Carbon capture and storage for developing economies: The case for Malaysia

Climate change is fast becoming the environmental and energy concern of the world. There is a dilemma between the continued reliance on fossil fuel for energy and the pressing need to address the problem of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from combustion. A potential technology that allows for the consumption of fossil fuel with a minimized emission rate is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Malaysia is a fast developing economy with a historical trend of high reliance on fossil fuel for its energy needs. Therefore, there is compelling motivation to consider CCS for the country's GHG emission reduction initiative. This paper reviews the potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a part of the climate change mitigation strategy for the Malaysian electricity sector using a technology assessment framework. The suitability and practicality of the technology was reviewed from a broad perspective with a consideration of Malaysia specific conditions. There had been a number of prior assessments on the suitability of CCS as a mitigation technology. Nonetheless, most of these assessments are typically more inclined towards the review from an economic viewpoint and are centered towards the case of developed economies. This study aims to fulfill this gap of knowledge and assess the technology from a broad sense in the Malaysia settings. It is apparent to this assessment that CCS has the potential to play an important role in Malaysia's climate change mitigation strategy. However, this study also identified key criteria that would need to be in place for CCS to be an effective climate change mitigation technology for the case of Malaysia.