  Anthropogenic activities have led to a substantial increase in carbon dioxide
(CO2), a greenhouse gas (GHG), contributing to heightened concerns of global
warming. In the last decade alone CO2 emissions increased by 2.0 ppm/yr.
globally. In the year 2009, United States and China contributed up to 43.4% of
global CO2 emissions. CO2 capture and sequestration have been recognized as
promising solutions to mitigate CO2 emissions from fossil fuel based power
plants. Typical techniques for carbon capture include post-combustion capture,
pre-combustion capture and oxy-combustion capture, which are under active
research globally. Mineral carbonation has been investigated as a suitable
technique for long term storage of CO2. Sequestration is a highly energy
intensive process and the additional energy is typically supplied by the power
plant itself. This leads to a reduction in net amount of CO2 captured because
of extra CO2 emitted. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the energy
consumption during sequestration process for a typical 1GW pulverized coal and
a 1GW natural gas based power plant. Furthermore, it has been established that
the present day sequestration methods and procedures are not viable to achieve
the goal of carbon sequestration.
