energies Article Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage as a Defense Tool against Climate Change: Current Developments in West Macedonia (Greece) Nikolaos Koukouzas 1 , Pavlos Tyrologou 1, * , Dimitris Karapanos 1 ,Júlio Carneiro 2 , Pedro Pereira 2 , Fernanda de Mesquita Lobo Veloso 3 , Petros Koutsovitis 4 , Christos Karkalis 1 , Eleonora Manoukian 1 and Rania Karametou 1   Citation: Koukouzas, N.; Tyrologou, P.; Karapanos, D.; Carneiro, J.; Pereira, P.; de Mesquita Lobo Veloso, F.; Koutsovitis, P.; Karkalis, C.; Manoukian, E.; Karametou, R. Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage as a Defense Tool against Climate Change: Current Developments in West Macedonia (Greece). Energies 2021, 14, 3321. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14113321 Academic Editor: Dongya Zhao Received: 27 April 2021 Accepted: 29 May 2021 Published: 5 June 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Egialias 52, 15125 Marousi, Attica, Greece; koukouzas@certh.gr (N.K.); karapanos@certh.gr (D.K.); karkalis@certh.gr (C.K.); manoukian@certh.gr (E.M.); karametou@certh.gr (R.K.) 2 French Geological Survey, 45100 Orléans, France; jcarneiro@uevora.pt (J.C.); pmpereira@uevora.pt (P.P.) 3 French Geological Survey (BRGM) 3 Avenue Claude Guillemin, BP 36009, CEDEX 2, 45060 Orléans, France; f.veloso@brgm.fr 4 Department of Geology, University of Patras, Section of Earth Materials, GR-26504 Patras, Greece; pkoutsovitis@upatras.gr * Correspondence: tyrologou@certh.gr Abstract: In West Macedonia (Greece), CO 2 accounts as one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions related to the activity of the regional coal power plants located in Ptolemaida. The ne- cessity to mitigate CO 2 emissions to prevent climate change under the Paris Agreement’s framework remains an ongoing and demanding challenge. It requires implementing crucial environmentally sustainable technologies to provide balanced solutions between the short-term needs for dependency on fossil fuels and the requirements to move towards the energy transition era. The challenge to utilise and store CO 2 emissions will require actions aiming to contribute to a Europe-wide CCUS infrastructure. The Horizon 2020 European Project “STRATEGY CCUS” examines the potential for CO 2 storage in the Mesohellenic Trough from past available data deploying the USDOE methodol- ogy. Research results show that CO 2 storage capacities for the Pentalofos and Eptachori geological formations of the Mesohellenic Trough are estimated at 1.02 and 0.13 Gt, respectively, thus providing the potential for the implementation of a promising method for reducing CO 2 emissions in Greece. A certain storage potential also applies to the Grevena sub-basin, offering the opportunity to store any captured CO 2 in the area, including other remote regions. Keywords: carbon capture utilisation and storage; climate change; mesohellenic basin; carbon emissions 1. Introduction The global economy is highly dependent on electrical energy to meet current and fu- ture demands on food, water sanitation, higher living standards and any other daily activity. Water, energy and food are important natural resources that influence the human health, quality of life, as well as the economic growth and social progress at the national and global levels. These three factors should be examined within a systematic and holistic framework and they cannot be considered separately [1]. Climate change is a global phenomenon that further affects and complicates the interrelationships between water, food and energy. In this context, the water-food-energy-climate nexus is one of the most important challenges to achieve sustainable development. Due to the emerging developing countries and global economic growth, the energy demand is steadily increasing, albeit slower than in previous decades, with an average of about 0.7% per year through 2050 compared to a more than 2% average from 2000 to 2015 [2,3]. The reduction in the growth rate is due to increased efficiency resulting from industrial digitisation, structured economic growth that has led to Energies 2021, 14, 3321. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14113321 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies