement—so even if all of the reductions happen, it will merely merely delay catastrophic climate change, not prevent it. As Julio Friedmann, a top Department of Energy official under President Obama, recently argued, “Winning slowly is the same as losing.”

除此之外，这些目标过于保守，无法成功将全球气温上升限制在2摄氏度，这是协议中规定的目标。 即使所有的减排行动都发生，也只会延迟灾难性的气候变化，而不会阻止它。 正如奥巴马总统下的能源部门高级官员胡里奥弗里德曼最近所说的：“慢慢获胜就像失败一样。”

The only way to make up ground is to aggressively pursue an all-of-the-above approach that utilizes every strategy to reduce carbon emissions, or decarbonize. This must include investing heavily in carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS)—a cohort of technologies that pull carbon dioxide from smokestacks, or even from the air, and convert it into useful materials or store it underground. CCUS technology can zero out the carbon emissions from fossil fuels used in electricity generation and in industries that renewable energy sources cannot serve, as well as remove previous emissions directly from the atmosphere.

弥补这一缺陷的唯一途径是积极采取全面的方法，利用各种策略来减少碳排放或脱碳。 这必须包括大量投资于碳捕集，利用和存储（CCUS）技术 - 从烟囱甚至从空气中吸收二氧化碳并将其转化为有用材料或将其存储到地下的技术。 CCUS技术可以将发电及可再生能源无法利用的工业中使用的化石燃料的碳排放量降至零，还可以将以前的碳排放直接从大气中消除。

Although CCUS has been dismissed in the past as too expensive and unproven, and development and demonstration projects have faced opposition in the United States, recent gains in efficiency and drops in cost have made the technologies far more effective and scalable. Further investment will be critical to enable broader adoption of these recent improvements.

虽然CCUS过去被认为成本过于昂贵且未经证实，并且CCUS相关的开发和示范项目在美国遭遇反对，但最近效率的提高和成本的下降使得这些技术更加有效和可扩展。 进一步的投资对于更广泛地采用这些最新的改进措施至关重要。

Broader adoption of CCUS will be crucial: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which comprises the world’s foremost climate and energy experts, calculated that the cost of limiting warming to 2°Cmore than doubles if CCUS isn’t deployed. Forecasts by the International Energy Agency (IEA) go further: the agency predicts that the reduction in emissions necessary to limit global warming to 2°C is impossible without CCUS; through 2050, the technology must provide at least 13 percent of the emissions reductions needed to limit warming. The transition to clean energy has become an inevitability, rather than a possibility, but that transition’s ability to achieve deep decarbonization will falter without CCUS.

更广泛地采用CCUS将是至关重要的：由世界最重要的气候和能源专家组成的政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）计算，如果CCUS未部署，限制变暖至2°C的成本将增加一倍以上。 国际能源署（IEA）的预测更进一步：该机构预测，如果没有CCUS，将全球变暖限制在2°C所必需的减排是不可能的；到2050年，该技术必须提供至少13％的减排量，以限制变暖。 向清洁能源转型已经成为一种必然性，而不是一种可能性，但如果没有CCUS，转型实现深度脱碳的能力将会下降。

BROAD DECARBONIZATION THROUGH CCUS: NOT A PIPE DREAM

通过CCUS进行广泛脱碳：不再是奢望

Decarbonization through CCUS is possible through three primary paths: retrofitting existing power plants to decarbonize fossil fuel electricity generation, reducing emissions in heavy industries that renewables cannot penetrate, and directly removing carbon from the atmosphere.

通过CCUS脱碳有三条主要途径：改造现有发电厂，使化石燃料发电脱碳，减少可再生能源无法渗透的重工业的排放，以及直接从大气中去除碳。

Power plants can be retrofitted with CCUS technology to capture emissions from existing coal, oil and natural gas electricity generation. Even optimistic projections for the clean energy transition make it clear that fossil fuels will not disappear anytime soon: an IEA scenario for a sustainable future forecasts that fossil fuels will still make up 60 percent of the energy mix by 2040.

发电厂可以利用CCUS技术对现有的煤炭、石油和天然气发电排放进行改造。 即使对清洁能源转型的乐观预测也清楚地表明，化石燃料不会很快消失：国际能源署为可持续发展的未来预测，到2040年，化石燃料仍将占能源组合的60％。

Though coal plants, the most carbon-intensive form of electricity generation, are closing in the United States, new capacity is growing in the developing world, and these plants are expected to produce power for decades. Cutting emissions from existing fossil fuel plants with CCUS technology will thus be critical to combating climate change. These retrofits could be made more appealing in a future with a circular carbon economy, in which captured carbon could be resold and recycled for other uses, including producing concrete or plastics.

