A Riveting Review of Worldwide Industrial Geological Carbon Capture and Storage Projects with the Junction of CO2 Emissions in Algeria.

The geological sequestration of CO₂ is a relatively new technology that seems to have rapidly maturated in providing an effective process of capturing CO₂ from industrial pollutant emissions and storing it securely in deep geological formations. Through this technology, the anthropogenic CO₂ emissions can be reduced by 20% globally by 2050. Furthermore, it is expected that by the end of this century, more than 55% of CO₂ emission can be captured and stored geologically. The compression, the transport and the injection of CO₂ have been well used and controlled in the petroleum industry for many decades. However, CO₂ capture process remains the weak point that should be overcome in order to make CCS economically feasible at industrial level. Moreover, no risk of leakage can occur at very long term in order to make CCS technology possible and generalized.

The objective of this review is to analyze and to compare briefly the quantification of CO₂ emissions in Algeria and to illustrate, with different case studies, the worldwide geological CCS pilot projects, particularly, those applied at industrial scale. The review is an attempt to assess critically what has been done and to predict what is ahead in this domain.

Based on this review, the authors conclude that the global warming is the consequence of human egocentrism. CO₂ should be considered as a valuable gas and not a waste, and CCS as a solution to global warming. Although there is negligible CO₂ emission in Algeria, In Salah CCS project, built by BP-Statoil-Sonatrach consortium, is for demonstrating that pollution has no boundaries and every country is concerned by environmental issues. Thus, developing and developed countries should be urgently implicated in a serious and strong cooperation in the deployment of CCS technology before reaching irreversible global warming consequences.