Transparent carbon capture and storage using blockchain technology

Abstract

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the important initiatives widely used across different industries in reducing atmospheric carbon emissions, which is an essential environmental goal outlined in Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13) in 2015. In an effort to mitigate carbon-emission problem, CCS extracts (i.e., captures and compresses) and stores CO2 from industrial by-products as an alternative to releasing it directly into the atmosphere. CCS presents opportunities for the captured CO2 to immediate utilization or to be stored at adjacent facilities for future utilization in different industrial productions. Despite its potential in reducing carbon emissions, its effectiveness and possible economic incentivization are unknown due to a lack of transparency in tracking the quantitative output concerning carbon reduction at different stages of CCS activities (capture, transportation, and storage) currently deployed in different industrial plants. In this paper, we propose an enhanced CCS for recording and tracking the quantitative output of CCS activities using blockchain (i.e., a distributed-ledger) technology that promotes transparency among stakeholders, e.g., government, regulatory body, technical experts, and general public, and facilitates rewards toward effective carbon-emission reductions. Although blockchain is a promising technology that can increase the efficiency of CCS, we also identify a few future challenges, such as data privacy and scalability, that have to be taken into account toward implementing the proposed architecture.