虽然煤电厂是碳排放量最高的发电形式，在美国已经关闭，但发展中国家的新产能正在增加，这些电厂预计将在几十年内发电。 因此，利用CCUS技术减少现有化石燃料电厂的排放对于应对气候变化至关重要。 在未来的循环碳经济中，这些改造可能会更具吸引力，其中捕获的碳可以被转售并回收用于其他用途，包括生产混凝土或塑料。

Beyond the electricity sector, CCUS technologies can also help decarbonize other sources of emissions. CCUS can tackle emissions in heavy industry (including the production of cement, refined metals and chemicals), which account for almost a quarter of U.S. carbon emissions. In addition, direct carbon removal technology–which uses chemicals to capture and convert carbon dioxide from the air, rather than from a smokestack–can offset emissions from large emitting industries that cannot readily implement other clean technology, like agriculture. Though this form of carbon capture technology is much less developed than carbon capture from smokestacks, it offers promise as a way to retroactively address carbon pollution.

除了电力部门，CCUS技术还可以帮助其他排放源脱碳。 CCUS可以解决重工业（包括生产水泥，精炼金属和化学品）的排放问题，这几乎占美国碳排放的四分之一。 此外，直接除碳技术 - 利用化学品捕获空气中的二氧化碳并将其转化为二氧化碳，而不是从烟囱中除去 - 可以抵消无法轻易实施其他清洁技术的大型排放行业（如农业）的排放。 虽然这种形式的碳捕集技术远不如烟囱中的碳捕集开发，但它提供了一种追溯性解决碳污染的方法。

Though these approaches have historically been dismissed as too expensive for widespread adoption, CCUS technologies are becoming increasingly cost-effective. The newest CCUS technologies could drive the price of implementation as low as $20 per ton of carbon by 2025, down from $100 per ton in 2016. In the United States, the company NET Powerhas begun construction of a new natural gas plant in Houston that it claims has no water cost, will lead to no net emissions and costs no more than a standard natural gas powered plant. And in Iceland, the government has deployed carbon capture technology to capture both emissions from electricity generation and CO2 directly from the air, sending the carbon deep into the earth. A number of startups are also developing promising new approaches to CCUS, including converting captured carbon into fertilizer and employing an enzyme to manage carbon, that could spur a revolution in the technology.

尽管这些方法历来被认为对于广泛采用而言过于昂贵，但CCUS技术正变得越来越经济有效。 最新的CCUS技术可以推动到2025年每吨碳的实施价格低至20美元，低于2016年的每吨100美元。在美国，NET Powerhas公司开始在休斯顿建造一座新的天然气工厂， 声称没有水成本，将导致没有净排放和成本不超过一个标准的天然气发电厂。 在冰岛，政府部署了碳捕集技术来捕获发电和直接从空气中排放的二氧化碳，从而将碳深入地球。 许多创业公司也正在开发有前途的新方法来应对CCUS，包括将捕获的碳转化为肥料，并使用酶来管理碳，这可能会刺激技术革命。

SUPPORT FOR CCUS: GROWING BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH

支持CCUS：成长但不够快

Even though CCUS is critical to combating catastrophic climate change, it has faced opposition from many of the most passionate supporters of climate action. Environmental groups and renewable advocates have opposed investing in CCUS, fearing that it would be used to justify further reliance on fossil fuels. But by limiting the scope of investment in decarbonization, the world would miss a major avenue for reducing emissions both in the electricity sector and in a variety of industries. To meet the 2-degree climate target, environmental advocates should support policies like low or zero emissions portfolio standards that are technology-neutral, which would encourage investment in a range of lower-carbon energy sources, including CCUS.

尽管CCUS对于应对灾难性气候变化至关重要，但它面临着许多最狂热的气候行动支持者的反对。 环保团体和可再生能源倡导者反对投资CCUS，担心它会被用来证明进一步依赖化石燃料的合理性。 但由于限制了脱碳投资范围，全球将错过电力行业和各行业减排的主要途径。 为了实现2度气候目标，环境倡导者应该支持低技术或零排放组合标准等技术中立的政策，这将鼓励包括CCUS在内的一系列低碳能源的投资。

CCUS also faces opposition from some conservative voices, especially those who downplay or dismiss the threat of climate change, who see it as a needlessly expensive experiment that reduces power plant efficiency. However, many conservatives have found CCUS to be a more appealing solution to reducing CO2 emissions than restricting electricity production. By creating a larger economy around carbon, CCUS can create jobs and revenue from what was previously only a waste material, and can fuel economic growth.

CCUS也面临一些保守的声音的反对，特别是那些淡化或忽视气候变化威胁的人，他们认为这是一个不必要的昂贵的试验，会降低电厂的效率。 然而，许多保守派认为CCUS是减少二氧化碳排放的更有吸引力的解决方案，而不是限制电力生产。 通过创造一个以碳为基础的更大经济体，CCUS可以创造就业机会和以前只是一种废物的收入，并且可以促进经济增长。

Overall, the tide seems to be shifting. CCUS has managed to attract aremarkably broad coalition of supporters, including climate hawks on the left and fossil fuel supporters on the right. Under an administration that has stepped away from many important climate policies, including the Paris Accord and the Clean Power Plan, building bipartisan support for investing in this technology is critical to its future.

总的来说，这个潮流似乎正在转变。 CCUS成功吸引了众多支持者的广泛联盟，包括左翼的气候鹰派和右翼的化石燃料支持者。 在一个已经放弃许多重要气候政策（包括“巴黎协议”和“清洁发电计划”）的管理层下，建立两党支持投资这项技术对未来至关重要。

The federal government has an integral role to play in ensuring CCUS succeeds by supplementing critical funding for research and development. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to slash energy technology R&D funding, with the Department of Energy’s CCUS R&D budget cut by as much as 76 percent in proposed budgets. As funding for energy technology innovation in the United States has slowed, China is now set tolead the way in funding for CCUS R&D. The United States must protect and expand its R&D funding in order to play a leading role in the energy transition.

联邦政府通过为研究和开发补充关键资金，在确保CCUS成功方面发挥着不可或缺的作用。 特朗普政府一再试图削减能源技术研发资金，能源部的CCUS研发预算在预算中削减多达76％。 随着美国能源技术创新资金的减少，中国现在正在为CCUS研发提供资金支持。 美国必须保护和扩大其研发经费，以便在能源转型中发挥主导作用。

The government must also improve incentives for CCUS deployment. TheFUTURE Act, recently enacted by Congress as part of the February 2018 budget bill and championed by a noticeably bipartisan coalition, is an important step toward making CCUS economical. The bill extends carbon dioxide capture, storage and conversion tax credits and increases the value of those credits. The same bipartisan group of senators has proposed another bill, the USE IT act, which would amplify support for CCUS technology by directly funding research and development and by setting up a prize competition to reward deployment in the private sector, especially of direct air capture technology. These are welcome steps forward in supporting this critical technology.

政府还必须改善CCUS部署的激励措施。 美国国会最近颁布的“未来法案”是2018年2月预算法案的一部分，得到了两党联合支持，这是朝CCUS节约成本迈出的重要一步。 该法案扩展了二氧化碳捕集，储存和转换税收抵免，并增加了这些抵免的价值。 同一两党参议员提出了另一项法案，即“使用IT法案”，该法案将通过直接资助研究与开发并设立奖项竞赛来奖励私营部门尤其是直接空中捕获技术的部署，从而扩大对CCUS技术的支持。 这些是支持这项关键技术的可喜步骤。

However, the government can and should go further by procuring CCUS technology for federal infrastructure and investing in national pipeline infrastructure to lower the costs associated with transporting CO2 from retrofitted plants. By doing so and increasing R&D funding, it can spur innovation to lower the cost and increase the efficiency of products on the market and thereby incentivize CCUS deployment.

然而，政府可以并应该进一步提高CCUS技术用于联邦基础设施，并投资国家管道基础设施以降低与改造工厂运输二氧化碳相关的成本。 通过这样做并增加研发资金，可以促进创新，降低成本并提高市场上产品的效率，从而激励CCUS的部署。

The energy transition is accelerating at a rapid pace, but it will fall short of averting catastrophic climate change if it does not employ a wide range of solutions, including broad deployment of carbon capture, utilization and storage. The Paris Agreement was an important step in combating climate change, but without CCUS as part of the solution, the goals established there will be impossible to meet.

能源转型正在快速加速，但如果不采用广泛的解决方案，包括广泛部署碳捕集，利用和存储，它将无法避免灾难性气候变化。 “巴黎协定”是应对气候变化的重要一步，但没有CCUS作为解决方案的一部分，那里建立的目标将无法实现。